Chaotic Array

Remember my cousin Amelia? The one I went on vacation with this summer? The one I have a matching tattoo with? Well, her new pen name is Winter Rose, and she's making her literary debut in a book we're co-writing together, Mirror, I Am . There's a new page for Mirror, I Am  at the top of the blog. I'd say it's paranormal, but it's more contemporary with paranormal aspects. I mean, it's got full-on magic, a race of psychics called Talents, our main characters are a girl who can astral project and a girl who can track people using their personal possessions. But the main plots are about human things, and relationships between people. It's all about the characters, their families, their grief. Definitely check out the book page here on the blog, as well as the Goodreads page! For now, here's a glimpse at our main characters: Mine: And Winter's: God, it feels good to be a full-time artist again!

I'm going to write The Indigo Horde  back to back with its sequel, and submit the duology to some small publishers, so I won't be posting any more chapters on Wattpad. I will, however, be posting a few snippets. And talking about the process a lot. Today, I chose the soundtrack. I also wrote a chapter, and the query, and refined my outline. I can't share those, but I can share the soundtrack, so I'm doing that here. I'll probably be able to share a Pinterest board with you guys soon, soo! The Indigo Horde -playlist- 1) Sippy Cup by Melanie Martinez 2) Ties by Years and years 3) If You Go Away by Emiliana Torrini 4) Preach by Daniel Johns 5) Becomes the Color by Emily Wells 6) Perfect Life by Red 7) In The Dark by Cathedrals 8) My House by PVRIS 9) Freedom by Anthony Hamilton 10) Bad Habit by the Kooks 11) First by The Cold War Kids 12) Bite by Troye Sivan 13) Revolving Doors by Gorillaz 14) Dangerous by Big Data 15) Without You...

So, my seasonal finally ended, and I'm back to being a full-time slug. At least, until the next semester of school starts. Of course, I'll still be working all day every day; I'll just be doing it at home, in my pajamas. I'm still editing SOSAS, and drafting The Indigo Horde (fun!) but I also have school work, and a new diet, and a new instrument and language to learn. So, yeah. I'm learning French at the moment, and I got an acoustic guitar for Christmas - which I asked for, and am over the moon to get - that I now have to learn. As far as the new diet? I'm cutting out all junk food, all red meat, and adding thirty minutes of exercise a day. In the past I've only been exercising a couple times a week, and then I got my job and stopped altogether, because I figured that was exercise enough - and I was mostly right, since I lost like 8 pounds while working at that store. I started eating a lot as Christmas got closer, especially Chinese takeout and pizza, a...

Chapter 3 of The Indigo Horde is up. You can read it  here.  I wanted to write two tonight, but I worked a longer shift today than I anticipated and it's 3 thirty in the morning and I have to be up at 9 tomorrow morning to go back to the mall by 11, even though I don't work until two in the afternoon (ah, don't you just love rural bus schedules?) which I am not anticipating. On the plus side, my best friend is working tomorrow too - and yes, I am aware of how lucky I am to work in the same store as my best friend - which always makes shifts fly by faster. Work isn't that bad, it's the lack of sleep I hate - bus schedules and writing schedules and anxiety are all working together to make sure I never get another wink. Also, that caffeine addiction. Today I went into a practical coma and slept in for like 3 hours. I was twenty minutes late to work because of it, but I can't say I regret it: I'd been awake for about 30 hours before I went to sleep, so I rea...

I have a new book out that I'm serializing on Wattpad over the course of the next ten or eleven days. It's an urban fantasy called The Indigo Horde  about a private detective, some monster hunters, and a very steamy romance. You can read it free here . But enough of self-promotion. Because today what I actually want to talk about is art. And not the usual type of art I talk about. Nope: it ain't about writing today. I'm talking visual art. Specifically? Sketching. The year ends in like, twelve or so days and I still haven't finished filling up my sketchbook. I have so many empty pages, I'm thinking of lugging it around with me for the rest of the month and just sketching everything I see to fill it up. I hate letting empty pages go to waste, but as soon as the year ends, so does my work in this sketchbook. I'll have to put it on the shelf and grab a new one. Which I will hopefully use more. Also not complete? My 2015 reading challenge. I wanted to re...

