5/17/2024 Weekly Update

5/16/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write

Weekly meeting last night and it was all about the edits!

While Sid and Mickie did their “says” for the May blog and sent it over to James, that was only the first part of the night. After that, everyone worked on their edits for Charlie’s Web.

Sid and James both made significant progress on their reviews, while Mickie has begun making further edits based on conversations that have come up as Sid and James work on their portion. We hope to have our portion wrapped up soon and back to Mickie for a more intense edit pass.

That was it for the evening, but we’ll be back next week with more exciting updates!

5/3/2024 Weekly Update

5/2/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write: Monthly Meeting

Last night was our monthly meeting. It was pretty short, as we didn’t have a lot of business to discuss.

As usual, we reviewed the financials, and Sid notified the others that the Perfect Coven domain renewal is coming up in the next month.

Next, we talked about the status of WIPs, marketing, upcoming publications, etc. Mickie sent over the first half of Charlie’s Web for a review/edit pass, and James completed his review of Faded Legacy and returned it to Sid. For more detail about that, see the Graeae Happenings post. 

Finally, we continued our ongoing discussion about social media use. Sid has been more active recently on her author Instagram and Threads sites – she recently discovered that she’s terrible about cross-posting her Instagram posts to Threads and needs to pay more attention to that. Mickie has been cross-posting some of Sid’s posts to the Graeae Pub Instagram, but it’s been erratic and we need to work at making the Graeae socials more active. James is still dealing with health concerns, but is following Sid’s progress and making notes for when he is able to devote the time to upping his social media game.

That’s where we left it for the month. We’ll be back next week, doing the writing!

4/5/2024 Weekly Update

4/4/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write: Monthly Meeting

Last night was our monthly meeting, and we had several things to discuss.

First up, as always, was Graeae Publishing business. Mickie got our annual registration done for 2024 and 2025, so we’re set for the next two years – go Mickie!

We realized that when we did our last series bible update, we were actually supposed to be working on future planning for the Perfect Coven series, and instead we worked on our cozy series. Oops. So the future planning is back on the calendar for April.

We next moved to our ongoing discussion of social media use as authors, branding, all that stuff that goes along with being a writer these days. Mickie is working on designing some promotional reels/posts for Homegrown Murder, and she’s also looking to repost some older Homegrown Trouble posts and some of Sid’s T.L. Sidney author posts to the Graeae Publishing Instagram account (graeaepubllc).

James has not begun setting up his author accounts on Insta/Threads at this time because Life Is Happening and while he wants to do it, he just doesn’t have the bandwidth to devote to it right now. We are hoping that things settle out soon, and we can all get back into our routines, because honestly, Life Is Happening for all of us right now – and Mercury is in retrograde, such great timing! – and some things just have to be put on the back burner until we can make it all work.

(Life Is Happening seems to be the 2024 theme so far. I hope Life eases up a bit, and perhaps starts happening a bit more slowly soon.)

Then we finished off with some worldbuilding, which is always great fun.

We also discussed and updated the Graeae Publishing webpage, go check it out!

That’s it for our monthly meeting. Next week, we’ll be writing, so tune in to see how it goes!

4/1/2024 Weekly Update

3/28/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write

Oops. Yeah…sorry about forgetting to post the update.

On Thursday, we worked on our series bible, mostly creating character profiles and updating some existing ones. Sid and James worked primarily on their cozy characters, while Mickie concentrated on her Perfect Coven characters. So not a lot to report, but necessary work and well, world-building is always fun.

The upcoming meeting is our monthly meeting, so tune in Friday to see what we discussed!

The Consequences of One’s Actions

I just downloaded this journaling app thinking that doing some journaling might relax me, since I’d be doing it on my tablet and not in a paper journal that someone might find and read (or tear into confetti because he opted to choose violence).

I guess it’s good that I decided to do this because today…I really can’t even.

I don’t know where to start.

Okay, I do know where to start. Where does everything in my life start? With Emmanuel, of course. 

