Category: WIP (Page 3 of 16)

Ebook Redistribution and Author Updates

February 28, 2022 / Katie L. Carroll

Quick announcement about ebook availability. I’m redoing how I distribute some of my ebooks, so there’s a chance those titles won’t be available on some retailers for a limited time. I am now selling all my ebooks directly on my Purchase Books page, where you can also order signed paperbacks, and none of those listings will be affected. The Amazon listings also shouldn’t be affected, so you can find them there as well.

Is it just me or is this year quickly flying by in a big ball of stress? Let me be honest on here for a second (I’m always pretty honest here), I have felt very stressed out this year. The world is feeling ugly and I’m constantly worried about keeping my family healthy, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one feeling this way. It makes it hard to focus, so I keep telling myself writing books for young people is always important–maybe even more so in trying times.

So I’ve been doing my best to take the moments I have for work and keep my head down to make the most of them. Still, I’ve hardly written anything new this year. I have so many solid ideas waiting in the wings. Lots of projects in the works, though. One of these weeks, I’m going to dig into revisions of that NaNoWriMo book of mine, the young adult Hamlet-inspired tale of a teen mourning the loss of her sister. Here’s a little mood board I put together for it.

The illustrations for my upcoming picture book MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS are coming along. Soon I’ll be able to share some of what the very talented illustrator Phoebe Cho has been working on for that book. I’m also working on fun marketing and release details for the October publish date.

Events for 2022 are coming along as well. I have a few writing workshops lined up to teach, and I’m hoping to have some in-person books events and festivals lined up for when the weather warms up. I recently did a virtual author visit for my son’s 5th-grade class, and they wrote me the sweetest thank-you letters, many of them sharing the story ideas they came up during the guided writing exercise I did with them.

Believe it or not, I’m making publishing plans for 2023 already. I have one other book that might come out this year and even more planned for next year. So I guess it’s okay that I haven’t been writing much. I’m working…in between sick days and snow days and stressing out about war. Also taking a moment to appreciate how lucky I am…always important to practice gratitude.

What’s on your mind lately? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Exciting News About Mommy’s Night Before Christmas

December 23, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

October 2022 Update: If you this poem, check out the newly revised and illustrated picture book MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Katie L. Carroll and illustrated by Phoebe Cho.

Available now from Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Kobo, and more! Find signed copies on the Purchase Books page.

This is normally the week where I share “Mommy’s Night Before Christmas,” my parody of Clement C. Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Unfortunately I’m not doing that this year because I’ve done a slight revision in anticipation of it becoming a picture book! (Don’t worry, you can still enjoy the old version here.)

I’m currently working with an illustrator for a fall 2022 release. So keep an eye out for more news on this!

In the meantime, I want to wish all of you a peaceful rest of the holiday season. I know there’s a lot that makes this time of year stressful, especially these last couple of years, so it is my wish for you all to find the calm in the storm whenever you can. Health and happiness in the New Year!

The Magic of a Highlights Foundation Writing Retreat

November 29, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

Quick reminder that there are just a couple of days left to get 10% my entire catalogue of books using code NOVEMBER10. Just go to the Purchase Books page and I’ll ship them directly to you. All books are signed with an option to personalize, and all purchases come with fun book swag!

For those of you who have been followers of my blog for awhile, you may remember the last time I went to the Highlights Foundation or a writing retreat and wrote “Highlights Foundation Unworkshop: A Little Creepy, A Lot Productive.” My writing friend Katlyn Duncan and I enjoyed it so much, we scheduled one for the following fall.

Then COVID happened and we had to put the trip on hold, but we finally made back early this month! And it was amazing!!! Yes, amazing with three exclamation points.

With this retreat scheduled for early November and me just starting a draft of my latest young adult novel, all the stars aligned for me to attempt National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo (for short) occurs in November and a bunch of writers attempt to draft a book (i.e. write 50,000 words) in 30 days. It’s an intense experience, and one I was not in a position to attempt in recent years.

