Hi, all! If you are in my Facebook group, you likely already saw this, but I’m putting it here too. So sorry it has been ages since I updated you — I’ve been inching my way through a somewhat major transition, and I had some client stuff going on too. This transition is still underway, and there are more changes to come, but I wanted to let you know what’s going on.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
1. Razing is still in the works. I honestly haven’t been working on it (or really anything new of my own, cries) for a while now, but it doesn’t leave my mind for long, and it’s getting closer to when I feel I’ll be able to edit it effectively. I still do not have a publishing date yet (other than the pre-order date of this December), but it’s coming.
2. I am rebranding The Purification Era again. I know, I know, I just changed the covers a few months ago, and I am very sorry for the back and forth and any confusion. When I lost my original designer last July, my gut reaction was to go with a designer I have been following for a while, but she books out, and the timeline of hiring her vastly did not work for my publishing schedule for Razing (her first date then was April). Since I was still aiming for December, I went with a different designer, one that could get me in quickly, one that many people I know have worked with. Unfortunately, there were just…so, so many issues. I won’t badmouth them, but I will say that it by the time we were finally working on Razing’s cover, it had gotten to the point where receiving an email from them filled me with dread and I was in frustrated tears over the thought of another three covers to finish out the series. At that point, I reached out to the gut-reaction designer and ultimately made arrangements with her to rebrand. This will be taking place in July. Until then, I will be transitioning back to the original covers.
3. Here is the biggie, the thing that has consumed me for weeks: I have upped the ages of some characters. This is both for relationships and to plant the series more squarely as New Adult (see note below). Rab is now 19.5 in Sowing. Ari is 17 in Sowing and turns 18 in Quelling. Pretty much every noted female age jumped up a year, but Ari got two years. (MUCH MATHS ARE FUN.) Upping the ages required me to completely reformat both e-books, which was…a task. I have finally accomplished this and re-uploaded the files. These updated inner files will coincide with the original covers, so when you see the original covers back on Amazon, things are good to go. (You may need to do something on Amazon to get the kindle files to update. If you do this and happen to notice anything weird with them, please let me know. I am not yet an adept formatter, haha, and I did the best I could, but…yeesh. I don’t even want to talk about how long it took me…) I also made some very small changes when I noticed something that rubbed me wrong. You may not even notice these tweaks without comparing side-by-side versions, and they don’t affect the story itself. Just little niggling things that I had to adjust haha.
4. Biggie part two: henceforth, I consider The Purification Era New Adult instead of Young Adult**. To be honest, this has been a long time coming. I avoided it for a long time for many reasons that I can get into if you really want the nitty gritty details, haha, but if not, suffice it to say it’s been something I’ve wrestled with for years. When I started this series in earnest, I was ~20 (I’m 36 now) and going off the knowledge of genres/age ranges, writing itself, history, etc. that I had then, as well as trying to reconcile a hijacked plot that forced me to start the story earlier in time than I’d planned (THANK YOU SOREK AND RAB AND MAS). TPE has been undergoing massive growing pains over the past few years especially as I’ve slowly learned to release my iron grip and entrust it to God more. There has been a constant struggle in me over how to market it and let it flourish and become what I feel it needs to become…while wrestling with trying to keep it more YA. That doesn’t even get into the issues that have come up about character ages. While there are still some YA elements/themes, the series has always felt older, darker, and it will get even darker in ways before it gets better. I’m just really, really stubborn; once something is in my head as ___, it tends to remain that way. But I grew weary of this battle and fear and all the stress that comes with it, and I sense God leading me this way. In order for TPE to become what I feel it should be, these changes, while scary, are necessary. In a burst of divine inspiration, I finally took the plunge I’ve wanted to take for years, and I ultimately have such peace over this. While it will come with some more growing pains as I sort of recalibrate everything, it all feels correct for the story and characters. I hope it will feel the same for you all.
**I know NA has a reputation for being sexually explicit. I have no intention of turning this series into something spicy, and I absolutely will not sacrifice a drop of the plot/character development for anything (sexual or otherwise) that I find gratuitous. However…I cannot honestly say it will be completely closed door or fade to black in the romance department. Since the couples are not there yet (erm, sorry if you were hoping for things in Razing…stubborn authors apparently write stubborn characters?), I can’t say for certain how it will go. I have some assumptions/feelings/instincts, but ultimately, I am seeking God’s guidance in this and being open to him changing my mind as he sees fit. My goal forever remains to give you the best story I can and to write the characters, relationships, and arcs in satisfying, honest ways that serve the story and honor God. I humbly ask that you trust me as I trust God in this.
WHEW. Okay. I…think that is all the main updates.
Again, if you have questions, let me know!
Thank you all for being so patient.
