Writing update and last push to the end of the year! #amwriting

Posted on December 12, 2025 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

So November passed in the blink of an eye and we’re almost halfway through December as well!

Book 4

My plans to finish book 4 in the Mermaid Hotel series have fallen behind – it’s currently sitting at 53K. It’s going well and I could still finish it by the end of the year, but it will be a tough challenge! I’m trying to make it a well developed first draft, which takes longer than just churning out the scenes, though as Christmas approaches I may have to rethink how I do this.

Will I hit the 75k word count that the other books are averaging? From experience, the first draft is usually shorter and increases as I edit. 75k will be my end goal for next year when I have a polished, edited version.

Other writing

I’ve started working on the first prequel in The Mermaid Hotel series which starts during the run up to Christmas and ends the following Christmas. I’d love to get this ready to publish later in 2026.

Winter Warmers Series – I haven’t found the time to really get planning on book 3 in the series but I’m challenging myself to write one story a month starting in January. I would aim to get it finished by August, which would be 8 stories just like the other books.

Throughout December I’ve been enjoying taking part in the Advent Calendar Story Train, both sharing ‘A Squirrel’s Tale’ on 8th December and reading everyone else’s stories. Ari is keeping a list on her blog of each story as it goes live. Here is her link if you’ve missed it – 2025 Advent Calendar Story Train.

I can’t resist sharing Sammy AKA Scruffy’s picture one last time because he’s so sweet…

Audiobook news

The start of two book tours starts tomorrow with a ‘One Day Blitz’ hosted by Rachel’s Random Resourses. I can’t wait to get sharing the reviews on various social platforms and I’ll share a few updates here as well.

The from 17th December I have a week long tour with Love Book Tours. Again, it will be wonderful to share these reviews and see how the reviewers found Colette’s narrating style. I feel she has a very calming and relaxed voice, perfect to help you unwind after a hard day’s Christmas shopping.

Publishing decisions and marketing

I haven’t made any progress on my newsletter dilemma and really need to start marketing rather than just talking about it here! I also need to make some decisions on the covers for the series and set a publication date.

I feel like January will be a big month for making decisions, that’s why I really wanted to have book 4 in decent shape by 31/12/2025.

Reading

I’m close to reaching my Goodreads goal which is only a lowly 19 books this year. I’m on book 17, so again it’s going to be close. At least I caught up with my Netgalley reviews and have banned myself from looking on there for the rest of the year.

Everything else

Work and family each have their challenges but with only a week left before breaking up from college / work, I think I can make it!

I’m hoping to start the holidays fit and healthy as last year was ruined with a bad, lingering cold that meant I could barely taste the Christmas dinner I slaved over, or the many chocolates I scoffed.

That’s about it in my world, I’ll be back with some review highlights of the audiobook blitz for A Little Christmas Magic over the weekend.

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October wrap up and plans for November #amwriting #indieauthor

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

Ok, so I realise my October wrap up is slightly later than planned, but I’m quite proud of what I achieved, so I wanted to share it.

First, the big news:

I’ve just agreed the audiobook for A Little Christmas Magic, and it’s now with ACX for their quality checks before they release it for sale. Colette Davies-Kerwin has done an amazing job bringing the stories to life, and I can’t wait to share the audiobook with everyone. To help with this, I’ve set up two audiobook blog tours in December, so will share more info on those when I can.

I made changes and sent Book 2 in the Mermaid Hotel Series out for its second round of critique feedback. Cristal is a very thorough reader and really challenges me to make the story better, so I’m looking forward to working through her suggestions as they come in. I’ve also entered the first chapter into a competition and have everything crossed that it gets to the shortlist stage.

I finished the latest draft of Book 3 in my Mermaid Hotel Series and sent it to two of my beta readers – we meet next week to discuss their thoughts on the last chapters. I hope they like it!

The story for the Advent Calendar story train is complete, and the post will publish on 8th December. It’s called ‘A Squirrel’s Tale’ and is a little different from my usual stories, so I’m looking forward to sharing that.

Plans for the rest of the year…

November is all about Book 4 and trying to finish the first draft by the end of the year. I’ve been reading through the story so far and trying to make a brief plan of what comes next. I’m aiming for around 1k words a day. If I manage this over November and December, I should reach an end word count of 75k. It would be great to start working on the finished novel over the Christmas break, as it will need a lot of editing!

