Chaotic Array

I've been neglecting this blog again. I know, who's surprised? It's hard motivating myself to work, so when I do I tend to spend my words on my manuscripts instead of the blog these days. I did post about this on Twitter & Instagram, though! I figured I should share it here while I was at it, since work is flying by. I'm publishing a new edition of Storm of Masks really soon, with several additional scenes, a new chapter, and a newly added epilogue & prologue. The new edition will also contain my novella Dreamseeker as a free bonus! S o, why a new edition? Basically, I originally envisioned Storm of Masks as a standalone novel, but the characters weren't done with me - or each other - and the idea for the sequel kept spinning out of control in my head until I couldn't ignore it. Now that Storm of Masks is the first book in a duology, I thought it needed a fe w minor tweaks and prods in a right direction . Since I'm a total cheater, I decided...

I feel like I spend too much time poking at my own wounds, making them worse, instead of doing things I know I need to in order to improve. I waste hours, days, months, beating myself up for shit as opposed to actually working to do better. I don't really have a point with this, I'm not going anywhere special with it, it's just that it's hard to work as a writer when you aren't earning much income at all and people aren't really finding or reading your work and you're drowning in an ocean of mental illness. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with problems, so I hate complaining and I usually just bottle all my shit up until it overflows and ruins my life, usually in the form of doing something really self-destructive or starting a fight with someone I care about. Actually, a lot of my personal relationships and friendships have deteriorated over the past two years. That's probably my fault for continuously isolating myself and distancing...

Guys, today is the reveal of Kellye Garrett's debut novel, Hollywood Homicide! I have to say, this cover is beautiful and illustrated covers are always some of my favorites. The blue and pink tones really stand out strong here, and the main character Dayna is rendered in a fantastic style... Title : Hollywood Homicide Book 1 in the Detective By Day Series Publisher : Midnight Ink Release Date : August 8, 2017 Book Blurb : Dayna Anderson doesn’t set out to solve a murder. All the semi-famous, mega-broke black actress wants is to help her parents keep their house. After witnessing a deadly hit-and-run, she figures pursuing the fifteen-grand reward isn’t the craziest thing a Hollywood actress has done for some cash. But what starts as simply trying to remember a speeding car soon blossoms into a full-on investigation. As Dayna digs deeper into the victim’s life, she wants more than just reward money. She’s determined to find the poor woman’s killer t...

I know, I know, I know. I haven't blogged since October started. I'm not good at this. Since the month started I've written a novella called Iceblood for the new edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater I'm putting out, and tonight on Twitter and Goodreads I announced I'm also working on a new edition of Blood of Midnight. The new edition is mainly jut a project I took on because I'm a perfectionist. Looking back at BOM as I start writing book two, I realized that there were a few seeds I meant to plant and didn't, a few paths I could have and should have gone that I just didn't recognize for what they were at the time. To be clear this isn't a rewrite or a drastic change or anything - I'm adding new content, not changing what exists. Mostly it's just going to be sexier, more dangerous, and a tad longer. I wanted to explore a few side characters more and give them the screen time they deserved, as well as taking a closer look at the main...

1) Your First Book Won't Be Your Big Break Take a deep breath. Now exhale. Your first self-published work probably won't launch you to the top of bestseller lists or turn you into an overnight rockstar. This is okay. It's normal. You are not a failure. The market is overflowing with indie books at the moment, and that will not be changing anytime soon. Readers want to see that an author is dedicated to their calling and capable of producing multiple works sometimes before taking a chance on them. Chances are you might not see a huge jump in sales until after you publish your third or fourth work. That's okay. It's normal. Focus on creating good art and nurturing other artists, and in time, you will succeed. You have to prove you have the chops to keep at it even if it seems like stormy waters at first. Tips:  Books 200 pages and longer tend to sell better. Your cover is pretty important, but a good cover is worthless without a blurb that can keep...

Revisions make me cry. I say this because I'm knee-deep in edits for the new edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater: It's not heavy edits or anything - mostly just finer copy editing than the book got before. There are a few new lines here and there, but the main burnt of new material is a bonus short story I'm including that's never been published. So why am I crying? This computer screen hurts my eyes, and I probably spend too much of my time off online to be still staring at it. I got new glasses that cut blue light from screens in half, but God, the struggle is real. Whatever, though. Mermaids take priority. I don't have much to say about the new edition right now: I'll share a lot more details the night before release. (I have no date picked yet, but within the next month!) Aside from that I've been hiding from weird noises in the night, eating too much rice to be considered healthy, and drinking insane amounts of coffee. Also f...

I have an instagram. It's  https://www.instagram.com/royal_hijinx/ You should follow me. I've plugged my insta here before, but I'm doing it again because I recently changed my username/url, so I wanted to make sure it was accessible to everyone. Also, I really enjoy taking and cataloging pretty pictures. It's why I love Pinterest and Tumblr; the only difference is with insta they all come from me. I tend to check out everyone who follows me, so there's always a chance I'll follow back, too~

Storm of Masks  is out, and you should probably buy it and read it and let it get you super excited for the fall. I mean, if you want. That's actually not what I wanna talk about, right now, though. I put the book out the other day and it's been nice not being near the end of a project for a while, so I can just float. I'm so glad it's done and out there and it's just out of my hands - I wrote the best book I can, and it has to sink or swim on its own. I've spent the last couple days just hanging out with friends, listening to music, catching up on BoJack Horseman and rewatching Jessica Jones. Fun, easy stuff. I'm still working, but since SoM is published, I'm taking a couple days to play around with various projects and outlines and see what direction I wanna go in next. I think I may dive into the second books in the Evernight Falling Saga and the Seraph Chronicles. If I could finish ToS and Atrocity and put them both out around the same time, I...