I wonder if anyone else has a large bird familiar that gives them the kind of problems Emmanuel gives me.

At least my hair isn’t chartreuse today, even though Emmanuel is in a mood.

It started with the crab Rangoon.

I don’t know why Emmanuel likes to steal food delivery.

Well, I do know. He likes chaos. That’s why he does it.

But this time, it was Asian food, and there was a triple order of crab Rangoon because Mom, Father, and I all love it. 

There was NOT an order for Emmanuel because people food often disagrees with him. I think it’s because he will eat things that aren’t really good for birds, but he’s stubborn and is going to do what he wants when he wants.

Yesterday, what he wanted was crab Rangoon, apparently.

All three orders of it.

He had quite the Rangoon party.

And was incredibly pleased with himself.

And then came today. 

And the consequences.

Dire consequences.

Did you know that flightless birds can be flatulent? (Or maybe it’s just emus, I’m not sure.)

I know that. Now.

Because I woke up this morning at around 3:00 a.m. in a cloud of the most horrendous stench that has ever stenched. I’m pretty sure there was an actual, physical cloud. (And before you ask, no, it was not chartreuse. That came later, when he didn’t get the sympathy he thought he deserved. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

I opened all my bedroom windows – in Laiho, in winter! – and turned on a fan to try to clear the air.

Then I heard a terrible, terrible sound coming from my bathroom.

Now, an emu’s poo is usually large – they’re big birds – and looks kind of like a goose’s poo, meaning that it’s firm (ish) and not splattery like most smaller bird poo.

Unless, of course, an emu has eaten three orders of crab Rangoon. Then, emu poo is most definitely splattery. And liquidy. And stinky. And gross.

And when you say something like, “Oh my gods, Emmanuel, this is disgusting!”, you get an evil look from the emu in question, accompanied by more horrible splattering noises and a smell that is more fit for the bowels of hell than the bowels of a bird. 

It’s even worse when the noise and the smell and the shouting and the sounds of a large bird in distress wake up your parents.

At least my Druid mother was able to put together something to give Emmanuel some relief, and Father called water to help clean the bathroom. (I have to give Emmanuel his due – he contained the mess as best he could, given his condition, so clean-up wasn’t as bad as it could have been…but it may be a while before I can bring myself to use my bathtub. At least the shower is separate).

However, Father had a bit of a discussion with Emmanuel concerning food stealing, overeating, and the consequences of one’s actions.

And that is why Father called out of work today. It seems that someone (who is feeling much better now) doesn’t care for lectures, and now Father is releasing a very visible chartreuse cloud about every hour or so – a cloud perfectly positioned to make one think that Father may be experiencing some digestive issues himself.

And that is why we will never have Asian food delivered to the house again.

James says: This may, of all the things we have created for Perfect Coven Earth, be the absolutely silliest yet! And I love it! I want more of this. The backstory. The next installment. Whatever. This has some great potential.

Mickie says: I just had to explain to my boss why I was laughing.  This is utterly silly, but anyone who has had a pet can sympathize with ‘animal digestive issues’ as well as willful critters who will do things that are bad for them and have unpleasant results. I love this whole Emmanuel series.  We have a nameless, faceless narrator who gives us vignettes of her daily life and the antics of her familiar, which are usually given in a dry yet hilarious fashion.

3/22/2024 Weekly Update

3/21/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write

Last night was a normal night of writing sprints (now that everyone is feeling somewhat better). We set the timers and did the thing, and this is how it went:

Sid – working on a revamp of Siren’s Secret and realized she needs to work out some world-building issues before she can seriously begin writing.

James – edited twelve (12) pages of Faded Legacy.

Mickie – finished her revision of Chapter Three of Charlie’s Web and revised the first five (5) pages of Chapter Four. She also found a plot hole and plugged it.

That’s where we left off for the week. Next week, we’ll be back and working on our series bible. Tune in to see what we accomplish! 

