The Check-In

Welcome to THE CHECK-IN, where you can get a sneak peek into my writing progress every week! Read on to find out what I’m working on and how things are progressing in my world.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Bloody is the Night: THE FIRST DRAFT IS FINISHED!! I did one big push on the second book in The Night series over the past week and managed to get it done. Not only did I get it completed, I did a full initial round of edits and got it sent off to my freelance editor! I am so incredibly proud of myself. It feels great to have this off my plate and even better to know that I’m (fingers crossed!) going to be able to submit the draft to my publisher on time!
• Mafia Anthology Sub: Because I spent so much time working on Bloody is the Night this week, I didn’t make much forward momentum on this novella. But I’m back to work on it now and I still feel like it’s shaping up nicely. There’s one key backstory element for my main character that I need to work out before I can go much farther, but I’m confident I’ll come up with something.
• The Night Lead Magnet: Now that the first draft of Bloody is the Night has moved on to the editing/rewriting stage, I decided it was time I created a lead magnet for The Night series. In case you don’t know, a lead magnet is basically something you give away to customers/consumers for free in exchange for their information and potential business down the line. For fiction authors (like me) a lead magnet is most often a short story of some kind, a sample of their work that readers can get for free to see if they enjoy the author’s style, the context/content of a series, etc. After talking over some details with my publisher, I am aiming for a short story about 9.5k long that will give readers a little taste of the world of The Night. Luckily, I already have a lot of “unused” material from that series that I’m managing to put together into an exciting short story!

I was really intimidated by the concept of a lead magnet, and for a long while, I was avoiding the project entirely because I wasn’t even sure where to start. I’m so glad I decided to dive in, and thrilled that my “unused” bits and pieces are getting a second life and a chance to get in front of readers! I can’t wait for y’all to see what I have in store for you!

LESSON OF THE WEEK: THROW AWAY NOTHING. YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE YOUR WRITING IS GOING TO COME IN HANDY!