This year, I stayed in Cooper’s Cottage, which was a bright and airy cabin full of Floyd Cooper’s illustrations and with a view of the hiking path. It was not haunted, though one of the other writers I was on the retreat with stayed in my old cabin, and (spoiler alert) that one is still haunted. I actually didn’t write much in my cabin because I was retreating with three other writers this year and we mostly wrote in common spaces or in one of the other cabins (but not the haunted one!).

As I said, it was an amazing trip, and I highly recommend a Highlights retreat for all of you creative types. I wrote a ton of words and set myself up for successfully completing my NaNoWriMo challenge (as of November 28 when I’m writing this, I’m at 47, 250 words for the month and on track to finish on time). There’s much to be said of having everything taken care of for you so you have the brain space to only think of writing.

As a teaser for what I’m working on, I composed this poem in the Highlights word garden. As you can see, it’s kind of an intense story, but I’m really pleased with how it’s coming out. Though there will be a ton of revisions to come.

dark and light
scream within
the storm
Katie L. Carroll

My retreat mates are all vloggers, so you can check out their videos about the experience below. I kind of hate making videos myself, so I’ll be sticking to this old blog for now.

Stuck In The Writing In-Between

April 22, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

I’m currently in between big writing projects, and I’m having trouble getting out of that space. Some of that is because there are things currently out of my control in regards to what happens next in my writing career, so it’s hard to look too far in the future. Which makes it hard to commit to anything big right now–mainly on deciding what novel I want to write next.

I did have a sort of break planned where I was going to read and catch up on some non-writerly stuff…and wait and see where my muse takes me next. I’ve definitely done this, and worked on some smaller projects in the meantime. All those small projects have turned out to be on the quirky side, so I’m not really sure what to do with them.

It’s not that I don’t have novel ideas (I literally have notebooks of ideas stashed away); it’s more that I can’t quite seem to figure out what one is calling to me the loudest. There’s also the consideration about what makes sense to work on next as far as my career goes, and that brings me back to having to wait to see where those things out of my control shake out.

The waiting is part of the business of writing. I’m growing impatient with the waiting, though. My fingers are itching to get to work. My dreams (like the sleeping kind, not goals and aspirations) have gotten even weirder than those small projects I’ve been working on, which is a sure sign that my brain is getting antsy to work on a big project.

I thought maybe writing this post out would help me have some insight into what to do next. But here I’ve reached the end and I still don’t know what to do.

Taking the Time to Play with Writing

February 11, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

Last year, after I got my YA fantasy ELIXIR SAVED finalized and up for preorder, the goal was to take a break. Not that I wasn’t going to write, more that anything I wrote would be without a plan.

I had started my witchy middle grade back in October 2019 when I did an Unworkshop at the Highlights Foundation, but I didn’t want to dive back into that one yet. I wanted to play around and not focus on a big project like a novel, and I wanted time to refill my creative well with reading, watching, and listening to music.

That was the plan at the beginning of the year, and I got ELIXIR SAVED ready in early March just before schools shut down. And, well, you all know what we’ve all been dealing with ever since. By the time I figured out how to fit in writing time again with early morning sessions (which didn’t happen until June!), I needed to have a plan instead of play, so I opted to work on the witchy middle grade.

Then I also got the rights to the illustrations for my picture book THE BEDTIME KNIGHT, so that became my play project as I taught myself to design a picture book. And now THE BEDTIME KINGHT is a real book out in the world and my middle grade is off to critique partners!

So I am truly ready for that writing “break” I meant to take (*checks notes*) almost a year ago. I have some STEM topics I’ll be exploring and I’ll be playing around with book formats I haven’t written before. Eventually I’ll be getting back to my witchy middle grade, and then I’ll have to decide what novel I’m writing next, but it’s all play for now for me. I’m really looking forward to it.

What kind of play or work (writing or non-writing related) have you all been up to?