I'm sitting here listening to K-pop and playing Candy Crush and trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my day. Because I have to do something, and I haven't done much of anything yet. I want to write, but I also have homework to do, and I can't decide which project to work on. I don't want to write anything for Souls of Salt & Seawater because I already worked a bit on that today, but with other projects, I don't want to get tied into anything. I guess I'll do some free writing later. Or clean up my bedroom, move furniture around. Or draw something. Or just jump off a roof and fly into the sunset, never to be seen again. You know, regular day off stuff. But really, I have too much energy and nothing to do with it. This is what I get for coffee overload, but I regret nothing.

I've been awake for a lot of hours. And I just drank like 6 or 7 coffees in the span of two of them. So, as you can imagine, I am fucking bouncing off the walls!  It's fun. I am going to be blogging a lot today, because I need to blog more, and I have the day off, and I'm in the mood to write, but I don't have the attention span to write anything longer than blog posts with all this caffeine in me. That said, I feel fine. Better than fine. I spent some time editing SOSAS last night, which is coming along nicely, and I expanded on the worldbuilding. I've been sitting here for hours listening to Kpop now, though. Mostly f(x) but also a bit of Sunmi. I finished reading the Copper Gauntlet (a pure gem) and made a graphic for it, because I was loving Jasper in this book: We do not froth. I'm going to practice french for a few hours sometime today, as well. I really feel like I need to do a million things all at once, because I have so much energy, and I ...

This post is total filler, because I want to blog more, and I never have time to talk about the stuff I love anymore, so I'm doing that here. I keep telling myself to update this site more, because it's good marketing, and it's a nice connection to my readers, and it's nice to read posts from the past and remember things. But I'm also a lazy, lazy nerd with not a lot of time on my hands. And in that limited time, I would rather do nerdy stuff than talk about doing nerdy stuff. But here's to talking: I'm reading Six of Crows, and it's amazing, and I am blown away by Leigh Bardugo's worldbuilding. I'm binge-watching a bunch of stuff on Netflix; Devil is a Part-Timer, How To Get Away With Murder -- and I just finished Jessica Jones, which was amazing, spoilers or not. I can't wait for Luke Cage. (Is his show going to be self-titled too? I don't know. Who cares? More Luke!) And I'm also trying to fill out my sketchbook before the year...

Yesterday I worked from 6 to 10:30. Today I'm working from 2 to 10:30. I keep working long shifts that end late at night, and I have a really long commute, and I actually didn't sleep last night when I got home because my anxiety was going off of the walls, so I stayed up and now I'm going back to work without any rest, but I really don't care because I can't afford to care because I'm 600 dollars in debut and I still have Christmas gifts to buy on top of coffee and bus money. It's a hard-knock life. The thing is, this hard-knock life is very time consuming. And when I do have free time it's usually spent doing laundry/dishes/homework. I may have underestimated just how heavy my workload was when I mentioned some previous release dates. I wanted to put out the first instalment of ADSD next month, and I've barely started drafting it. I wanted to put out SOSAS on the 15th, but I am nowhere near done editing it. And it's not that the book is bad a...

I called in sick again today. My boss was not impressed. I have no idea what's been going around, because I know it's not just me (probably why she was so annoyed) but there are a few of us out sick. I don't know if it's a coincidence or if I caught it from one of them, but I'm not loving it. I've spent most of the day curled up writing, and I'm about to get back to that, because I have so much to fucking do, but I wanted to stop in and post my first December update! It's almost Christmas . . . which is scary. Because I still have shopping today. And not enough cash to go around. I may go prematurely grey. Or I may rip out all my hair before it gets to that. Either way, back to work!

Well, I called in sick to work. I probably shouldn't have, but I felt like absolute trash. I have no idea what is is - some kind of stomach bug mixed with the common cold? I know I'm stuffy and I have cold sweats and my guts were twisted in knots earlier. I feel a bit better now, thanks to herbal tea and lots of sleep, but I'm not totally better. I have to go to work tomorrow no matter what, so I hope I'm better by then because if not, I'll be working another eight hour shift sick as a dog. . . In other news to be mad about, I got spoiled for Jessica Jones. As in three deaths that I didn't know about and the overall ending of the season spoiled. Gah. I really love it, so I'll keep watching, but I'm angry it happened. I've been avoiding the tumblr tag since I heard the news of the show to avoid any spoilers, 'cause the show sounded so interesting, only to get spoiled now. Not fun. But what is fun is 8tracks. Which I'm obsessed with. Righ...

