Reporting to you from my bed...day 3 of being down for the count, although I'm actually upright today which is a step in the right direction. Slept 12 hours last night, on top of a pretty lengthy nap in the middle of the day. Pretty sure it's the flu, pretty sure it's what my husband had last week, and I'm praying my son doesn't get it as we go back to school in a few days, but we'll see what happens. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the second half of my winter break, but at least I'm not missing work where I'm not salary at the moment.

So we're here...the end of the year and the end of my first quarter using the HB90 system. Overall, I'm really proud of how much I was able to accomplish, especially with not having a working computer for a month. While I think this showed just how little time I really have for writing related things, it showed that I can still get things done. I also think it gave me a good indicator of what I want to work on to get to my ideal life. I'm so excited to start it all over again tomorrow and see what I can do!

The Last Weekly Update for 2022
-I've got about 30,000 words of book one in my Google Doc now
-I wrote about 6,500 words of book two before I got sick. It was flowing so I just went with it.
-I changed the titles slightly. Made them slightly shorter.

Book 1: What was Stolen
Book 2: What was Fabricated
Book 3: What was Hidden
Book 4: What was Denied
Book 5: What was Important
Book 6: What was Vanquished

Again....I'm still not OMG THESE ARE THE ONES! but I feel like it sticks with a pattern that will hopefully make readers go "This is a Kay Bennson book!" that being said, there is a small part of me...an evil part, that wants to kill a darling so there can be more books LOL. I feel like it would be polarizing...the only comparison I can think of is Hermione dying and Ron getting back with Lavender (which obviously I know isn't possible...but you get what I'm going for right?) I'm going to blame it on other guy's real life character inspiration, but I feel like he's a more solid choice for a life partner where Ephraim is...well he's a lot. Again...I'm saying WAY too much. I've got time to figure it out.

Other than that, I've been sleeping, watching my comfort YouTube channel, and reading when my brain can handle it. I'm hoping to jump back in with Q1 tomorrow or the next day.

Happy New Year!

​Kay

I figured I would take the opportunity to do my weekly update today before I take a few days off to celebrate Christmas with my family. It ended up working out because we had no school today due to a wind and rain storm that knocked down powerlines in town. Well, it's several hours after I would have been home from school anyway, but here we go!

Anchor Series Work
-Still working on getting my hand written stuff into my Google Doc
-Plotting for book 3. I pretty much know what happens, but just to give me something to consult when I'm actually typing it out later in the year.
-I'm itching to start book 2, but I really want to get all of book one at least online first. I know what my opening scene will be though!

An Enshrine Conclusion
For now, I am keeping Enshrine, as she was back when my old publisher had her on Amazon only and I've enrolled it in Kindle Unlimited. I currently have no plans to add Eminence, but if inspiration to work on it strikes, we'll revisit it. I did get a new cover made in hopes to get the juices flowing. Here it is!
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To wrap it up, Happy Holidays from my family to yours! Look for one more post from before 2023 ends next week!

​Kay

One Week Until Christmas Eve, Hannukah begins tomorrow night! I've got 4 and a half days until winter break. BRING IT!

Here's what I've been doing since last week!

My Next Quarter is Planned!
I started planning my writing life 90 days at a time and I think I had pretty good success last quarter. It's hard to know what would have happened if I hadn't been without a laptop for a month (Actually I do know a little, more on that below), but I wrote a book, kept a dream diary, did some advertising, created a Tik Tok account, made some teasers, and blogged here much more frequently just to name a few. I set up my kanban board yesterday for the first Quarter of 2023!

It looks like a lot, but it's actually a lot less than I planned for Q4. The blue is a social media goal (including my intent to keep posting here weekly.) The purple is editing The Things They Stole From Me, and the green is writing book 2 (which I will name drop below). Each green sticky is for 1,000 words which was really motivating during NaNoWriMo. The one lone green sticky that's in progress right now is to outline book 3 which I've been doing on and off for a while.

Overall, I'm really excited and hope I can get most of it done between January and the end of March!

New Anchor Series Update!
So remember a minute ago, where I questioned what my life would have been like if my computer hadn't died? Getting all my handwritten stuff into a manuscript on my computer has been a b*tch, but there's really nothing that can be done about it. Tedious, but it's helping me find places to add and tweak so I'm trying to not get too upset about it.

In other news, I've been busy making teasers, working covers, and finding quotes that will be good for my social media goal. I've decided that the series title will be "Enemy from the North" which has, as usual been a "I don't hate it, but it doesn't make my heart sing" situation like the titles have been.

