Apologies & Next Chapter

My sincerest apologies. I know that I have been promising the next chapter in my ongoing Trouble Texas Style series for a few days. Since it was already written that should have been easy. But first it was website updates, then yesterday we had our first visit from friends since in five months. And as much as I love ya’ll, one thing I promised myself was that writing would not come before Alan or @PanKwake.

And when you are a fourteen-year-old, extroverted, #ActuallyAutistic person who has spent almost five months in Covid jail having your best friend visit is a huge deal. The girls had a blast while I caught up with my friend as well. It was ten by the time they left. And editing does not work well when you are tired.

So, I promised myself…first thing this morning. And I delivered.

Chapter 12 – Losing Is Not An Option in Love in the First Degree is now live Here.

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Now that that is out of the way…

Where do we stand?

Both Tight Fittin’ Jeans and Love in The First Degree are current up to this point. All old chapters have been edited and posted to their page.

I am happy with the look and feel of the website (unless some of you tell me different in comments or via email), except for books.

So, I have less than ten chapters in Goodbye Earl and Ready to Run to edit and post.

Then, I want to begin on edits for the prequel to this series. It was called Night Walker’s Woman on Lit. But half-way through the series, I learned the proper Native American term was skinwalker. For that reason alone, it would need a new title. But I also want to remain consistent with the country music song titles. I am leaning towards Feel My Love after Garth Brooks’ ‘To Make You Feel My Love.’

I can’t imagine any words more accurately capturing how Rex feels about his Nʉ Sʉmʉ.

But that brings me back to the issue of the Books page. I have been posting my finished works as a single PDF file. But feedback from ya’ll says that PDFs don’t load that well on phones and tablets. I can, of course, make pages for the books and post individual chapters – just as I have for the Trouble Texas Style.

The question is mobi and epub files. Do ya’ll need those?

Amazon is not an option. It does not allow me to give PDFs away free here and charge for the books on it. I could run them through a converter. But that never comes out clean. Have ya’ll figured out yet that I’m a perfectionist? I could get someone to do it, but that costs. So, I would need to charge for them. The easiest is to use a booksite called Draft to Digital. But again that means I would have to charge.

Not that I have a problem with that part. I am making them available online and as a PDF. So, I don’t feel too guilty about charging for the privilege of having those formats. And I would keep them reasonable anyway. Probably around 99 cents.

But that takes time. Time away from writing and editing. So, I want to know from ya’ll…

Is it worth it?

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Oh, and another housekeeping item…

Someone mentioned not knowing what order to read them in…

I have been trying to figure out the best way of doing that myself. They already have chapter numbers so I don’t want to get confusing. I am thinking instead of putting time stamps on the chapters. So, Something like this…

(Week 1, Sunday, 9 a.m. East Texas)

That way, if you wanted to read them chronologically instead of as individual stories, you could. Does that make sense? Would that work?

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Okay, now back to the real work of writing and editing. I hope to have those final chapters in Ready to Run and Goodbye Earl finished tomorrow. And I am almost half way through writing the next chapter, but I keep getting distracted with edits and housekeeping. Fingers crossed for Sunday. Then moving forward…two to three chapters per week.

I should finish these stories by the end of this year, if not sooner. If you have not guessed there are more to come…including poor Jack. And a few other of your favorite minor characters in this series.

But if I don’t get off here and go write, none of that will ever happen.

Thank you all for your support and kind words. This is all a huge experiment and learning curve for me. And that support means a lot. I am honestly overwhelmed by it.

Goddess bless,
Tara