Feeding the Rage Machine

I am working. Because I am a strong-willed, uneasily distracted author who knows when it's time to put words on the page.

Ok, I wish. Mostly I'm trying not to tear my hair out.

Rage is finished, and I'm moving onto edits. But I don't think a lot of people are going to love, or even like, this book. Why? It doesn't have a happily ever after. The ending is, if not sad, at least bittersweet. Bleak.

It's supposed to work as a standalone, and it does, but Myra as a character isn't done her journey, and she appears in Frenzy after the ending of Rage, and she appears in Maelstrom after the ending of Frenzy. Her story isn't over by the end of this book. I think readers who don't read the other books will be mad about that. But I think people who do read those books will appreciate it for what it is; a glimpse at some of the side characters of this world and at the Big Bad from Maelstrom.

So. That's where my head is. I, personally, love the thing. It's little and bleak and wordy, which is how I like them. Now - back to work.

Grimes is Better Than You

I'm in love with Grimes' music right now. Also kind of in love with her brain.

I ended up listening to Kill V. Maim a few weeks ago, and falling in love with it, so the only thing I could do was listen to Art Angels a million times in a row. That album is amazing.

But I was reading a bunch of interviews with Grimes (who is Canadian!) about the making of it, how she creates every inch of the music herself, how she's a producer before she's a singer or an artist, and I was really thrown with her intelligence and how surprisingly self-aware she is.

So I went and listened to Visions, too. It also is amazing.

The thing I love about her and her art is how honest she is about it; she talks about how some of her work doesn't live up to her expectations, she's true to who she is and what her work is about. I enjoy that.

She's also kind of weird, which I like. Genuinely weird people are not appreciated enough. History and language nerds and people who really appreciate the technical sides of things. That's Claire.

And the fact that she taught herself how to play so many instruments is giving me guitar inspiration.

Anyway, back to writing Rage.

Blogosphere Bullshit (I'd Rather Be a Person Than a Profile)

I'm an artist. And I want room to work on my art.

I don't want people interrupting me. I don't want people knocking on my door every fifteen minutes. I don't want advice I didn't ask for, and I don't want to be forced to blog every day because 'it's good advertising' or be forced to try and get fucking Twitter famous because it will get more of my books out.

I hate this fame game that everyone is so sucked up in and I hate that all my friends think that lines of text on a computer mean we're communicating because we barely even know each other anymore. I don't want to have to be on social media to connect with them when we never see each other in real life. I want to fucking talk to people and I want to be left the hell alone to make my shit.

The thing is, I feel like when I think this shit or feel this stuff it comes off as, like, I'm anti-technology and I don't enjoy all of this progress we've made - I do. The internet is amazing, and I've made friends in other parts of the world using it.

But sometimes I want to talk to my friends on this side of the world. I want to be able to sit down and talk with the people I grew up with and talk to them instead of sitting there watching their phones the entire time, or going to their place to watch them sit on their computers.

I don't know. I can't say any of this without sounding pretentious and snobby, and I don't care at this point because it's so fucking frustrating. I just want to delete facebook and sign off of everything and be a person instead of a profile.

Personal Algorithms of Living With an Artist

We all develop these little habits and patterns like circles worn in rugs that we always follow. It's waking up to writing on the wall and rings of empty mugs around the entire table.

Eventually you get used to notes you can't read and poetry written in strewn clothing. You do.

It doesn't come easy.

There are red knuckles and tears that leave bite marks on shirts. Sometimes, when words are spilling like rain, you wonder if it's not enough just to drown in someone, if all oceans dry up eventually, inevitably, no matter how much they consume.

Running in and outside the lines scuffles them up like dust, though. You become a routine in unmarked maps and you become a pair beholding the broken. It's enough.

Improvement

A few days ago I found one of the first digital art pieces I ever did, bad anatomy, half-assed background and all. So I decided to redraw it.

In middle school I went through a big, big vocaloid phase, and I still like a lot of the character designs, so I do still draw miku from time to time, though I don't listen to the music anymore.

Anyway, I thought I would share this here. I really still need to improve in the colouring department (I forgot to shade her best because I'm an idiot) but I'm happy with my drawing improvement, so far - not that I want to stop improving, just that I'm on the right track in that direction, so I think I'll focus on my painting style for the time being.

