Plans for 2020 (Leap Year!)

Plans for 2020

🎉 First, happy new year, and may the coming year be your best year yet. I'm making plans for 2020 and sharing some of them with you.

Because our planet doesn't have a perfect orbit, we get an extra day this year to mess up our automated calendars. Some of you may recall the Y2K problem, when computer programs had to be updated to use 4-digit years, or at least allow date codes with “00” for the year. Luckily, the predicted apocalypse never arrived. Even before that, some early programs forgot to account for leap year, making for unexpected results. Imagine fighting with an HR system that told you your birth date couldn't have been 29 Feb.

However, the granddaddy of calendar kerfuffles was the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. To catch up to the seasons, Pope Gregory ordered the Western world to go from 4 October to 15 October in one day. Much drama ensued from people panicking about what would happen during the missing days. Also, you may blame the Pope's calendar reform for the complicated rules for leap year.

2020 Plans for Books

Unless the Interesting Times Fairy, a cousin to the Calamity Fairy, throws rocks in my newly quiet little pond and sends my ducks in to chaos again, here are my book plans for the year.

Paranormal Romance

The book I just released, Shifter's Storm (Ice Age Shifters Book 5), starts a new mini-story arc that will continue through two more books. Fairy demesnes—fairy fantasylands where the laws of physics are subject to the whim of the fairy who created the little pocket universe—play an important part of the stories.

All my story ideas start with characters, so right now, I know the main characters better than I know what trouble my muse is going to get them into. Series readers will recognize two of the characters from the first four books. I'll let it be a surprise as to which ones. 😸

I have more amorphous future plans for spin-off series with additional books in the Ice Age Shifters world. According to my readers, at least six or eight characters from previous books deserve the spotlight and their chance for a happily-ever after, and I aim to give it to them.

Space Opera

My current main work in progress is Spark Transform, book 5 in my Central Galactic Concordance space opera series. Readers may recall from the final scene in Jumper's Hope that a journalist named Arco found a left-for-dead henchman named Renner in the rubble of a blasted townhouse. Spark Transform is their story, woven into the simmering unrest across the planet and increased attention from the sprawling, conflicted Citizen Protection Service.

Like all my other stories, these start with characters, but there's a big damn story arc going on in this series. My original outline called for six books, but that's already expanded to nine, and that doesn't count the stories (such as Pet Trade and Cats of War) that take place at the same time but aren't part of the big damn story arc. This should keep me off the streets and out of the karaoke bars for several more years.

And because my muse is like a squirrel on caffeine, I have an idea for a whole ‘nother space opera series. So many books to write, so little time. 😜

Special Projects

I've been working on projects I'm dying to tell you about. However, I've been patient this long, so I have to hang on a bit longer. And how's that for annoyingly vague, eh?

In the meantime, I'm in the process of giving readers the option of buying ebooks directly from my website. Well, technically, through PayHip with delivery by BookFunnel. You get the same excellent book and support the author and her cats. Look for the Direct from Author button.

I've also started offering book-related fun stuff, also known as swag. I mean, who wouldn't want a tote bag with the Citizen Protection Service logo or the official seal for the sanctuary town of Kotoyeesinay, WY?

Author in the Wild Plans for 2020

🌎 It's a bit too early for buying tickets or tables, but I definitely plan to present at the Fort Collins Comic Con in August and share a table with my author pal Melisse Aires. I'm hoping to present at Denver Pop Culture Con (formerly the Denver Comic Con), and I'm looking at attending a Florida book convention in June. ✈

Cats

Our cats' plans usually center around suckering humans into feeding them twice (“no one has fed us for DAYS!”). Then there's occupying the warm parts of sitting or sleeping humans, a.k.a., heated cat furniture.

The cats still insist that all stories are vastly improved by the presence of felines, and I've succumbed to their desires in about half my books. Therefore, space opera cats appear in Last Ship Off Polaris-G, Jumper's Hope, and Pet Trade, and are the stars of Cats of War. Paranormal romance felines appear in Shifter Mate Magic (as villains who deserve what they get), Shift of Destiny, and Heart of a Dire Wolf.

Personal Plans for 2020

If certain above-mentioned fairies stay far away, the black hole under my house, a.k.a., the basement, might get a whole new look. This will temporarily bump my office into the corner of the spare bedroom, and move the resident mad scientist's lair right next to the kitchen, a.k.a., his laboratory. Considering a simple bathroom remodel took six weeks, I am resigned to 4+ months in spare-bedroom limbo with a grumbly mad scientist and equally disgruntled cats to mollify for the duration.