We’re down to under a week before the release of Pottery & Peril, book 5 in the Tales of Rydding Village series. I thought that since I’d actually planned in advance this time, I’d get a lot more promotion done and have my ducks in a row, but I thought wrong. It seems that the next book made its presence known and I got sidetracked by writing it. Next thing I know, it’s almost time for release, and I have a choir retreat this weekend that’s eating up all my time.

Maybe I shouldn’t plan a book launch for the week after the choir retreat in the future.

I suppose it’s a good thing that the next book started coming to me. At first, I thought it was just the first few scenes, but the more I wrote, the more ideas kept coming. I did pause to do some outlining, but when I got back to writing the outline fell by the wayside because I kept coming up with more ideas. Now I’m about halfway done with the first draft.

This book focuses on one new character and one character who showed up in Weaving & Wyverns.

I have the last two books somewhat planned, but I don’t know how many books will come along the way. I just came up with a vague idea for book 7 this week. It helps that there’s a different main couple in each book, so I feel like I’m writing something entirely new, even as I’m still in the familiar setting and checking back in with the old characters. It’s a nice mix of fresh and familiar, and that seems to help with the burnout I tend to get around book seven in a series. I also enjoy playing with various tropes to see if I can find ways to make them work for me. For instance, in Weaving & Wyverns, I sort of did a secret baby, as well as a second-chance love. I’ve always rolled my eyes at the secret baby, but I ended up coming up with a plot where it made sense (and is it a secret baby if the baby is a teenager?). The new book is sort of enemies to lovers, though in this case they never hate each other. They’re just on opposite sides of an issue and they can’t both get what they want. If one of them succeeds, the other fails.

I don’t yet know what will happen with the paperback of Pottery & Peril. There seem to have been some wires crossed with the cover designer because I don’t have the cover yet, though I ordered it and sent the specs, and now I realize I never got an acknowledgment of them receiving that info. I need to check in with them and see what’s up.