I feel like I've been leaving bread crumbs about what this series will be about, but as spoiler free as I can make it, my female MC Leora has lived a unfortunate life and the only shining light in it is her boyfriend and fellow orphan, Ephraim. As the books continue, everything she thought she knew about her family that left her behind, the orphanage she lived in, Ephraim, and even the moral stance of the country she lives in begins to to unravel and is called into question. She's got a lot of growing to do. 

I've got ideas for 5 books but possibly a 6th. Book 1 is done, Book 2 is outlined and Book 3 I basically know what happens. 4,5, and 6 are kind of just a sentence in my brain but we got time for that.

Book 1: The Things They Stole From Me
Book 2: The Lies They Told Me
Book 3: The Truth They Hid From Me
Book 4: The Freedom They Denied Me
Book 5: The People Most Dear to Me
Book 6: ????Something with the color black because *redacted*)

Also to be slightly cryptic, the "they" in each book varies, but is also kind of like a plot twist in the over arching series, because the Enemy From the North really isn't the only big bad here...uh oh I think I got carried away and said too much. 

Ideally, I'd like to have the first three written before I start even thinking about publishing book one. In my heart I'm hoping by the summer, but I also think that will have to do with the day job and if I'm actually able to compete at any Irish dance competitions In Q1 and Q2 because there's work that goes into being prepared for them. Right now It's look like at least April, but we shall see!

This has gotten a scattered, but here have some things I made in Canva to hold you over until next week!

​Kay

We're winding down on the end of the year here which is exciting! It's almost time to make new goals and plans for 2023. I'll probably have more about that in the next week or two, but for now here's what I've been up to since my last post.

The Things They Stole From Me
I couldn't wait a week, but I started edits late last week. Guys, I'm not sure if it's because I haven't completed something for myself in a long time, but I'm almost done doing my initial read through, and there is a good story in here. Like it makes me so happy and excited for the future! Next thing is to make sure I'm hitting all my plot points before I start typing all the hand written stuff into the document. Plot wise I think there's not too much to fix, maybe some more detail and clarification in places which is pretty good for a NaNoWriMo project. Honestly, my biggest thing to fix is I need to water down and downplay a sex scene that is WAY too much for a 16 and 17 year old because apparently explicit love scenes and YA do not mix. Ooops.​

Everything Else
Another week has passed and I STILL don't know what to do about Enshrine and Eminence. Just for fun, I put the first chapter of Eminence in my editing software and the tense, irritated feeling IMMEDIATELY came back. I am starting to think I need to table it. It sucks because I paid for new covers, but I have no desire to work on it. I'm sick of wasting my life deciding if/when I'm doing this series. There was a time that I actually took Enshrine off vendors and then I had people emailing me looking for it. It's not even on this website anymore. Gah. Ask me again next week.

Still no series name for my new series, but I've got ideas for 5 or 6 books now. Hopefully I will have enough material to actually flesh them out. At least I've got an idea about where book 2 and 3 will be going which is awesome!

See you next week,

​Kay

WOO! I FINISHED MY NANOWRIMO PROJECT! After ghostwriting and not being able to pick a story to work on for so long, I'm so proud! She is currently 70,000 words and I usually add 10-15k more with edits, so I'm curious to see where she ends up, though I'm not quite ready to start edits yet.

No, I'm super motivated to keep going! As I mentioned in a pervious post what I thought was going to be a stand alone book is quickly becoming more. Three books for sure, but potentially a fourth if I can think of enough material. Long story short, I will be working on book 2 after a few days break (That's always a struggle for me because writing is a way that I relax. Not writing makes me feel antsy and stifled!)

Introducing Leora and Ephram!

These are my newest book children! I don't want to spoil too much, especially since I have no idea when this series will be ready, but these poor kids have been star crossed lovers from Day 1.

They live in the fictional country of Vostella which has been at war with an enemy nation located to the north for 20 years. Both are orphans that live in a state facility called the Refuge. 

That's all for now...hehe

Other things in the works with this story...
I finally have a title! As is usually the case, I like it, but don't love it, but it's better than calling it NaNoWriMo2022 like my Spotify playlist currently says. The Things That Were Stolen From Me is where I am currently at. I also have working titles for the next 3 books that follow this theme. Now I just need a series title.

Other Week Nine News:
-Purchased a editing software on Cyber Monday. Maybe now I won't need to back $150 for a proofreader? Especially since I've got multiple titles that need to be looked at now.

See you next week!

​Kay