What have I been up to?

Teresa Edgerton

Goblin Princess
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I'm feeling a bit like with that thread title there should be a "Yes, what have you been up to, young lady!" But (setting aside my grey hairs) I am about to answer that question at length.

Obviously I haven’t been posting much around the Chronicles for a while, and frankly there has not been much happening in my personal and writing life either—until just recently.

Yes, I'm still struggling with depression (boring subject—not depression in general, but my particular variety—so won't go into it) but I’ve now pulled myself together enough to get started on a few projects. When they are completed and available, I’ll post about them in Press Releases, but for now a progress report and a request for input on a few items.


Books:
Gary is in the process of returning the rights to Goblin Moon and Hobgoblin Night back over to me. Not sure when that will be, because he is also in the process of helping me get those two books out as Audio books through Audible. We’ve found a narrator we really like and are negotiating with her, but the production process can be lengthy, so the first book will probably not be out until early summer. Will keep folks up to date if that changes.

I am also revising a couple of short stories that appeared in anthologies several years ago. I hope to self-publish them sometime in the next few months. (And yes, I am still working on the third Rune of Unmaking book some of the time, but I thought working on and completing a shorter piece of writing, and moreover one that is largely already written, might give me a much-needed boost.)

Which brings me to my first question, which some of you may be kind enough to answer. I have the rights back to most of my short fiction, and all the Celydonn books. (HC seems determined to hold on to TQN and the Madeline Howard books for the time being.) So do you think that I would be best advised to focus on self-publishing my old short fiction, or to bring out a new edition of the long-out-of-print Green Lion trilogy? (For those who don’t know, it’s a sort of halfway-between-adult-and-YA high fantasy with alchemical and mythological roots. They were my first published books, and so are very dear to me, and many people have written to me over the years telling me how much those books meant to them. But though I could possibly do well with them if promoting them as YA, they might be considered a bit old-fashioned for modern readers.) The trilogy is in a very different vein from Goblin Moon and Hobgoblin Night, so would not be competing with them.


Facebook:
Meanwhile, I’ve been improving my second Facebook page, the one devoted to my books, which had been sitting pretty much idle for a long time. I am giving it a new look and making it into a sort of online cabinet of curiosities in the 17th and 18th century style, interspersed, of course, with writing news when I have it. So I’ve been posting links to videos and articles about automatons, orreries, clocks, and other period artifacts that I think people will enjoy looking at. (If you visit the page https://www.facebook.com/Teresa-Edgerton-216405445092241/ be sure to take a look at the video of the amazing desk.) Which brings me to another request for input: If anyone knows of any other videos along the same lines, please point me in their direction! All this, of course, is to create an atmosphere in keeping with Goblin Moon, Hobgoblin Night, and the unrelated world, but still in the baroque style, of The Queen’s Necklace.


Tarot Cards:
For quite some time I have sporadically been working on a Tarot deck based on the world and characters of GM and HN. These are for my own amusement and not for sale, but I thought readers (present and future) of the books might find them interesting to look at and read about, so I have started posting them, a couple at a time, on the Facebook page mentioned above. So far I have posted two, but there will be more in the coming weeks. In fact, by the time you read this, I may have posted a couple more, as I intend to do so this Monday or Tuesday. I may post the cards here, too, if there is interest.

Editing:

Yes, I am still doing freelance editing when something comes my way. Last autumn I was working with someone very important to the Chrons on a science fiction trilogy, and I look forward to the day (soon I hope) when he announces he is about to publish it.
 
I'm delighted to see you're getting back into the writing groove, Teresa. Good luck with all the ventures.

I'd certainly be interested in looking at the Green Lion books from the detail you give of them. I'm not overfond of YA, but I am old-fashioned, so I figure they might still chime with me!

I've never got into tarot, but I'm always up for reading about something esoteric and arcane, but I'm not on Facebook, so if you were able to post the tarots here, that would be great.
 
Oh, I don't mind interrupting the flow in that thread to discuss the cards. It's a long term project, and there will be dead periods between posting new ones, so if people want to discuss how I created them and what inspired some of the designs, I'd enjoy that. Some of the photography that we did, when we couldn't find what we wanted with stock photos, was rather an adventure. And then, I had to adapt what I was doing to my meager photoshopping skills, which was a challenge. But it was also creative and fun.
 
