Just wrote a few words for Sun because today, I spent my energy and brain power on finishing setting up my new store. Yes, you can now buy books directly from me - well, almost.

It's a store through PayHip, with the fulfillment through BookFunnel. That helps both me with my bookkeeping, and it helps you, because BookFunnel makes it very easy to get your ebook into whatever reading app you use.

Hannah's Book Store

I'm also going through yet another iteration of cover creation for Zell, and I actually made a sketch today to show the layout I have in mind. Find that below.

And well, have all the words I wrote for Sun today. shrug

It took them two nights of walking south, keeping the mountains to their right, until they found a sizable stream that flowed east. They stayed an extra day, washing their clothes and themselves.

Laisal also dug up some thick roots from the ground that she claimed were edible, wrapping them in her spare shirt.

600 words for Sun tonight, writing through brain fog. But it's more words than I had this morning.

Also ran my Mastermind and had plenty of awesome marketing ideas. As always, the trick is to actually turn them into action.

Still stuck on the store - brain has no capacity for tricky stuff at the moment. I'm hoping for tomorrow, because I really want to share that with you.

Also still in discussions with the cover designer about Zell covers. He shot down my latest idea and I'm feeling rather down about the whole thing. I just want my series to start selling. sigh

Have some Sun. He's not having a good day.

Oh, how he hoped he’d dream of Moon again!

At that moment, he missed Moon’s arm around his shoulder, his hugs, his voice in his ear and mind, and he felt as if his heart would burst with the pain of it all.

Moon had been his other half.

He bowed his head under the grief, doing his best not to fall to his knees and wail.

Wrote 700 words for Sun in the morning. And now I have plans for him. He would not like them, of course.

In the afternoon, I wrote a difficult email, and that just threw me for the rest of the day. Comfort book helped, but I didn't get anything else done from my todo-list. Even self-care was hard.

It happens.

Have some Sun:

Laisal sighed. “I have not prepared as well as I should have. That was a grave error and it brings great danger to us. I apologize.”

Sun stared at her in shock. Priests never admitted mistakes. And yes, maybe it had been a mistake not to bring as many provisions as they needed if they had to cross a dry region, but neither of them had known.

“It will be fine,” he said, simply because Laisal looked so small and worried. “I can’t bring us water like Moon would, but maybe I can discover a few tricks. If I dream of him again.”

I surprised myself by writing 1100 words today. And that despite watching a BookFunnel webinar. I didn't fiddle with my store today however. But that's all good. I needed a break from store-fiddling. :)

Even so, taking steps to improve my marketing feels really, really good.

Have some Sun:

Sunrise was spectacular. He actually walked out of the small wood to watch it. First, the sky in the east turned purple and turquoise before the rising sun lit the clouds crossing the mountain range. Sun watched them for a long time, how they crawled across the tops and floated through the valleys, only to thin out and disappear high above him.

It was fascinating, because he didn’t know why they did that.

Another day with 400 words - not what I'm aiming for, but it's okay.

You see, I read a romance today that totally shattered me. Autistic MC, lots of assumptions, and of course, a happy ending. But all of it so sweet, so beautiful and heartbreaking, it's truly a piece of art.

So it took me a while to put myself together before I could do anything for Sun. And today's writing wasn't exactly good. But they will start moving any time now.

“Do you know how to send out your awareness, to look at something? Like their power or energy?”

Laisal frowned at him. “I… think I do. I haven’t done that often, at least not very far. I mean, I can see you and your power. Although it’s still very much hidden.”

Sun nodded, not even trying to sort that out. “But you know how to send it out?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now try to keep it open and just let it sense energy from outside of you.”

I did write, but ran into a bit of a slog. Writer Brain will need time to come up with a nice new little plot adventure. However, I have Sun stewing on something that will come to a head a few chapters down the road. (Quite literally.)

It's still 400 more words than I had this morning.

Have a snippet:

“Let’s get out of these mountains. And while we do, think of a way those Houses won’t be able to find us. You have been hunting before, right?”

“Yes.” Sun wished he could undo the times they had done anything outside of the Empire. None of those people had deserved their fate.

“So you know what to look for.”

He nodded, thinking hard. “But we only looked during the day. So maybe, if we hide during the day and walk at night, we’d be safer. I can light our way with a flame…”

Another 1k day, and that makes me happy. I'm moving Sun out of the mountains in the east, and need to start making his life miserable. (Mwuahahahah.)