It's 3:51 am and I'm sitting in my room listening to this and dreading work tomorrow. I have a 2 to 10:30 shift, but I'll be at the mall by 12 because of my shitty bus route. I hate living outside of the city - I feel like I'm always mentioning that, but I really do. It's a half an hour walk to the bus stop, and at the halfway mark there's this dead raccoon with it's innards spilling out that I have to cross the road to avoid, and I'm tired of all my music but haven't had time to download anything new, so it's also boring as hell. I guess I can take advantage of being early tomorrow by doing some more Christmas shopping. I still need gifts for my brother and cousin, and the gifts I got for my parents and best friend are incomplete. I also might buy lunch. But maybe not. Because I always feel guilty spending money. My dad paid for this new laptop, so I owe him about 600 dollars, and I should be saving my money for that, on top of gas money. I d...

Title from the song Weight of Love by The Black Keys. So. It's Black Friday. I worked from 9 to 5:30 today, then scrambled over to Best Buy and got a new laptop. Then I ran home and did the dishes, threw some chicken strips in the oven, and bolted to open this computer as fast as humanly possible. I think I've met my one true love. No, but seriously - this laptop if my new golden child. Anyway, I'm dead tired, but I'm taking a night off editing SOSAS, so I told myself I had to write a blog post instead, so here I am. The last few weeks have been crazy. Since I started working this job, I've lost ten pounds. My feet are covered in blisters, and my hands are constantly cut from the cardboard sleeves in the boxes at work, and by the time I'm off ever night I'm dead-tired from spending 8 hours on my feet, interacting with people, lugging out boxes and shelving stuff. It's tiring work, and anxiety doesn't make it easier. It's awful coming h...

... but I work a day job and then come home and write/edit and then pass out. I have school assignments to finish on top of all that, among a million other things, so blogging is pretty low on my list right now. I'm currently editing SOSAS for a tentative Dec 15th release, and soon I'll start drafting ADSD. For now just know I'm not dead, and I'm hard at work.

I finish the draft of Shadows today. In honour of that, here are five facts about this book! Oh, and don't forget to check out the Charmers tab at the top of the blog for more info! 1) It's dark. As in, lot's of angst, lots of danger. Drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, emotional traumas. On top of that? A whole heap of monsters, some twisted romance, and a lot of action. I write a lot of dark stuff, and I got to show a bit of that in Things We Saw at Midnight recently, but I'm looking forward to seeing how readers react to a full length novel as opposed to a collection of shorts. 2) It's diverse. I really love diverse books. I don't love diverse books where the minority characters are treated as accessories or written as stereotypes, and I don't like books where the diversity feels preachy - I wanted to write a book that had trans and nonbinary characters, characters of colour, queer people, and characters with disabilities, without making them int...

Cause of death: gameplay footage from Rise of the Tomb Raider and Uncharted 4. I'm a long-time fan of both these franchises. TR is one of the first games I ever played (TR3, to be specific) and I love archaeology, history, treasure hunting, and adventure. Action movies are my bread and butter, and these games have that vibe to them. I mean, look at this: I just - ugh! And damn, if I don't have a crush on Nathan Drake. That's one pixelated man that could marry this, if he wanted to. And THIS: I CAN'T. IT'S KILLING ME. PERFECTION. TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD.  Now I'm gonna go scream some more.