I also need to start marketing my Mermaid Hotel Series and decide on things like my newsletter – do I try going with a different provider and use a new name? I don’t like Mail Chimp, so it seems like the perfect time to start afresh. If you have any newsletter recommendations, please let me know.

I still need to share my reviews of NetGalley books. I should get onto that ASAP as these were summer books, and now I have several Christmas ones to read and review as well.

I’ve also purchased the new Authorpreneur Academy course from Dave Chesson. I need to work through the modules and get familiar with self publishing again. If I want to make a big splash next year, all the preparation work I do now will hopefully help The Mermaid Hotel Series take off.

That’s enough from me. I’ll be back soon with those book reviews and details on the audiobook tours for A Little Christmas Magic.

Author update. Audiobook news! #amwriting

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

Ok, so it’s already been a few weeks since my last post, which means I’ve fallen behind on the promise to blog more often. But I am working my way through the other items on my to do list for the last 100 days of 2025, and I also have a great new development to report.

Firstly, September’s challenge – Complete the draft of book 2 in The Mermaid Hotel Series.

I completed this a little late, but sent the book off to my beta reader last week. A win!

October:

Complete the draft of book 3 in The Mermaid Hotel Series. I’m getting on really well with this and have got the word count up to 72.5K. I still have about 60 pages to edit and develop, so I’m hoping to get that up to about 76k by the end of October.

I treated myself to a mini writing retreat and booked into a local hotel, where I wrote in my room until midnight without distraction. In fact, I only stopped to go to the curry house attached to the hotel for dinner. As well as getting lots of words done, it also gave me an appreciation of how the characters in my books might feel booking into a hotel as a solo traveller and dining alone. I also saw firsthand how much of a struggle in must be for the hotel industry to keep afloat with few guests – all invaluable experience for the crafting of my new series set in a Cornish hotel.

I would recommend any writer take a similar retreat to focus and recharge, especially if you have a busy home-life.

I still need to write a story for the Advent Calender Story Train and the deadline is looming, plus a Halloween themed story for the library writing group I attend.

The rest of October will be a busy one, especially now I have made an offer to a narrator to perform A Little Christmas Magic – I will keep you updated on the progress.

I still have lots of words to write today and stories to draft. I hope to be back with some late book reviews on my Netgalley reads and hopefully news on the book covers for my Mermaid Hotel Series.

Lastly, I finally got a new laptop! My old one has had a broken ‘down’ button for the last 2-years and the screen had bubbles and was leaking at the edges. Thanks to the recent Amazon Prime day deal, I’m typing this on my lovely new blue Lenovo IdeaPad. So far I’m very happy with it, though the battery life could be a little better.

Until next time…

I’m back! And why I’ve been MIA #indieauthor #romanceauthor

Posted on September 22, 2025 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

It has been almost 10 months since I last posted on my blog, I don’t know how that happened. I also can’t believe we’re almost into October.

Last time I posted about the successes of 2024. I would usually have shared plans for 2025, but somehow didn’t get around to it. I will do a post in the coming days about my plans for the last 100 days of the year – inspired by a online event I will be attending run by London Writers’ Salon on 23rd September.

First on my list will be to blog more!

So, the reason I’ve been MIA is beacuse I’ve been deep in a romance hole, writing the books in my Mermaid Hotel series. I can’t wait to share more details of this over the next few months, but for now I will just say that I plan to start releasing them in 2026.

As I’ve been working on my romance ideas, I’ve been questioning whether I should start a new blog and have a new domain name rather than “Suzanne Rogerson Fantasy Author”.

Fantasy will always be something I come back to, and I class it as my first love, but over the last few years I’ve really loved writing romance and Christmas feel-good stories. I’ve also enjoyed building this blog up and connecting with so many writers and readers over the years, and I wouldn’t want to lose touch by starting out again.

What would you do? Would you carry on with a blog that you’ve established over the past ten years, or start again with a new genre and new direction?

This is just a short post to ease myself in and say hi. I hope to be sharing lots of news and insights into my new series and life as an indie author very soon.

How has the year been treating you? Do you have the rest of 2025 mapped out?

Until next time…

2024 Year in Review – writing successes

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

It has become a ritual to look back at the year and check in on my achievements.

It doesn’t feel as if much happened in 2024 as I didn’t meet many of the goals for the year that I set rather optimistically in 2023. However, plenty of other things did happen, so it’s important to focus on the positive.