For how, he and the Priestess he escaped with are trying to make plans. Not very successfully, I might add.

Have a snippet:

“Now, we still need to decide what to do. We’re almost out of the mountains. Do you know what’s east?”

He shrugged. “We haven’t been out here often. I know there are some plains. That’s where I have seen the travelers.”

“Do you think they’d be around now?”

Sun shrugged again. “I don’t know much about them. But it’s winter. I would assume they are where it’s warmer.”

“That makes sense.” She sighed. “I was hoping we could ask someone for directions.”

No writing yesterday (or very little) because I had to set up my newsletter. That went well, but took all my brain power.

Today, I'm back to writing. Managed 1k again, trying to make that into a habit, with one writing time in the morning, and one in the evening.

Have some Sun:

“Do it now.”

“Really?”

“Yes. What do you need me to do?”

“Well, maybe it’ll be better if we both sit.” Laisal chewed on her lower lip again. It was endearing, really, but… Sun forced his thoughts away from that.

Instead, he sat where he stood, folding his legs the way he had always done in the House. It felt good to sit that way, deep down. Laisal knelt before him and lifted one hand. “Just watch my finger,” she instructed him.

Sun did just that, and moments later, the world fell away.

Finally wrote today. 1k words for Sun.

Also fixed the most of the MailerLite thing, I'm almost done with that. The rest will have to wait after tomorrow, because that's when a newsletter will go out.

Read a comfort book. And solved a tricky problem for work, so it was a good day. Have some Sun:

And because the cold of the ground was still seeping through his bedroll, he simply kept pushing warmth, not heat, warmth, further down, through his bedroll and into the ground. The packed dirt soaked up his warmth, and he pushed even further until he reached solid rock.

When he shoved power into that, something broke inside him, unleashing emotions he didn’t even understand, and he pushed hard. A few heartbeats later, warmth pooled in the cave, and Laisal lifted her head in a swift movement to stare at him.

“No!” she mouthed, and Sun froze, cutting off his power instantly.

He had offended a Priest.

Finally wrote a few hundred words for Sun. I really hope I can get back into the story now.

Not much else today, I'm tired and had quite a bit of brainfog. Read yet another romance novel.

Have some Sun:

This cave was small. He had to stoop to duck through the entrance, and while there was enough room for a camp, it was a close fit. They might have been able to add two or three mules, Sun thought, squinting a little, but that was all.

Oh, and it had a little spring at the back, the water forming a small pool before draining away to the side. He couldn’t be certain, since he really didn’t know how these things worked, but it felt like a Moon had created it together with an Earth. Somehow, that thought made the cave much more comfortable.

Today was quite an exciting day.

After uploading all the files yesterday, I was hoping I could celebrate the release of Sky Falls today. And so I posted about it on Mastodon - which met with a wonderful and immediate response - my first sale to a lovely fan.

But then I had to work in my day job, then I met a friend in video chat, and then... I found email from Amazon with a problem in the print file. sigh It wasn't difficult to fix, but it was something I had checked yesterday before grabbing the print file, and it still went wrong. Ah, well.

Then I went out to participate in a march against fascism. (We are doing this in Germany right now, because a fascist party is on the rise, and the "silent" majority is no longer taking it in silence.)

Anyway, I came home to a couple more sales (I don't have that many fans) and a wonderful message by my first reader who had already finished the book! (And loved it!)

What a day! 😍

Release Day for Sky Falls!

Yes, it's true! Sky Falls is finally out today, and available in all stores. (Yes, even Apple finally got it up.)

Description:

A daring escape. An unlikely ally. A wicked betrayal.

When the day of his sacrifice draws near, Sky Falcon has nothing left to lose. Daring the wrath of the Priests, he escapes through a clever application of his magic, taking the love of his life with him.

Together, they hatch a desperate and daring plan: After escaping the Holy Empire through different routes, they vow to reunite near Jungle Fortress in the south.

On his own, Sky makes an unfortunate mistake which leads him down the road to doom. Can he escape once more or will he find himself bound on top of a Pyramid, after all?

“Sky Falls” takes you on yet another intense and fast-paced ride through the world of the Winds and Pillars, with familiar characters lending a hand.

