Even as I type that title, I realize it’s probably an unrealistic pursuit… but as I’ve been putting together my new creative space, I feel like maybe I’m close.

When we moved into this house 3 years ago, the front room quickly became kind of a catch-all. It was where the pets got their meals, but otherwise, it was just a place where building supplies and tools sat around, waiting to be used. Over the course of those 3 years, we’ve done a lot of remodeling and repairing, and eventually, we didn’t need that space to serve as an oversized tool closet anymore. It was meant to be a formal dining room, but we’ve never been the sort of people to use a formal dining room, and we much prefer having guests in our cozy breakfast room right off the kitchen. The dining room was in sort of an awkward spot for meals, anyway, down a long, dark hall from the kitchen.

So it sat empty, home to just pet dishes and an old china hutch that was too small for my collection of teacups. I knew I wanted to upgrade the hutch at some point, at least so my teacups didn’t have to be stacked. Then, by happenstance, I saw a china hutch on Facebook marketplace. Not just a china hutch, but the china hutch. The most perfect, beautiful hutch, exactly the aesthetic I wanted, except that it was a tar-stained and yellowed oak veneer and not the dreamy white I wanted.

Well, we’d just remodeled most of a house. What was one piece of furniture? So, a little bit of white paint later…

Suddenly, my teacups had a new home. So did my pothos, which is the only plant I’ve managed to keep alive. Both looked happy, and from there, I thought… well, why not go all the way?

I always thought it would be nice to have a place to sit and drink tea, a dreamy spot to read books as well as write them. I already had a bistro set my parents had given me after they found it on clearance. I only really needed one more thing to put me on the track to having my ideal writing space.

So the hunt for a desk began. I collected artificial flowers for the space while I hunted for just the right desk. I knew what I wanted–something French provincial to nicely accentuate my china hutch, something that would work well for both me and my daughter so she could have somewhere dreamy to do her homework, too. She even asked for exactly that, particularly after the night I dragged a 12 foot long branch into the house and cut it to fit in the corner.

My husband took me shopping for artificial flowers to make the boughs. Originally, I was going to get white. “No,” he said. “Do pink.”
So cherry blossoms it was. Sprawling, crawling across the ceiling. Not all of the branches match, but we bought everything they had. We’ll fine-tune it later, using the ones that don’t match so well for arrangements in pots or vases.

Then one evening, I found a listing for an antique vanity in need of refinishing. The seat needed a cushion and upholstery, too. “It’s perfect, but it’s too far away,” I said to my husband. He looked at the location on the listing and checked it out on the map.
“It’s not too far,” he told me. “If it’s the perfect desk, then let’s go.”

So we did, and when the weather cleared up, he helped me cut stronger plywood for the seat. I repainted and reupholstered on my own.

And then, the room was… well, almost done. Done enough that a good chunk of The Artificer’s Wife was written in there, and done enough that it’s a welcoming and airy place I love to spend time in. But some areas are still a little bit sterile. I want more pictures for the walls, maybe a rug for the floor since the tile isn’t great–one of few things left in this house that we haven’t redone. A few house plants would be nice, if I can keep from killing them. I thought my monstera would love this room, but it much prefers the patio out back. This winter, it won’t have any choice but to liven up this room.

So it’s close. Almost there. Not quite perfect. But it’s a good place to sit and work on Paragon of Light, too, and this week… that’s just what I’m doing.

While shopping for rugs, of course.

When school started, my days were suddenly wide open again–practically for the first time all year. I got to sit down and write without distraction for the first time in ages, and that resulted in over 40,000 words of The Artificer’s Wife being written across the span of 8 days. It was good, but it was a hard pace and not realistic for me to pursue all the time. It did, however, lead me to spend a lot of time thinking about how to handle things now that my schedule is back to the school year normal.

I’m at an interesting  place now, having just finished The Artificer’s Wife. It’s up for preorder now, and I’ll be getting it into paperback alongside The Spymaster’s Prize, which as been waiting for its paperback since February. I only planned for Artisan Magic to be 3 books, so while there’s room for the series to be expanded later if the fancy strikes, it’s done for now… and I have to start looking ahead.

The next thing on the list to be done is finishing Spectrum Legacy. I’d still like to see Paragon of Light go out this year. It was supposed to be released in the summer, but things happened, as they do, and my plans changed. How much they’re going to change is still up in the air, because the same problem that plagued Snakesblood Saga has worsened with Spectrum.

You’ve probably heard authors talk about this issue before. A lot of readers, burned too many times by big series, are reluctant to pick up fantasy books before the series is done. I get it. I don’t blame you. But that makes things hard for me as a writer, too, because I need my books to pay for themselves. Most have done very well, but as of yet, none of the Spectrum Legacy books have earned back what it cost me to produce them… and they’ve been the most expensive books I’ve produced yet.

I know where this goes for a lot of authors, so I know what you’re probably thinking. It’s something like, “So here’s where the series gets canceled.” Let me go ahead and interrupt that to make it clear that’s absolutely not the case, and the series is going to be finished. In fact, if everything goes the way I hope, the last 3 books in the series will be done before summer break starts next year. That’s close to 400,000 words more that I need to get on paper across the next nine months, which is a lot of writing to pack into that time frame. The story is going big places, and I’m excited to see it happen!

But since I also have to lean on my other books to finance these, it means I might have to slow down the publishing schedule for them to make sure I don’t have to cut corners. If Spectrum proves to be anything like Snakesblood was, things will pick up after book 5, because the end will be in sight. The trick is getting to book 5 right now. If everything goes well, then books 5 and 6 will both be released next year, but there’s no way to know if that will be the case just yet.

I’ll still be working hard to finish the books, but getting them edited will be slower. And in between releases of Spectrum Legacy titles, I’ll be starting my next fantasy romance series. Other books, like the Snakesong trilogy and the next installment of Tahl’s story… well, I’m not sure when I’ll be getting to those. After Spectrum is completed, most likely. Those are the books I want to write the most, but they aren’t the most viable right now, so they have to simmer as low priority titles while I wrap up my existing obligations.

If all goes well, Paragon of Light will be arriving in December, but it could be January, too, depending on what fall looks like around our house.

Book 5, Paragon of Shadow, will come out no sooner than next summer, but also no later than December 2024.

And then book 6, Spectrum Legacy, will most likely land somewhere in 2025.

So that’s it. That’s the new plan for my release schedule. Big books farther apart, with smaller books happening in between so I can afford them. If stuff gets better, I’ll gladly move them up. It would be great to have the series fully released before the end of 2024, but we’ll see what happens. It’s not a fun update, but it’s where things are.

Work writing Paragon of Light resumes at the beginning of September, so stay tuned for updates on the book–things are starting to look pretty hairy for the heroes…