Writing

I published a new short story collection called A Little Christmas Magic on 28th November 2024.

I also made the decision to make a series of Christmas stories – Winter Warmers. This now includes my previous Christmas collection – A Christmas Wish.

Both books had a book tour on Instagram in December which I enjoyed immensely. There’s nothing better than seeing what reviewers think of the heart-warming stories I’ve created. And it was great to be able to share so many review snippets and posts on Instagram throughout the month. Both were run by Love Books Tours and went very smoothly. Highly recommended service if you are wanting a book tour next year.

Aside from writing, I attended several writing events in 2024. There was a weekend event just outside of Stratford Upon Avon hosted by Alison May and Janet Gover. A whole weekend of food, writing workshops and talking writing with fellow writers. Plus some excellent 1-2-1’s that helped me move my ideas forward. I would recommend both Janet and Alison for the services they offer to writers, and they also run the Debut Author Club together.

The Romantic Novelist Association conference was held 10 minutes for my home at The Royal Holloway College, so I couldn’t resist attending the whole weekend event. At times I found it a struggle socially as I didn’t know anyone, but it was a wonderful opportunity to mix with both aspiring and published writers. The workshops were great as well.

I kept up with my monthly writing sessions at my local library, and attended several author events in libraries and Waterstones.

The not so successful side of 2024….

Fantasy genre

I made the decision to park my new fantasy series Starlight Prophecy for a while. I need to go back to the planning stage and really get to know the world and the history before I commit to working on the half completed trilogy.

I also toyed with the idea of writing a collection of short stories in the world of my Silent Sea Chronicles, but I think it’s a hard one to pull off. I want to provide extra content for readers who’ve enjoyed the series and also entice new readers without giving too much of the various storylines away. Maybe I will revisit this idea in 2025.

Romance genre

I’ve made great headway with The Mermaid Hotel Series (news I will share in a New Year’s post). However, 2024 has seen a lot of work editing and re-editing the story, reshaping major points of the character arcs etc. I’m almost happy with the way it is now, so I’ll share more about that very soon.

Reading

I met my Goodreads goal of 24 books. That seems like a sensible amount, though of course I’d love the time to read more. I did not however get around to reviewing many books, which I am not pleased about. I enjoying reviewing books on my blog and see it as a way to score some good karma points! Hopefully people will review my books more in 2025. Fingers crossed!

I would love to put a post together celebrating my favourite reads of 2024, but will have to see if time allows.

Other

I love the little graphic I made to show off my books. It will need to be changed soon because it is very festive, but I will enjoy it for now.

And that is about it for 2024. It’s had its ups and downs, but I’m confident 2025 will be a bigger and better year!

Happy New Year everyone.

Stay safe and have fun!

Competition win for Secrets and Love Songs at The Mermaid Hotel

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

I’m really excited to share the news that I came second in The Flash 500 Novel opening 2023 competition. The winners were announced this afternoon and I’m still buzzing.

Here’s what the judges from Headline Publishing had to say…

‘There is much to admire in this submission and it is a thoroughly deserving runner-up. We found it hugely readable and, in the end, there wasn’t much between this and the winner. We found ourselves immediately drawn in by the author’s characterisations, which seemed considered, believable and satisfyingly complex…’

You can read the full comments and learn more about the competition here Flash 500 Novel Opening competition.

It’s a wonderful feeling to reach the final and be placed second in this competition. The book is a special one for me as writing it helped me through those long months of lockdown. I’ve spent the last few years editing it and planning a series around the original story.

Secrets and Love Songs at The Mermaid Hotel will be published in 2024. I still haven’t decided whether that will be with me self publishing it, or through a publisher. Keep following my blog for updates.

I hope to post next week with a 2023 writing and reading annual wrap up, and my plans for 2024.

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Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic fantasy, heart-warming romance and short stories. You can follow me on;

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NaNoWinner2023 I made it!

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

I reached the deadline a day early!

Here is my very cute certificate. I shall have to print it out and admire it on the noticeboard above my desk.

I’ve taken the day off today to watch a few live masterclasses with the publisher Canelo via Iaminprint. It was an informative morning, but now I must get back to work.

My next task is to submit book 1 in The Mermaid Hotel Series to publishers. I have my short list and will hopefully work through it this afternoon.