And this is where you can buy the book, although I would suggest reading the series in order (Book 1 is free):

Today, I finally received the cover for "Sky Falls", Book 2 in the Pillars of the Empire series. And let me tell you, it looks gorgeous.

It took me a while to gather enough energy, but I finally uploaded the ebook to Amazon, Google Play Store and Draft2Digital (which distributes to a huge bunch of other bookstores, including Apple and Kobo). Also uploaded the print files to Amazon. Right now, the book is wending its way through all the servers. I hope I can create a Books2Read link tomorrow, which is a very neat universal link where you can pick where you want to buy the book from.

I'll also share the cover here, but I will post about the release in the other thread about new books tomorrow.

I'm also quite wiped today, and very glad it's almost the weekend. Hope I can focus on writing soon.

Enjoy the cover!

No writing today, but some plotting. I know more about the second Penumbra book now, and more about Dio (the Warrior).

Biggest task was migrating my MailerLite account, so I can keep sending email through the system. It looks fairly good, but I'm still struggling a little with the new authentication thingie that Google created.

I dug deep into the DNS settings of my domain, that was scary. I'm almost there, at least, so that's something, especially considering I'm not an IT specialist.

I'm gradually working my way out of Frazzletown, and I can tell you, I'm much relieved.

Now wish me and my cover designer luck, so I can publish Sky in the next few days.

Today was definitely more productive. Took care of one other frazzling thing (which means there is one big one left, I'll tackle that tomorrow). I read through my spicy shifters, and though I already have 45k in that story, it's not even near being finished. I have to fill in a LOT of plot, probably another 20k words.

So I might just shove it back on the backburner and look at the Vampires and Sun next.

I did go and formatted Sky, because I promised that on Mastodon. Now I just have to get the cover, and I can finalize and upload. Getting rather excited about it all!

Today was mostly a recovery day after the insanity that was yesterday.

Yesterday, I did my day job, had a meeting in the afternoon, was accosted by salesguys, and finally watched a presentation on climate change and fake news by one of the most eminent climate scientists in Germany, Mojib Lativ. That was utterly fascinating.

Writer Brain then proceeded to make my life hell with worst-case scenarios about the sales thing, keeping me awake for a large part of the night. I made phone calls this morning and got it sorted.

Tiny bit of editing done for the spicy shifters. I'm still really liking the story, but next is a bed scene, and right now I just can't... Maybe I'll just leave the reminder there for now.

But! I can share the three covers for the Vampire series that I'm currently (not) writing. They are so awesome, they motivate me.

(If you read this on Mastodon, I hope you can click through to Lemmy to see it.)

Another rather frazzling day, including a visit from a Telekom press gan... information team. They almost managed to make me sign up for a provider change. Remembered just in time to ask for a break so I could think it through.

Nice guys, though, and they totally lost it when they saw my sword and dagger, and took my author business cards. With a bit of luck, I'll end up selling books to them.

In much nicer news, I have received the first three covers for Penumbra, and they look awesome. I just need to put them into a good thing to share here.

Also, saw the first draft of the new Sky cover, and it's just awesome and perfect and beautiful. Will also share asap.

Oh, and I wrote 700 words for my spicy shifters this morning. Yay.

For now, I'll curl up with a comfort book and hope I can actually sleep this night...

Tired today, so it'll be an early bedtime again.

However! I bought three covers for my vampire series Penumbra (premades, so I can't show them off just yet). And my designer showed me a preview of the cover for Sky and I totally love it!

So there will be cover reveals quite soon, and that makes me rather happy.

Also did some proofreading, will finish that tomorrow. Fascinating read.

It's been a good day.

Not really focusing on what I should be doing. Instead, I ran the first two Zell books through Atticus and gave them a new interior look. Will do the rest soon, as well. (The Franssisi Four Chronicles, Zell is the name of the MC.)

I also added some words of warning to Decoy, so people know what they are getting into...

Most of all, however, I fixed the sketchy layout of the backmatter and updated the graphics with the new Wolf book. That was very satisfying.

Have a screenshot of the new Zell look.

The Indie Ink Awards have declared the finalists for this year. And well, Dragon Prey is out of the running.

Even so, I want to thank everyone who voted for my book. You believed in me and that tale, and that means a lot to me.

If you can, spread the word about my books, help me find more fans - and I promise, I'll write more tales. Of dragons, mages, shifters... all of them feel-good stories.