3/1/2024 Weekly Update

2/29/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write

Last night was supposed to a series bible update night, but Mickie was out running errands, so she couldn’t make it (though she did duck in for a few minutes right at the end of the meeting). Sid and James decided that since Mickie was unavailable, they’d concentrate on their cozies, so they looked at the series bible for the timelines, characters, etc., and discovered that actually…they have done a pretty good job with keeping it updated for the cozies.

So then Sid asked if James would mind helping her talk through her plan for her overall arc and the specifics of the next book, which he agreed to do – and it was very helpful. Together, they walked through all of the character connections, as well as the hows and whys of certain relationships, and now Sid feels much more confident in her direction. Time to outline and then start the actual writing. Woohoooooooo!

Mickie hopped on then for a few minutes so we had a  bit of general discussion (about life – specifically cat shenanigans, because yesterday was apparently Bad  Cat Day – anyway, we talked a bit about life, not writing, because sometimes socializing keeps one sane), then shut down for the evening.

Next week is our monthly business meeting, so tune in to see how it goes!

2/23/2024 Weekly Update

2/22/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write

Last night was a writing night. It’s been kind of a rough week, so there wasn’t a lot of conversation; we just dove in and did the thing.

Surprisingly – considering how the week has gone – we were pretty productive.

James made some good progress on the Faded Legacy edits.

Mickie did her “says” for the February PC blog post, then turned to reading Faded Legacy.

Sid also did her “says” for the February PC blog post, then worked on her notes for Book 2 of the Grey Feather Investigations; she’s working on her connections, timeline, and plot points.

That’s where we left off for the evening. We have one more writing meeting this month, so we’ll see you next week for more exciting updates!

2/9/2024 Weekly Update (Part Two)

2/8/2024 → Thursday Skype & Write

Sid’s back and we had our first actual February meeting. It was a writing night, so….

Sid is working on plotting out the first arc in her Perfect  Coven Earth cozy mystery series, The Grey Feather Investigations. She hopes to be able to publish the next installment in 2024.

James is stuck on a scene in his current WIP, so he decided to concentrate on a read and edit pass of the third (and hopefully final) revision of Faded Legacy.

Mickie is still working on  Charlie’s Web; she needs to get a complete manuscript together for editing and review so we can move forward with our plans for the series.

We made some progress, but no real word metrics to report, as review/editing/plotting doesn’t really make for excitement. But we’ll be back at it next week, so tune in for another update!

2/9/2024 Weekly Update (Part One)

2/1/2024 →  Wednesday Thursday Skype & Write: Monthly Meeting

Since Sid was traveling, we met a day early, but the update didn’t get posted. Oops.

We covered business first, as always; tracking income, deadline dates, etc. all the not-fun stuff that comes with doing this writing thing.

Then we moved into the discussions. First up – the future of the Perfect Coven Series. As in, since we’ve had so many delays in execution among other issues, do we even want to continue to try to write the 13 book series as we’d originally planned or just move on to other projects, like the cozies?

The consensus is that we want to write, finish, and query this series. So, in order to do that, we need to do some intensive planning, hard deadlines, and move forward. To that end, series planning will be on the agenda for every monthly meeting in 2024. We need to prove that we can actually do this…or just let it go.

Next up was our social media and the Graeae website. We need to be more active on the Graeae blog, and Mickie needs to pick up the Graeae social medias again. She got busy over the holidays and let them lag, but that needs to be rectified. Sid has been making an effort with her author-facing social media, and Mickie said she needs to be better about reposting those to the Graeae media. Next month, we will probably be discussing what and how to handle our Graeae and author social medias. We definitely need to set out some guidelines.

The final thing we discussed was pricing guidelines. We settled on something we’re happy with for the moment, as we’re primarily marketing kindle e-books. However, we do realize that as the series grow and we branch into other markets, we will have to revisit pricing. But for now, we have some standard pricing for all Graeae authors, and that helps.

And that’s where we left it for the week.