I'm still working on ten day book. Why? Halloween got really crazy - and then things stayed crazy. So ten day book has turned into, what? 14 or 15 day book? Still a pretty fast drafting time. Life has finally calmed down again, and I'm back on regular work schedules, so it's coming along fast, but these distractions, coupled with a few added chapter, have drawn out the process. Having fun though! Here's today's quote:

I'm dead. Not actually, but I might as well be. I got a really bad stomach-ache and nausea for about six or so hours, during which time all I could really do was try to sleep. I wanted to puke - and I know I would have felt better if I had - but for some reason my body just wouldn't do it and get it over with, so I had to wait it up. I feel better now, but I missed a long writing session, so I'm behind - and I have a lot to do today that might make it harder to write and reach my goals. I'm probably still going to do it, but it might break me, just a little bit. Because of the lag I have 5 and a half chapter to write today, and 6 to write tomorrow - but then the book will be done. I'm going to sped the next few days editing SOSAS, and then hop into writing ADSD, which should take like 15 days? Anyway, no quote today, since I'm in such a hurry, but wish me luck! I'll have more updates coming later!

So, meet the characters of ten day book, Shadows: Sky - the main & POV character of the series. Sky is a pretty, gender nonconforming gay guy, and he's very, very sarcastic. He's a talented artist, and has some strange abilities, to top it all off. . . He's also scrapy as hell and a little bit (re: a whole lot) stubborn. Hunter - Sky's love interest; a mysterious guy with a dangerous past and some powerful energies. He's open about his emotions and doesn't waste words, and he likes to tease the people he loves. Hunter is a skilled warrior and a lover of factoids. The lyrics are from the song Crystalised, but the xx, and I highly recommend it. It fits their relationship well. The monster is a Charmer Hound . . . a beast made of shadows and magik. I can't wait to share this book with you guys. I'm having a lot of fun writing, and while it's definitely rough around the edges, I think it's got a certain sort of charm that, with...

So earlier tonight I got a new mp3 player - it's nothing fancy, but it works, and it has a screen, and good sound quality, and honestly? It's just nice to have something to listen to again. My old ipod broke months ago. Of course I loaded it up with the new albums from Demi Lovato, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Selena Gomez. I'm so obsessed with pop right now, it's weird, considering I'm usually more into indie or punk. but whatever, it's a nice change of pace, I'll take it. The other day I walked over an hour to buy a lighter and the woman at the gas station wouldn't sell my one. I'm nineteen, so I'm a legal adult here, and I have all the privileges that come with it - drinking, buying tobacco products, buying lighters, et cet - but I don't have an ID and I don't always look my age depending on what my hair and skin are doing, what I'm wearing, if I have my glasses . . . any number of things. so sometimes I get away with stuff and sometime...

As far as Shadows is going, I have an updated outline (I added in 5 new chapters last night) so it's a higher work load, but it will pay off. I also have an updated schedule, so let's hope that I keep it. More on that tomorrow since I'm in a rush to get a few thousand more words in tonight. Here's today's quote:

So. I'm writing a book in ten days. Well, not a book. A draft of a book. So basically a book. Why? Because; productivity, and innovation. And I really want to finish this book before NaNoWriMo starts, so I can work on ADSD during that. The book is called Shadows, it's set in my home city, Saint John, New Brunswick, and it's about a race of modern witches called Charmers living among us. And other creatures. It's set in what I call the Menagerie world - it's bursting with paranormal creatures and different breeds of magik. I'm estimating that it will be about 55,000 words when complete, and right now I'm at 17,553. So how am I going about it? Easy, I've got a polished, streamlined outline, a set pace, and a set of tools to get me into the writing mood, including Pinterest boards and playlists. Here's a sneak peek at my Scrivener doc: My schedule is chapter-based, with a set number of chapters to write each day. Today is the 24th, so tod...

Canada has a new, Liberal Government! In case you aren't Canadian, let me explain how good it feels to be free of Stephen Harper to you: I feel like I live in Narnia and the White Witch has finally been banished. I feel like Beatrix Kiddo standing over Bill's dead body. And hey - Justin Trudeau isn't too hard on the eyes, either. . . Okay, enough. Less politics, more pop culture! I'm working on SOSAS & Shadows today (finishing up SOSAS and starting to draft Shadows) so I'll keep this short. You need to watch Scream Queens. I'm watching it. I'm in love with it. I'm also re-watching MTV's Scream (which you'll remember once gave me nightmares) with my parents, and I'm gonna start iZombie sometime soon. I've heard good things about it. There was talk of Podcasts on Goodreads, and I plugged Sarah Enni's podcast First Draft, which is fantastic. I honestly need more people to listen to this, because it's incredible. Back when I d...

