Things are progressing with my paranormal romance. I didn’t write for a couple days and it was stressful not writing, honestly; it’s become kind of addictive. I don’t see it like work anymore, I just see it as fun. Stress relief. A nice distraction from impending World War III and the terrible news in Ukraine.

Wrote 2,106 words this morning to make up for it and scheduled out Patreon posts three times a week through April 5. I have reached the point in the story when I have hit the second act and I need to deal with the villain element so I have been introducing suspects. Trying to cast just the right clues and misdirection in this puzzle I am building.

My latest episode will probably piss off Mal/Eamon fans if there are any of those. Talk about a heart wrencher though. I don’t know why this is so fun to write when I put Eamon through a lot of pain and introduced his backstory more. I could have made everyone polyamorous in this I suppose but I decided monogamy added more drama. Wolves mate one at a time after all.

I am now up to 54,224 words total so I am pleased with my progress. More than halfway through my first draft. I think I can finish a first draft in another month.

As I was looking at graphic design courses for book cover design I decided I would splurge on cover art for my main investment up front. It’s going to take a lot of work to learn cover design and that’s still something I want to do. But I don’t know anything about color theory and white space, just general ideas of what I think looks good visually. However, a good cover is a better advertisement than buying an ad on Amazon so I think it’s worth it to make that investment, and that’s what my day job is for anyway. It funds my art. Trying to invest as little upfront as possible though because even though I have the money it seems like a waste of money when you only expect to sell 10 books.

So, I’ve been a bit depressed and haven’t done anything else but write, but I’m happy I have my werewolf universe to escape into. Another thing that I think is interesting to explore is I’m not doing any research into werewolf lore or tropes; I want something totally fresh and different, so I’m inventing my own mythology and creature design. It might piss off some purists but maybe the controversy will help sell books, who knows.

Looking forward to the coming week, my goals are to get to 60,000 words, keep writing every day, plan out a photo shoot with a model, sign up for a gym again and go back to swimming in the morning. Also need to plan out some more blog posts for the coming weeks; a blog post I wrote last fall about running keeps gaining traction so I’m considering more fitness and wellness content. We’ll see.