If you noticed I haven't been blogging much this summer, it's because I have so many projects going at once...including one that I'm finally ready to share! Storm of Masks is a paranormal romance set in a small town, full of mystery, ghouls, and holiday festivity! Halloween is my favorite holiday, and fall is the best season in my humble opinion, so I wanted to write a book celebrating them as we get closer to that magic time of year. Storm of Masks is set in the small town of Ashbrook, which is home to an annual Fall Festival gearing up to Halloween, which the locals go all out for. It's usually Jen Gordan's favorite time of year...but this year, she's gained the uncanny ability to see ghouls. And they're everywhere. To get answers she has to turn to the charming new boy in school, Carter Lord. I'm glad I held off on sharing this one, because it originally had a different name, but Storm of Masks came from a line I drafted cl...

I rearranged my book shelves and I gotta say, they're looking better than ever. Last night I noticed I'd lost my copy of Night Myst, the first Indigo Court book, so I bought the ebook on Kobo because I wanted to reread. It cost me fucking ten dollars. FOR AN EBOOK. I mean, it's traditionally published, but still. It's makes me mad that publishers expect readers to dole out ten dollars or more for a digital file they consume in less than two days. I will never charge more then five dollars for an ebook, and that's God's honest damn truth. (Fun fact: Divinity is on sale for 99¢ right now !) I mean if I'm ever working with a publisher, they'll be in control of that, but still, all my self-published ebooks have been and will be under five dollars. Look, for ten dollars I could buy three paperbacks on Amazon or at a used bookstore. For ten bucks I can get a to-go combo of the best Chinese food in the city. I can buy new headphones and a fancy candle or ...

I've been compiling a lot of good writing music lately. I should probably make another 8Tracks playlist but I'm lazy, so I'm gonna share some of it here instead. I listened to a lot of these while writing Divinity...

So, Divinity is available for pre-order , and I'm now going on vacation. I'm only gonna take two or three days, but it's gonna be a nice bit of rest before I hop onto Tears of Sunrise and the sequel to Divinity. I'm going to read And I Darken and enjoy the new speaker I just bought for my computer and blatantly ignore social media and get back into sketching and go on walks and venture into the city for some rare human interaction. In short, I'm doing all I can to avoid being burnt-out. I have to write Untold as well, but the plot for that just changed drastically and it's still in the outlining stages because of the switch. It's so much I need to take a step back for a few days, get my head back in balance, and then hop back in. I always like a little break after publishing a new book, anyway, for some reason. Postpartum depression or something, indie author version, but my books burn bright and fast and once they're done I miss the fun of writi...

So last night I finished my last round of copy edits on Divinity, wrote the acknowledgements, formatted the ebook, and sent it off through Amazon's review system. The pre-order should be up within 12 hours if everything goes right. And if it doesn't, I guess I can always bury myself under a blanket nest and pretend the world ended. I'm super excited to be putting another book out, but I also plan to fix the whole paperback situation today after I've done the cat box and dishes - aka, the lack of a paperback edition. I haven't seen the SOSAS paperback, but I'm sure it's beautiful. And it's my only book available as a paperback. Why? I'm lazy. And formatting paperbacks doesn't just mean more formatting and more forms to fill out - it also means more graphic design, more proofing, hours of work for each book that could be spent...writing a new book. I wrote the draft of Divinity, which was like 30,000 words, in 7 days, and edited it in 5. ...

I'm deep in the pits of editing hell, sorting through alternate characterizations and back stories and fictional family trees, so I can't take the time to write a super long blog post today. Once I finish this round of edits I'm starting tonight I'll be writing another self-publishing know-how type post, though. Probably. Right now I'm focused on making Divinity the most fun adventure I can. . . I've been eating this Dairy Queen ice cream cake while I obsessively edit and tweak the cover design. I think it's pretty fun, so far. It's got angels and monsters and hot boys and Devil Wears Prada-ish subplots. I feel like readers will be able to tell I'm only scratching the surface of things with this book, and the questions they're left with will lead them onto book two. Because, damn, book 2. Things are going to go a little insane. I don't think I realized when I started writing these how action-driven the series was going to ...

There are plenty of posts like this out there, and plenty more that teach you how to self-publish piece by piece. I don't feel the need to make too many in-depth tutorials about that, because there are people who have already said those things better than I can. There are also certainly authors who have been both writing and self-publishing for much longer than me. I've been writing for nearly nine years now, but I've only been publishing since 2014--first, writing erotic romance under a pen name, and later, the young adult and new adult books I write and publish now as Apollo Blake. On July 29th I'm putting out my first New Adult paranormal romance with erotic aspects in it as Cosmo Knox to separate it from the more tame books. So while I do feel confident giving publishing advice and guidance, I'm also aware that there are authors out there with much more in their repertoire to share than I have. If anything, the most advice I have to offer is about graphic de...