I put out a new book today - and it's free! The new book is called Things We Saw At Midnight, and it's a collection of thirteen short horror stories and vignettes set in a fictional Nevada town called Midnight City. It's got griffins and doppelgängers, phantoms and visions. It's even got a personification of nostalgia. In Midnight City, things are a bit odd. Old Lady Ellen knows when you're going to die, the man with a swarm of bees where his face should be always sits in the same booth at Winston's Pies, and the local gas station attendant is a leftover deity from another dimension. But in the dark heart of this desert city, fear lives like a sentient creature, waiting to claim anyone it can. Will you survive? Things We Saw At Midnight is diverse, humorous, and hopefully pretty damn scary. I wrote this book as an early Halloween gift to all my readers and online friends, as a way to say thank you for embracing me and my work and encouraging me to keep cr...

So, a few days ago, I posted the covers for the A Darkness So divine trilogy on my Tumblr : The trilogy is a spin-off of the Lilac Jones Adventures (which are currently free on Wattpad ) but where TLJA are lighter young adult stories for younger readers, ADSD borders on new adult, and is much darker. It still has a grim, kind of snarky, sarcastic humour to it, but the characters are older, more mature, and dealing with much darker issues than Lilac did in the prequel. Book #1, The Diamond Society , sees Lilac moving to the tiny town of Northbank, New Brunswick, with her recently divorced mother, for a fresh start. But Lilac soon realizes that the tiny town is anything but quiet: Northbank is home to a quietly seductive group of paranormals, each harbouring their own secrets and powers. . . Lilac is quickly caught up in the lives of two local teenagers: Jesse Holmes - the town outcast who may or may not be an incubus; and Hadley Snow - resident popular gir...

It's 2:30am, and I should be asleep, but I'm not. Being up late isn't anything new to me, but tonight I'm only up because my acid reflux is making it really hard to sleep - the sounds of my own choking on stomach acid? Not the sweetest lullaby. So I got up and made myself a coffee, grabbed my laptop, and turned on some music. I'm listening to Disclosure, because I really like their new song with Lorde, and I like a lot of their older stuff. I wrote up a writing schedule the other night so I know what I'm working on up into May 2016. I like to plan things. I'm following Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k method, because I have a lot to do and a lot more I want to do. But some nights I get lazy. Some nights my brother comes home and I have to be quiet because his room is right below mine, and the sound of my clacking on keys keeps him up all night. So, here I am, not working, drinking coffee, blogging, listening to electronic music in the middle of the night, in...

So the other night I realized blogs are my favourite books. I was sitting in bed reading Amanda Hocking's old blog posts for like, the millionth time, and I realized I am obsessed with reading blogs. And I don't mean blog posts - I mean blogs themselves. In their entirety. When I find a new blog, I will go to the last/first post in the archive and read the entire blog from the first post to the newest post, even if it means reading three to four years worth of posts. I've read blogs like Amanda Hocking's ( http://www.hockingbooks.com/blog/ ) and Zoe Marriott's ( http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.ca/ ) and then I'll read ones about military wives who travel around to different bases around the world, or uni students living in Japan, or manga artists moving to Hawaii. And I'll read them more than once. A good blog is like a good book, but even better, it's like a good conversation. A good blog has that nostalgia to it, like remembering a 3am conversation wi...

In the film Enemy at the Gates, a Russian sniper in WWII, Vasily Zaytsev, is transferred to the sniper division after he saves a comrade of his. In reality, he served as a clerk before being transferred to the Rifle regiment. The story of the film doesn’t mention his early war career at all, but instead jumps into the battle at Stalingrad: while in Stalingrad, Zaytsev meets Tania Chernova, who a comrade of his also likes. The comrade, Danilov, transfers her away from the combat to keep her safe. This is all a lie. The love triangle is a lie. But more importantly? So is Tania. In real life, Tania Chernova was a ruthless sniper who met Zaytsev at a sniping school he ran. Tania had lost family and decided to take out her enemies, the Germans, in revenge for their deaths. She was a ruthless and skilled sniper who called the Germans ‘Sticks’ as she though all they were good for was breaking. Tania traveled through Stalingrad on her own and, at times, with Zaytsev, and the two became lov...