A Reminder For You (Writing Pep Talk)

So I've been hard at work on a few titles I'm going to launch on Kobo, including Leo & Declan 1 and 2 (Under His Touch, Under His Watch) and the drafting process was being difficult last night, so I opened my notes app and wrote this. I think it's gonna be something I need to return to again and again, so I'll share it here for you all too:

I am worried about so many things I cannot control but what I can control is writing my book and editing my short stories so that's what I'm going to focus on.

It's not up to me to be perfect or control the universe or every reaction to my books.

All I can do is write them, then publish them, then market them, to the degree that I want to. That's all. The rest of it is out of my hands. And I can't force it. But I can work with it, move with it, evolve with it, and take it all as it comes.

That's what I can do. So that's what I'll do.

I'll write my gay erotica romance stories and urban fantasies and sci-fi stuff even when it feels silly or stupid or it isn't as groundbreaking or intelligent or literary as everyone else's book. I'll do what I want, have fun, and hope someone wants to read what I wrote, but I can only write what I want to write, and if nobody else is along for the ride, I guess that's that.

The point of this is just to say all of that outside stuff is noise. And noise can be tuned out. All I can control is that I can write my book, even if it means learning again, for the millionth time, how to adapt and pivot. I can do that much, and probably so can you.

Isn't It Weird How I Only Blog At Night???

Last night I managed to finish editing (line editing but not copy editing, but the difference is splitting hairs to me anyway) Under His Touch. The new edition clocks in at just around 14k. I am always surprised how worth it the effort is to revise and fix up old stories. I'm always surprised by things past me missed, or what new skills I've developed. Of course I had to polish this one up anyway because I want to write the sequel now, but that doesn't mean it didn't need it.

And now I'm taking the night to outline stuff for the sequel, mostly making up my character sheet and locations sheet. I might make a timeline, but that's so time-consuming. But so worth it. But since these are simple stories that have no flashbacks and don't require too much focusing on dates, I'm not going to go too hard into that.

I DID make a huge decision regarding the sequel though, or two, to be specific, which is that:

1) There's not going to be a time-jump of three years. I don't know why I thought I'd do that. I want to see their relationship develop. Skipping two or three years is skipping the most interesting stuff, watching them adjust going from friends to a couple especially as Declan navigates his sexuality and coming out. Instead I'm going to give it a time-jump of like five or six hours. So it opens with them waking up the morning after and picks up right where we left off.

2) I think they're going to stay in Rockton, so I'm staying away from the vacation idea. I might have them go on a vacation for a future story as a special episode or something, but for the sequel I think they should stay in Rockton, especially since I want to develop the town and setting a little.

So I've got to completely scrap that first chapter I put up on Wattpad, but I'll post it on this blog or something as an extra scrap, like an easter egg or bonus content or whatever.

I have also slowly yet steadily making plans to release my next few musical projects. I want to put out my next album soon but I have one demo for it and nothing else but like half a page of notes. I do have track titles and a concept for the sound, imagery, etc...

BUT. In the meantime I'll probably release more digital/instrumental music like my last song Rejuvenate. I was going for a Final Fantasy/video game score with that, so I might continue in that vein or create some ambient music of some kind.

I've been reading CHARM by Tracy Wolff and so far I'm mixed on this entire series. I loved the first three books, but book four dragged a lot for me, and this book is a mix of hilarious fluff, filler content, and random new developments like a shadow world/alternate dimension and it's turned into portal fantasy. On the one hand I appreciate the balls to go from dark academia paranormal boarding school, to straight up save-the-world urban fantasy, to full Isekai, all without giving a damn what anybody else thinks, but it's kind of a set-up book for the next one and I'm just eager to get to THAT.

Because I'm mainly here at this point for Jaxon and Flint and whatever scraps of them I can get. And I WANT that spin-off book. I want my gay dragon vampire story. I do. And I deserve that.

In the meantime I know there's a lawsuit going on with Tracy Wolff and her editor, and I'd be pissed if I were her. It sounds like Tracy Wolff wanted to write a series that was nostalgic for Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, and her editor fed her a concept and ideas another author had created and written. It's sad because clearly Wolff actually created her characters, world, and wrote her own story, but knowing large parts of it she thought were her collaborator's ideas turning out to be plagiarized has to sting. I don't think she's the guilty party here and I don't think it should stop her from writing more books - I honestly expect to see them settle out of court or something with a caveat that the OG author is credited as a partial creator in future printings, but we'll see what a judge thinks.

I do have a soft-spot for this series because it reminds me of the vibe I was going for with the Lilac Xia-Jones stories when I started them. Another series I have to continue and have lots of plans for. But need to make new covers for...

So I have lots of work to do. But that's not new.

I have a really good cheeseburger waiting for me, but I'm not going to eat it until I've written at least 3k words. So that's how you know I'll get my writing for the day done today, instead of flaking out. :)

Anything That It Takes To Keep My Head Screwed On Straight

Title from Silence by Emmy Meli.

It's been slow-going trying to come out of my fog and embrace the new year. That doesn't mean it hasn't had its upsides, because it definitely has. The weather is getting fresher and warmer daily, the sun is showing his face more and more every day, and there's always something to do, which might be overwhelming, but still, at least there's always something to do, right?

