Sunday 23 August 2015

Your Favourite Candy's Cotton, That's Why All Your Teeth Are Rotten~

~Title from Sippy Cup by Melanie Martinez.

A lot has happened. I haven't written much in the last two weeks, and I don't know if I mentioned why or not, but it's because I went on vacation. I bought a lot of books. And chocolate. And I got my first tattoo!

My cousin and I went to visit my grandmother and my aunt in a small town near Quebec and it was a damn experience. The town was tiny, but charming - every house looked like a witch lived there and if you went inside you'd find a cozy place with a pantry full of herbs, a grimoire and a bunch of cats. It was all wide porches with wicker chairs, small town gossip filtering through the oppressive heat, sweat beading on foreheads, the strong tide at the river - where we saw a massive truck get stuck in the water - and the kind of laughter you can only enjoy in the company of good family and close friends.

It was an eight-hour bus ride, both ways. I have never gone on a longer or further trip before, so it was fascinating, and I was paying attention to every tiny detail - the tricks people would pull to sneak extra luggage aboard, like tying a pair of shoes to your bag or having a huge overflowing purse on top of your carry-on, and the way you could feel the dust and pebbles scatter over the road underneath the bus as we flew along.

We went for walks every single night while we were there; we being myself and my cousin, led by my aunt and her plethora of unique and colourful sisters. They led us around town like saints leading the blind, pointing out local hotspots and talking over each other a mile a minute during a heated discussion on Justin Trudeau. It was on a late run to Tim Hortens for our Gramma one night that I first saw the tattoo shop across the street.

"Let's get tattoos," I jokingly said to my cousin.

"Okay," she told me - except unlike me, she was dead serious.

So we did it. We researched, planned, discussed, and deliberated before settling on a matching set of tattoos: the outline of a crescent moon on opposite wrists. The left for her and the right for me:



I love it. I'd always planned on getting tattoos, but I never thought I'd get my first one on a whim, on the last day of a vacation, without telling my parents - but it happened.

Our tattoo artist was a cool guy, and the shop was incredible - I'll write a bit more about the shop and my experience there when I get the name off of my cousin - but I liked it there. The sensation of getting a tattoo was similar to the wasp sting I got once, like a sharp pinch that lasted for just a few seconds. It is a small tattoo.  But I love it, and every time I look down at my wrist it just feel right.

I am a very big night-owl. It's 12:15am as I write this, and my work day is just getting started. I'll be writing for hours, reading, listening to music, blogging, and trying not to die in this heat. My cousin is a night-owl too, though. We're nocturnal together - and we're so alike. We were born seven days apart - as my mom left the hospital with me, my cousin and her mom were just being rolled in. We stay up late reading side by side, arguing, having movie marathons, just lying in the dark talking and playing games like twenty. questions, having heart-to-hearts. We became who we are today in the dark. So I think the moon is very fitting for us.

So I just wanted to let you guys know I'm still working on Souls of Salt and Seawater, and Shadows, and soon I'll be staring the rewrite on BOM. I'm not not working just because I'm not blogging.

And now, bonus, or 'books I bought on vacation' time:
  1. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer (I already had this, but it and Twilight are the only ones I have in paperback, and now I'm one step closer to having all the hardcovers.)
  2. Crystal Kingdom by Amanda Hocking (Already had this too, but it was an arc and I needed a pretty finished copy!)
  3. Just One Day, Just One Year, & Just One Night by Gayle Forman (Which have been priority reads for months!)
  4. Echo by Alyson Noel (Ordered on Amazon, not here yet!)
  5. Fallen by Lauren Kate (need to snark-read this in anticipation for the movie - ordered on Amazon, not here yet either!)

Tuesday 11 August 2015

I feel so attacked right now...

I've been writing for hours, mainlining coffee and desperately trying to ignore this madman of a moth that's flying around my room in search of escape. Well, it might actually be a lady moth, but I'm not a bug physician so I really could not tell you. The point is, it's annoying, and kind of scary, and I want to free it but it's proving impossible to capture.

Needless to say, I'm feeling very attacked by it. But anyway, enough of my moth-related woes. I'm actually writing this to tell you guys that you can officially sign up for the Souls of Salt and Seawater cover reveal! If you haven't heard about SOSAS now, it's a dark YA anthology that I'm writing as a gift to my Tumblr followers. I'm pitching it as 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' meets 'Pirates of the Caribbean' so if that sounds even mildly exciting to you, here's how you can sign up for the cover reveal:

Email me at ApolloBlake@mail.com with the subject line 'cover reveal' and on reveal day I'll send you a pomo package containing the cover file, a detailed blurb, and a new, exclusive exert from the book!

Each story in the collection (there are 3) is roughly 10,000 words, and all of them center around the sea-fairing folk of the world of Josmea, and the sirens they encounter in their adventures across its waters! It's got action, magic, a racially and sexually diverse cast, and a lot of angst and pretty words!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go see about capturing and freeing my moth friend again...

Saturday 8 August 2015

Sirens and Sleeplessness...

I've been working a lot lately. Writing? Nope. Worldbuilding? You bet your ass.

I'm working on this siren anthology, night after nigh, but I'm finally at a point where I can write some of the actual story instead of plotting more. Which is nice. It's fun to see the world come to life after weeks of fleshing out this world, continent after continent, country after country, city by city. It's very detailed, and I hope to set more titles in it eventually, but I think after I finish Souls of Salt and Seawater I will be taking a break from it, because it's been driving me half-mad.

Aside from that, I've been working on Shadows and BOM, though not as much as I'd like. I have to rewrite BOM in it's entirety for the next draft, and I'm both dreading and looking forward to it.

I don't really have much to say; just wanted you all to assure that I'm not dead - just a bit busy being Apollo Blake right now...

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 ...

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