Then, on my long weekend away I will be picking up where I left on on book 3 and will hopefully get close to completing the first draft. It’s exciting to get it down on the computer where the real editing and shaping can begin.

Roll on 2024 – The year of The Mermaid Hotel Series!

How did you get on with the challenge?

It’s not all about hitting the big numbers, but about giving yourself permission to write. I wish we could do that every month.

Until next time…

Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic fantasy, heart-warming romance and short stories

You can follow me on

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You can also join my Newsletter for writing updates and news of promotions.

Mini NaNoWriMo update and competition news

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

It’s Sunday 26th and I’m feeling pretty good to have reached the 45k mark on book three in my Mermaid Hotel series.

Here’s a graphic of my progress. It’s been fun to keep track in this way and I think I will continue to use it for future books. It’s a little grubby as Daisy, my cocker spaniel, jumped on my work with muddy paws. Still, you can’t have a dog without a bit of mess and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

I’ve also had some good news over the weekend about book one reaching the long list in a competition. I’m really happy with that, but obviously I’m hoping it will go a lot further.

Book 2 is still at the same state. I haven’t even opened the folder of notes and edits to do. I’m really getting excited about it though. Hopefully in a week or two I’ll be in a position to start working on it.

Before that I have Nano to complete. I’m really hoping the draft of book 3 will be completed in just over a week. I’m going on a sort of writing retreat straight after November where I plan to write during the day and listen to music / entertainment in the evening. All meals are cooked for me and I won’t have any chores to worry about. Bliss!

I’m looking for inspiration for some short stories while I’m away as well as working on finishing book three.

On a different note, A Christmas Wish has been selling well this month. I was surprised to open the KDP dashboard today to see 9 paperback copies had been bought in the US. Great news!

Even a year later, I’m still proud of this book and can’t resist sharing a little cover pic from last year.

Next year I will 100% release another Christmas collection, I’m so sad that I didn’t manage to this year. Working part time has definitely limited my writing time. But on the plus side, Nanowrimo has given me a reason and an excuse to focus on writing again. I’m so glad I decided to go for it. I wish every month could be the same as this!

I’ll be back soon with a last Nano update and a book review.

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Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic fantasy, heart-warming romance and short stories

You can follow me on

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You can also join my Newsletter for writing updates and news of promotions.

Update on NaNoWriMo 2023 #amwriting

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

This is a quick update as I really should be getting on with the word count!

It’s day 20 of NaNoWriMo 2023. So far, I’ve been able to stick with the daily target of hitting around 1667 words a day. My word count currently stands at 32,027 and should be 33,340 by the end of the day. Fingers crossed!

But that’s only on book 3 in my romance series and I had set myself a target of adding word count to book 2 as well. As yet, I haven’t even looked at extending the draft for book 2. That may be a task for December if I don’t get a chance to work on it before.

Through November, I’ve been busy editing book 1 after some great beta reader feedback. Hopefully, I will soon be sending it out to publishers, I want to act before it gets too close to Christmas.

I’m hoping in these last 10 days of Nano I can really pick up the pace on book 3. It would be great to beat the 50k target. I know I can do it if I really get my head down, but I also know it’s easy to get distracted. This blog post is a perfect example! HA HA.

With that in mind, I think I will wrap this up. I may try for another update at the weekend, if not I’ll been back at the end of the month hopefully with good news on my word count.

Are you taking part in Nano? How are you finding the daily demands?

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Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic fantasy, heart-warming romance and short stories

You can follow me on

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You can also join my Newsletter for writing updates and news of promotions.

NaNoWriMo 2023 starts today #amwriting #indieauthor

Posted on November 1, 2023 by Suzanne Rogerson Author

Today is the start of NaNoWriMo, where thousands of writers pledge to dedicate themselves to writing a novel, or 50k of a writing project, during November.

I’ve tried the challenge on and off since 2011 with varying levels of success.

In 2023 I’ve pledged to type up my handwritten draft of book 3 in the Mermaid’s Hotel series and expand it to 50k (or more if I can!).

I also want to increase the word count of book 2 in the series which currently stands at 24,096. I would like to add 20k to this, but that would be an added extra as my main focus is book 3.

I have written a novel plan of each book in the 6 book series on excel to help me. This is a break down of each chapter showing what happens and whose VP it is.

I have some cool printed word count sheets to keep me going. And I’ve signed up to Nanowrimo where you can post your daily word count and watch it grow. You can also see how your buddies are getting along.