For me, it means working on the new edition of Under His Touch. It's been a lot more of a project than I thought it would be, mostly because I was never planning to create a sequel but also because I've been in the mood to write, to draft, and now I have to hold myself down and engage the editing brain. I know I can do it.

I enjoy it. I know that too. I always have fun with editing, when it's developmental edits. But this, alas, is line edits. So it's a slow, tedious brand of work that is almost like writing, but much more agitating. And I'm not good at being agitated.

So I'm doing my best. But I'm also trying to read more: it's actually insane that this is the same brain that read an entire book a day in high school. I try now, but it takes me two to four days to get through books I'd read in one before.

Is it my brain aging? Is it from smoking too much weed? Is it just my natural pace slowing down? Or is it that I'm out of practice? I think it's a little bit of all these things, to be honest, but I'm doing my best. My reading goal for the year is only 80 books, which is 20 less than usual, but even with giving myself that break I've got six books behind somehow. I'm determined to catch up!

But first, I want to write. Like a lot. I don't know how I always put it off until it drives me insane, but then when I do it it's such a relief it makes up for it.

So, first, editing. Then do what I actually want to do.

Do You Ever Know If It Ends? Ever?

If you had been living under a rock and not checking the news at all today, Liam Payne is dead. It's unexpected, and odd, and off, and tragic, and I don't know why it feels so hollow. I guess I do know: it's because I'm in shock.

But I'm also pretty angry about it. Because people say things have to change, but we don't do anything; we let Hollywood and social politics and war machines kill people again and again. Liam Payne was troubled, and he was hurt by the industry, by being treated like a commodity as a mere child. And yeah, he wasn't perfect and he hurt people in turn, perpetuating that very cycle, but he was human and deserved better, just like those he hurt deserved better, and he was also a father, a son, a friend...

Hurt people hurt people. It's a tale as old as time. And the troubled rockstar celebrity guy who burns himself out and dies tragically young is a tale as old as time, too. But maybe it really shouldn't be - we have to sop letting the entertainment industry push these kids to their breaking points and turning them into troubled adults that only spread that pain further down the road.

I really, truly was rooting for him to get his shit together. He has a son. He was only thirty-one. It's just a reminder how how fragile life is and how dangerous it is to leave people alone when they're on a bad high, or having a panic attack or outburst. Locking someone alone in a hotel room is not a solution. I don't know if anybody could have saved him from his own demons, but somebody certainly should have been there.

RIP Liam.

A Perfect Treat for Cyberpunk Fans and Those With an Eye on Tomorrow

Art is evolving. Things that used to feel futuristic and cyberpunk and speculative are now contemporary and modern commentary and examinations of things we're living through. Humanity is manifesting various visions of the future all at once, and generative AI including chatbots are allowing us to essentially peek into the collective unconsciousness of our species; a digital scrying tool. Here the author combines a multimedia approach using samplings from the infamous Google chatbot interview to re-purpose into poetry, taking photos of an old Dell computer pried apart, its circuits and motherboards essentially a post-mortem of a machine, a collection of autopsy photos, bits and pieces of circuitry almost recalling photos of veins and organs as you read the pieces and see the lines being drawn, the comparisons between forms of consciousness and what emotion truly means, what our definition of life is, what our definition of intelligence and cognition is. Futures that in the years to come will only become more cloudy as all the high-strangeness intensifies.

This is the perfect modern art for the crazy modern world. JP Seabright is an artist to watch for sure! Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a review copy.

A Duke Won't Do by Jessie Clever (Book Review)

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear," he growled right before his mouth came down on hers.

The perfect cozy, wholesome romance read for all the Bridgerton vibes. I was actually charmed by Logan and Gwen. How sensible and not annoying they are, like most romance protagonists. How quickly I became invested in their entire relationship.

"Welcome to Scarcroft Manor."

Gwen and Logan are both damaged goods: she's got smallpox scars and self-esteem issues, he's terrified of letting anybody back in after his first wife was extremely emotionally abusive...

She had spent a lifetime not being touched and now he had touched everything.

But he needs help raising his child and running his household, and Gwen is determined to make the best of the situation, because she's always wanted to be a mother, and can't help falling for his daughter Felicity instantly.

As Gwen takes control of the estate and takes stock of what needs doing, she's forced to push at all of his boundaries. He's a sexy, stern, emotionally withdrawn sheep farmer who just won't let her in no matter how hard he tries. But Gwen certainly gets to him....

Something happened to his heart then, something irreversible. He prided himself on his logic and efficiency, but right then, standing in what used to be the rose garden, he was quite certain his heart had stopped beating.

Honestly this book was short, sweet, and perfect. I loved Gwen and Logan, I loved their romance, their lives, the setting, the writing. It was light, easy, and fun. None of the typical romance novel frustrations, both of them were so believable yet reasonable, damaged yet mature. They weren't using the ways they'd been hurt before as excuses.

It got a few good laughs out of me, too:

"Oh I see what you mean, shortcake," Grandmother Bitsy cooed. "He does look like a man who ikes a good ram."

"Mother," Nancy scolded.

"Oh hush, Nancy," Grandmother Bitsy returned. "You should be proud of your daughter."

Absolutely recommend for anybody who likes historical romance and/or romance in general.

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