Very true. But I wasn't thinking of short story collections, actually, although the first two—because they are related to each other—would be published as one volume. I was thinking of selling most of the short stories separately for about 99 cents each. I see a lot of people doing that. I don't know if it is successful or not. But it seems like a way to get the stories back into print, and there don't seem to be many anthologies that will take reprints, and those that do I am pretty sure are invitation only. Ultimately, I'd like to see everything—short fiction, novels— back in print, it's just a matter of what to do first.
 
Now that the Kindle editions of GM and HN have been transferred back to me, you can find them for half-price on Amazon US and Amazon UK. (The URLs are in the thread I just started in Press Releases.)

In other news, this morning I had the pleasure of hearing the first 15 minutes for the audio book of Goblin Moon. I think that Elizabeth, the narrator, is really doing an excellent job.
 
Lots going on. The audio book of Goblin Moon is about a quarter done. Gary and I have been talking about covers for The Green Lion Trilogy. (See, I do listen to advice.)

Yesterday was devoted to photographing a new Tarot card (though we spent much longer than that digging up props), and it turned out well. It's inspired by those c.17th century Dutch still lifes on the vanity of worldly things. However, I had planned to do write-ups for and post two other cards this weekend, so I kept to that plan.

On a less pleasant note there have been visits to the doctor. I went to the emergency room with Megan last Sunday and spent the morning there. She was in terrible pain. It's been diagnosed as nothing serious after a CT scan (though they did find a lurking kidney stone which may bode trouble there) but she's still in some pain, and we think another doctor's visit may be in her near future. And I've had a rash for a while, and went to see my doctor on Thursday. The medicine she prescribed is definitely helping.
 
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Teresa sorry about the need for the doctor for you and your daughter. But it sounds like progress is being made. That's always good!
 
I think the time is fast approaching when we can publish the audio book for Goblin Moon, perhaps as early as the end of this month or the beginning of next month.

Also, I am going to have some unexpected time away from home, during which I hope to have the opportunity to work on revising the two short stories I hope to reprint in the late summer or early autumn.
 
Hmm...that's pretty hard to say, really, what I think you should do concerning your IPs, but, I would put the old fiction on hold if I were you. Bring the trilogy back into print, I would say. You're an established author, well long into the field, so there shouldn't be much problem with older readers heading to book shops and picking you up off the shelves. That said, as well, it might not be the same with online self-publishing, as the pool has increased vastly from traditional publishing, and so you would be competing against much more content for attention, though I'm sure fans of yours, such as myself, would love to be able to help support you by buying from either method. (Unfortunately, I'm always broke myself, so, yeah...)

On the other note, TE, very good to see you're trying to get back into things. It's tough to beat through the brick wall, but I'm glad to see you're able to do it enough for yourself. :)
 
Well, I am trying anyway, so that is something, Karn. Sometimes I am busy, like now, and sometimes I haven't the energy to even read a book, and I never know when the down time is likely to hit. So I am trying to catch up and get some things done ahead while I can.
 
And now a bit of what am I about to be up to:

It's a long story which I will spare you, so I'll just say that a crisis has come up for a dear friend in New York (the state, not the city), and so with little time to prepare ahead (so I have been frantically busy the last few days), I will be flying across the continent to stay with her for two or three weeks. She is a very good friend, like a member of the family, but I have only seen her once (and that was a short visit at Thanksgiving when she was very ill and in the hospital) since she moved to New York a decade ago. I hate flying, and she's too ill to do it. This will be my first ever cross-continental flight without someone along for moral support, so I am pretty stressed about that. But I am so happy that I can be there when she needs me, and I did want to go visit her anyway, although I was hoping it would be in the autumn when it is cooler, but this takes precedence. Also, I will have a laptop computer with me, so I can do most of the work I had planned for the summer, plus stay in touch with online friends.

So, a lot of mixed feelings. Thank goodness for tranquilizers for the flight!
 
Sorry to hear about your friend. I hope despite her circumstances you are able to enjoy your time together. Meanwhile, good luck with the flight -- I hope all goes well for you. I always ensure I have a good book to take my mind off things -- a couple of years ago I read Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood which was so engrossing I barely surfaced between take off and landing!
 

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