This post started off as a cover reveal for the second Warlords of Zephyria novel, The Alien Warlord's Captive Mate. It's still a cover reveal (you can see the full cover below), but I thought readers might benefit from a discussion as to why it's not the next book I'm tackling.

Let's start with a recap of 2025's publications and an announcement.

In February, I published The Alien Warlord's Surprise Mate, a prequel novella to the Warlords of Zephyria Series. The following month, I published Sweet Surrender, the long-awaited sequel to my first Science Fiction Romance novel.

I had originally planned on publishing my next novel, The Alien Warlord's Fated Mate (Warlords of Zephyria, Book 1), at the end of May. However, I finished it early and decided not to wait. Fated Mate will be released in a few days, on April 29th.

In summary, I've published (or will shortly have published) one story each month over the past three months.

I've already done a cover reveal for the next story on my writing schedule, How to Date an Alien at Christmas. But the next project on my schedule after that one is something entirely different. Captive Mate is the third book on my schedule. Why?

Burnout Recovery

The answer is both simple and complex: I'm trying to recover from burnout.

I'm not going to go into what caused burnout again, as I've done that plenty in other places. The big lesson I learned is that in order to sustain my creative energy, I need to do what works for me.

And what works for me is juggling different stories across different story worlds.

The other thing that works for me? Focusing on stories that deeply interest me.

2025 is my year to do both: I've gone back to stories and story worlds that I find exciting and interesting, and I'm juggling multiple projects at once.

The result is, as you can see, a remarkable increase in productivity. In 2024, I published a novella and a short novel, and finished two short stories. I've already topped that output this year, just by making two small changes in the way I approach writing.

A Book a Month?

For readers, the salient point is twofold: I am not writing a full book each month and I don't foresee publishing a book each month until the end of time, or even through the end of this year.

It takes at least two to three months for me to write a full-length novel. I know people who can do it in a month, but that's not me. I cannot focus on one project at a time to the exclusion of all the other ideas popping into my head.

To maintain a high creative energy (which is crucial for any writer), I need a break. I need time to puzzle the story out. Juggling stories (developing and writing more than one story at a time) allows me to feed my creativity, maintain creative momentum, and make good progress on more than one story at once. When one story grinds to a halt, I can put it on the backburner and let it simmer while I work on something else. It doesn't take long for the simmering story to cook, i.e. for a way around the blockage to step forward.

From the outside, my system looks chaotic, and that's fine. What other people see isn't as important as my getting the work done so readers have a more consistent flow of new stories coming their way.

Writing and Publication Schedules

Another crucial aspect of burnout recovery is keeping my schedule flexible.

That's one big reason why I've stopped doing long preorders and instead am going back to my original system of publishing a book when it's finished.

It's why I'm trying not to talk about stories until they've reached a certain point in their development and writing and why I'm no longer promising additional books in a series until I absolutely, positively know that I can deliver them.

And it's why the next book on my schedule isn't another Warlords of Zephyria story, even though I've already started developing and writing Book 2. (And have a plan for finishing it.)

I know this instills a certain amount of uncertainty in readers. Just know that I'm doing everything I can to get back to a point where my writing flows as easily as it did when I first jumped into writing fiction in 2013.

And know also that for the first time in years, I'm enjoying the process. There's very little anxiety around writing right now. Ideas are starting to crowd into my mind again. I feel so much better about sitting down to write every day, which makes it a lot easier to write, and that means more stories for you. That's a win-win no matter how you look at it.

What's Next?

I'm experimenting with systematizing my schedule to a certain point, so that the next three books on my schedule each get a certain amount of focus during a particular month (while also allowing enough time for side projects). I don't know if that experiment will prove successful, or if I'll need to tweak how I approach stories. As long as I'm continuing to make good progress without burning out, I'll do whatever works.

Just to set your mind at ease, How to Date an Alien at Christmas really is my current focus. I don't have a set publication date for it (a date I'm aiming for), but I'd like to have it finished in time for this coming Christmas holiday season, or possibly in time to celebrate Christmas in July. That depends on how May's writing goes. If another story pulls harder at me, I may shuffle this one to a lower priority position. It just depends.

Regardless, my current goal, aside from enjoying writing again, is to publish a full-length novel every one to three months for the next two to three years, while also trying very, very hard to allow no more than three to four months to lapse between releases within a series. It's likely that I'll rotate between series in this way, or find another way to accommodate the stories I'd like to write and the ones readers would like to read.

For more news on upcoming releases, keep an eye out here, on my blog, on the blog's sidebar, and in my newsletter.

And now, the cover reveal for The Alien Warlord's Captive Mate. Enjoy!