What’s Next?

It’s been a couple months now since I signed the contract with my publishing company and it’s finally starting to sink in that I’m going to be a published author! DOES LOVE ALWAYS WIN? will be out June 2023 for everyone to read! Some days I still don’t believe it, but most days I’m on cloud nine.

Now I’m in the “What’s Next” phase of publishing. I’m keeping up with my social media platforms and even published a couple of TikTok videos, something that REALLY takes me out of my comfort zone. I’ve also joined a couple 2023 debut groups and have already met some other fabulous authors being published the same year as me.

Something else my publisher suggested to do in this in between phase is to consider writing short stories and look to get them published. It’s another way to get your name out there and build your writing credentials. I first was unsure, because I’m not one for writing short stories. It’s never been my passion; it’s hard to not feel like the story could just keep going and be turned into a full fledged novel. But then I saw a call for submissions for an anthology of fractured fairytales, and I was intrigued.

Normally for novels I’m a pantser, which means I fly by the seat of my pants. There are two types of writers, pantsers (me) and plotters (people that create outlines etc. before even starting the story). I never could do that. For me it takes away the magic of what could fly out of my fingers, but for a short story based on a fairytale, it actually kind of made sense to plot out some ideas before starting, so I gave it a go. I did a queer modern day Snow White retelling, set in America with Snow White as the First Daughter and the evil stepmother as the First Lady. My final product came out much better than I expected. Maybe plotting does make more sense than I realized? The submission due date was June 1, and I sent it off right before the deadline. Now’s the fun part, waiting to see if it was accepted!

Another suggestion from my publisher is to finish book number two. It does make sense. The more books you can get out there, the larger the audience you can capture. So now I’m doubling down and working to finish my young adult superhero work in progress. I gave myself an end-of-year deadline to be completely finished and ready for submission. I find I work better with deadlines anyways. Speaking of, I better get back to work on it!