WIP AND WORK PUBLISHED, APRIL TO MAY 2024 -

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As I sit down to tell you what my claws were busy typing in April and May, I realize it is now June, Pride Month.

I’m not on the queer spectrum myself, but have always had many close friends and family who are. So, when I moved to a highly conservative locale, I decided to install a flag pole by my front door and put a pride flag there. Over the years it has faded and gotten torn up so I’m replacing it this year. As I type this, I’m waiting on its delivery so I can put it out. Happy Pride Month!

I also take some pride in the fact that I’ve often gotten very positive feedback from people about the queer characters I write. My approach to the task is simple, I identify what they want and how they are going to approach it in the story. I can write a gay male in the same way I can write a female manga artist or a serial killer – they all want things that are not for me, but it doesn’t matter. Because it’s their story I’m telling, not mine.

So, what else am I doing? I got a 3D printer that is indirectly involved in a writing project. I know that sounds odd, but so is my brain. We are getting three parts of Neighborly Gestures out in the world and I’m writing the fourth right now, expecting to have its rough draft done within the week. I also have a sapphic pirate fantasy story I wrote ages ago that’s finally about to come out. There is also a darker, primal themed piece called Hunted that I’m eager to edit so you may see that before the end of the year as well.

I’ve recently been in a “wrap older things up” mood, so I will be looking at finishing the sequel to FUCK, titled ‘Cuddle’ and I have begun to have a sequel to One Thousand Cranes taking form in my mind with a working title of Mulligan – which I’m sure will not be the final title.

So, that’s me, a bear writing smut, flying flags and…

Did you know bear paws are not good at dealing with filament jams in a 3D printer?

TEAM BEAR

*reclaiming my quill* You had one job, Sir. One! And the instructions were clear: Write about what was, not what may be if the stars align. *dramatic eye roll*

If you have seen the man vs bear debate in social media lately and asked yourself why on earth so many women (and men, when they think about it) are rooting for Team Bear, I give you exhibit 1: Sir Bear.

Our Quartermaster is adorkable and the most supportive sea bear that ever supported a pirate captain, but… If he spots a honey pot, hears someone (looking at you, Belle) trying to break into the rum cellar, or – as you just witnessed – gets an interesting thought in his head that’s it. Attention gone.

Bears are simple, simply delightful creatures, but they’re not pets. Mine is an incredibly hard-working, well-read, sweet, funny, opinionated, pervy geek of a bear. If there is one thing I can count on it is that. He’s a bear. He will always be a bear. If I ask him to write something for me, he will. How many words? Who knows. Will he stick to the topic? Probably not. But he always delivers, he makes every day better, and he always makes us laugh. Simply delightful.

Now, back to the WIP that I suppose we should rename WtwIP moving forward:

WORK that was IN PROGRESS

So, in April we got the ship cleaned up after the winter storms and got back to work. The following are some of the most important WtwIPs over the past two months:

There was a lot of plans to go through and documents to update, but more than anything else we needed to get back into our creative process. For Sir Bear, who has more worldly responsibilities than I do, that means mornings, evenings and weekends. For me, we’re trying a 2:1 system where I get to write for two weeks, and edit for one on a rolling schedule. So far, I’m loving it!

We revisited the pipeline and slushpile and made some adjustments to our planned publication schedule. We are still thinking we could reach the 12-title goal for the year. Fingers crossed.

We created a World Wide Wiki for our literary cosmos. It is still in its infancy, but we are adding all the information about our characters and their worlds into this massive story bible. It is already saving me so much time to have everything in one place with links and cross-references. And the next time Sir Bear has forgotten the name of a character’s daughter he can just check the wiki. Genius level improvement, I tell ya!

We decided it was time to put our commercial writers’ hats on and think about ways to reach more readers, both for our own titles and for the Resilience community as a whole. We’ll introduce you to the first of those ideas in the Midsummer special, and I think you will like them.

To make everything we want to do possible, we also looked at streamlining some of the things we’ve already been doing to free up as much time as possible for the creative process. As a result, we’re tidying up our social media presence. The job has just begun, but it was in progress in May so it belongs on this list.

We finished book 1 and 2 of the Neighborly Gestures series – both will be available in an online bookstore near you next week.

We worked on the Libertalia Tales series. A cover frame is in the making and the first two titles are almost ready to see the light of day.

My character Finn from last year’s NanoWriMo went on a road trip to her mother’s home turf. Just like that, my slice-of-life romance turned into the Myrnäs Mysteries, a cozy paranormal mystery series that takes place in my Ulfrheim cosmos. Book one is fully outlined and we have written the briefs for no less than 11 books to follow.

And speaking of UIlfrheim… In the main storyline, Ragnarök happened and Loke can no longer shapeshift. Which is kinda funny. So we have him a spinoff. In our first serial since Sir Bear’s Pool Girl, we’re following the god of mischief as he battles incorporeal boredom by playing a game of Tafl with humans as his pawns. The working title of this LitRPG madness is Nerds in Skyrim (obviously not the actual title). We shall not compare it to a summer’s day, but you could say that it’s a hilarious hommage to Twelfth Night (the Shakespeare play), Skyrim (the Bethesda game), and The Big Bang Theory (the TV-series).

Oh, and yes, more Ulfrheim news. Work on the first book in the Tales of the Ninth Realm series has been slow because of all the reasons we’ve already discussed. I’m not convinced that I will be able to meet the August deadline, but I think you will love my trollkatt, Katya, her wolf-shifter pup, Runt, and the human girl, Tyra, when you get to meet them. This is a fantasy set in Nygard, the human realm, in the 1800s.

Well, look at that – we are officially back on track. We’ve shared the main things we’ve been working on in April and May, and next time we meet we’ll see how much we accomplished in June. We can’t wait!

//Leto & Linn