Elizabeth Schechter's Blog

“And so, having disposed of the monster, exit our hero through the front door, stage right….”

If you’re of a certain age, you might recognize that quote from the Bugs Bunny cartoon “Hair-raising Hare.”

Being of a certain age, I tend to trot this line out once I’ve accomplished something that i really didn’t want to do in the first place.

In other news, I was dismissed from jury duty today. Mostly because I told the judge I have a doctor appointment tomorrow that I scheduled months a...

I keep thinking it has to be almost bedtime, but it’s not. It’s not even dark here yet. It’s just about 4:30 PM here, which means that in addition to being a Monday, today is about 40 years long.

Why is today being about 40 years long?

Because this past weekend was three days long. Three days of Maker Faire, where I am apparently a local celebrity. Now, I had no IDEA of this. None. Not until someone came by the table to say hi, and told me that when she’d mentioned seeing me, her adult d...

It used to be that when you finished writing an article, you marked it -30-. Thirty meant done. Complete. Finished. Yesterday, I hit Thirty on Have Yourself a Merry Little Witchmas. Ish. Thirty-ish. It came in WAY over my target words. I was told November 1st and 20,000 words. What I ended up with was 29,413 words on November 2nd. Hey, it’s still a novella!

It’s also been sent off, so we’ll see what we see. I need to flesh out this world now, which is going to be part of my “I’m not really wo...

It’s the end of October, and my brain is starting the process of winding down for the end of the year. Which is a little bit of a problem, because I am two (I think two) chapters from finishing Have Yourself a Merry Little Witchmas, and it’s due in on Friday! No winding down! Must make all the words!

In a fun instance of “This is Liz’s brain on writing…” Witchmas is now set in the same universe as Heart’s Master. Which means that if I stay with writing Camber and Merlina (which I might, becau...

In the past week, I’ve put my entire upcoming schedule into a Pop-o-Matic, which has created great jiggery-pokery in my calendar.

First and foremost, due to circumstances beyond my control, and which involve not owning a time machine and therefore not getting the books in time, my signing at Spellbound has been postponed until December 20th! So come out and pick up signed copies of the Blood of the Raven books. I’ll bring gift wrap. It will be awesome!

Second, remember how last week I men...

“I forgot to turn off the subtitles on my inside voice.” The line that made me giggle for several minutes. I am enjoying this manuscript. These characters are wonderfully snarky, and I’m just having fun. Now, that’s not to say that i don’t enjoy all of my writing. I do. But Merlina and Camber are amusing me all out of proportion, and the hard part is going to be keeping this to the required 20,000 words. I keep telling myself that sequels are a thing.

Which means I need to make a series pla...

The three week run of shows is now over, and I have a little breathing space before my next outing. Time to rest, to resupply, and to get some writing done! And other writing work — page proofs came in today for Ravenflight, and I need to turn these around quickly. I also need to get some words done on Have Yourself a Merry Little Witchmas, because that deadline is creeping up on me. Assuming I can keep from having a million little things pop up that keep me from writing and editing, I’ll get th...

Past Me was insane. That’s all there is to it. To schedule three shows in three weeks? Bonkers. Two down, one to go. We got home from Necronomicon Tampa last night, and we have four days to reset before we reload the car for the Page and Pen Festival at the Oviedo Mall.

In the meantime, I’ve spent the day getting my end of quarter admin work done. Q3 taxes are in, and the kanban board is reset for Q4.

How the heck is it Q4 already?

The most brain-draining thing I have to do this we...

Smut Lovers Conference was amazingly fun. How much fun? Enough to say let’s do it again! We’ll be back for 2026!

I think this might be the furthest out I’ve ever scheduled an event.

I am… so incredibly fuzzy today. More than just the usual “It’s Monday and I had PT this morning” fuzziness. I’m still recovering from Smut Lovers and that incredible signing. I have never felt so appreciated as an author than I did at Smut Lovers — I had readers saying “Thank you for writing these books! H...

It’s Monday the 15th. Countdown to Smut Lovers. 3… 2… 1…

I’m mostly ready. The books are packed. The scooter is ready to load. I got my hair trimmed today and I’m doing my color tomorrow (my hair will be purple when you see me at Smut Lovers.) I still have to pick an outfit for my headshot appointment and for the signing, and I might stop and see about buying shoes tomorrow, if I have time.

Yes, that headshot will soon be going away. I forget who it was who said that if you keep writi...