There are times to power through and times to step back and admit you need to change course.
Reconfiguring our plans is never a fun activity, but changing our expectations of ourselves and the world can be necessary for continuing to thrive artistically as the world throws one curve ball after another into your publishing path.
As mentioned in the episode, you can get your copy of The Girl Without Magic, book one in The Chronicles of Maggie Trent, by visiting https://books2read.com/maggietrent/
There are times to power through and times to step back and admit you need to change course.
Reconfiguring our plans is never a fun activity, but changing our expectations of ourselves and the world can be necessary for continuing to thrive artistically as the world throws one curve ball after another into your publishing path.
As mentioned in the episode, you can get your copy of The Girl Without Magic, book one in The Chronicles of Maggie Trent, by visiting https://books2read.com/maggietrent/
Megan: [00:00:01] I'm not someone who usually deals with writer's block, knock on fake IKEA painted wood shelf. I don't think there's any real wood in there, but we'll count it. It's good. It's good.
Announcement: [00:00:16] Welcome to A Book and A Dream with Megan O'Russell: an author's adventure in writing, reading, and being an epic fangirl.
Megan: [00:00:27] Hello, my name is Megan O'Russell and welcome to Episode 53 of A Book and A Dream. Sometimes, it's better to accept defeat. I know, that sounds awful and unexpected from me, but sometimes it is. I'm not someone who usually deals with writer's block, knock on fake IKEA painted wood shelf. I don't think there's any real wood in there, but we'll count it. It's good. It's good. I don't really do writer's block. If I am ever confused about a story, then a nice long walk through the woods where I come out with my legs aching and probably mud somewhere on my face usually takes care of it.
Megan: [00:01:08] For me, it's just not something that I've ever had to, like, hold up on working on a story because I don't know what to do with my life. Maybe that comes from spending my entire life on stage and in the theater where the show must go on and you push through no matter what. Or maybe that's just not how my brain works. Either way you cut it, I'm just not used to being like, oh, I can't write this. It just won't come to me. It's not a thing that I do. Now is sort of the time when I've had to look at things and be like, hmm, maybe it would be better to just not actually write that right now. And this is really all about Maggie Trent, so The Chronicles of Maggie Trent, book one of which is The Girl Without Magic. I had promised readers that the fourth book in the series would be coming out in late '20 early 2021.
Megan: [00:02:01] And I really thought it was going to happen. And all through this year, I've been like Maggie's book's gonna happen. Maggie's book's gonna happen. And I've had some readers asking like, where's the preordering, where is the book? And I finally had to start admitting that, no, Maggie is not going to have a fourth book in the next little bit of time. And it's not that, you know, I don't love Maggie and I don't love Bertrand or anything dire like that. It's just...I don't have anything to give them right now. Maggie is built around adventure.
Megan: [00:02:36] So, if you haven't read the series yet, book one, The Girl Without Magic, as of December 2020 is currently free on all major ebook retailer platforms. So go check it out. But they're all about jumping through other worlds. So think of it as like Chronicles of Narnia meets Doctor Who. Every book, they travel to a new world. They have this grand adventure, and they travel out of the Siren's Realm. The Siren's Realm itself has bits of Venice in it and beautiful beaches and wonderful tent cities. The fancy kind, not the really sad "we should help poor people more" kind. And all of that is very fanciful, and then in each book, they go to a secondary location. In the first book...it's really based on Thailand, and the second book, there's a lot of Ireland in it in a steampunk kind of way. And the third book, there's a lot of Savannah, Georgia, in a ghostly, soul-eating everyone might die kind of way, but you know what I mean? Like, they're not really set there, but it is all inspired by those locations.
Megan: [00:03:36] And I thought I was going to be able to choose another location for their last book. But then 2020 happened, and there was no travel. There was no chance to go on a grand adventure to find inspiration for a grand adventure for Bertrand and Maggie. If I were to write them a fourth book right now, the options would be like them traveling to the kitchen, then adopting two kittens who turn out to be little demons, which, you know, could be interesting. It could be fun to lock them in a house and be like, now escape. Get out, get out. That could be entertaining, but that's not Maggie and Bertrand's story. They deserve more than that. My readers deserve more than that.
Megan: [00:04:19] And right now, I can't provide that. So, I have made the decision to not meet that deadline that I gave my readers, I'm so sorry, umm, and wait until the world goes back to normal, and adventures outside of your kitchen are possible again so that I can give them the best fourth book that I can write. Umm, and that's not to say that I'm putting off all of my books. I mean, yes, Myth and Storm is in the world of Ilbrea. There is, because it is a Guilds of Ilbrea book, there are lots of different settings. And there's adventure and there's mountains and ice caves and regular caves and sea travel and like all kinds of amazing, fantastical locations.
Megan: [00:05:04] And it's super fun to write. I love writing that, but it...it feels different somehow. Even though there are a lot of fantasy settings, those fantasy settings are different than the way I construct Maggie and Bertrand's settings for them. The world that they visit is like 20 characters' worth of being in the book. It's the same with, you know, the Heart of Smoke series. Book one of that is coming out in January. The books are ready to go. It's, you know, been written during the year that has been 2020. And there has been a lot of worldbuilding in that because it takes place in the same world as Girl of Glass, but from the other end of the spectrum. So twisting everything on its head has taken a lot more worldbuilding than you'd think would go into writing something else in a world that you already wrote. But that's fine. It's fine.
Megan: [00:05:54] So, those things are still happening, and there's still audio coming. And I have another series planned, and there are lots of things going on. But Maggie and Bertrand...to do them justice...are just going to have to wait. In terms of what exciting things I do have coming up, because I swear I am not just giving up on publishing things, like things are happening, just not that. The Siren's Realm audio is now available on all retail platforms, which is amazing. I have a cat trying to destroy things right next to me, which feels so standard for my life because I really did adopt two demons by accident.
Megan: [00:06:28] One of their front legs has stopped growing on one of the kittens. It's great. She has this weird little limp. It's so 2020 I...like, it's perfect. It's so on brand. We're just going to go with it. I do have the Heart of Smoke series, book one is coming out in January. The other books will be rolling out soon after. Myth and Storm is underway. The final book in the Girl of Glass series Audio is going to be out as soon as Audible and ACX release it, which I've been promised by the representatives will be very soon. So there is all sorts of content to explore.
Megan: [00:06:59] And as I said, as of December 2020, the first book in the Maggie Trent series, The Girl Without Magic, is free. There's lots of excitement coming, lots of adventure that does not involve my kitchen or cats, but for now that is going to be on hold. So here's to 2021, where hopefully we will be able to have adventures and travel and do all sorts of wonderful things again. But in the meantime, I am going to leave Maggie and Bertrand hunkered down in the Siren's Realm until it is safe for them to go on adventures again. I'm really sorry if you've been waiting for the fourth book, I know a lot of people are going to be mad about this, but I appreciate you all. Thank you so much for reading.
Megan: [00:07:46] And stay safe. Stay inside, and I will see you next time. Bye bye.