Ghost Squad, Roll Out (I Think My House is Haunted)

Pretty sure my house is haunted. It definitely wasn't, when we moved in, and I've only really been experiencing this stuff in the last month or so, but I keep seeing things moving out of the corner of my eyes, hearing stranger noises, and feeling, well, not alone - when I'm the only one in the house.

So. I'm fairly sure that one of us must have manifested something or unknowingly allowed it entrance, and honestly? I'm more annoyed than anything else.

Nothing bad or malevolent has happened, and I'm really not too afraid of spirits. I'm more like Brenda, in Scary Movie, beating the shit out of whichever ghostie decides to crawl out of the TV, and I think that's fair, because it's pretty fucking rude to move into someone's place without permission, incorporeal or no.

Since the undead bitch hasn't tried to shove my gay ass down the stairs or jump out at me from behind any corners (which would honestly just earn it an earful it would never forget) I'm honestly just gonna let it be.

So that's where we're at; the house is clearly haunted, nobody believes me that said house is haunted, and, why should they? since I honestly don't care much myself.

The thing is, I'm just looking at silver linings, since the last time we lived in a haunted house it was one of the historical buildings uptown and that presence was actively fucking with us and scaring us, and, at the time, that was really stressful, because we were younger. It never really got violent or anything, but it was harsh and it made it really uncomfortable to live there.

This haunting is small beans compared to that haunting. I can't believe this has become my life.

Instrumental Obligations and Lacking Magic

This past Christmas, I received a guitar. To be clear, I mentioned wanting a guitar once, about seven or eight months before the holiday, as a throwaway thing that I never - never - expected to get. But I did. And I have to learn it.

Why? Because it was expensive and my parents were happy they were able to get me something I asked for, and I feel guilty ever day that passes without me learning it.

Back in tenth grade I started to learn as part of a music course I hadn't even passed the pre-req course to get into, and was only in because they had no other place for me that block, but in the end I lost what little I picked up and spent most of the time in the course fooling around. I was never a good student, but it was still one of my favourite classes. I used to have dreams of being able to plop down on the sidewalk uptown and play and be able to earn some quick cash, or being able to romance some musician guy through my sheer instrumental bad-assery.

Now I will settle for learning the chords to a couple of pop songs to placate my parents and make myself feel like this gift was not a total loss on me.

This isn't even the first time I've failed to learn an instrument - the one I'm honestly in love with, and always has been, is the piano - but I failed to learn to play keyboard in ninth grade, as well.

Okay, I didn't entirely fail - I learned a bit of Seven Devils, by Florence and the Machine, but it quickly fell apart and now I have no idea what I'm looking at when I sit down at a keyboard.

The thing is, I'm not sure I have the passion in me to develop another love like that. My love for things I used to enjoy - reading books, walking, partying, socializing, art (both digital and traditional) has all been slowly but steadily fading away over the past year, and it's been a struggle to get back into it.

I had a really bright (challenging, but bright) spot for a while, back when I was working and earning money and I felt productive, but my seasonal was coming to an end and they decided not to keep me on after it did, and after I stopped working I went into a downward spiral.

I'm hoping once I'm in school every day it will get better, and being out and getting things done everyday will be beneficial, but at the same time, I'm skeptical. I'm always skeptical when someone says something might offer some form of happiness of fulfillment these days. Because I know how it feels, have been through it time and time again, to start to feel yourself resemble a fully formed human being again only to have that happiness and stability and sense of identity start to slip away from you again.

But, at the same time, if I don't try, there's just the guilt. So I've been doing it, very, very slowly, with other things. I went for a walk a few evenings ago, even though it was snowing, because I knew I needed to get out or I would lose my mind. I've been working my way through a few books, trying to gain momentum in my reading life again. I recently finished The King's Games and Language Lessons, by Amanda Hocking and Jay Bell, respectively, and I actually fell in love with the Magicians, by Lev Grossman, although it may have made my depressive state a bit worse, if I'm being honest. It's a bleak book.

Soon I need to get back into language practice and try picking up this guitar for the first time.

I don't know, I suppose it feels like my life has stalled and nothing is happening, every day is the same, and I'm very isolated. A lot of old friendships simply dwindled into nothing once I left school, and it just feels like the magic has drained out of everything.

But at the same time, I know that it is up to me to seek out happiness. Nothing might change if I go for it, but if I don't there's not even that tiny chance.

So I'm trying to perk up. And in the meantime I'm trying to pick up on my workload and get more things out there. I've been looking at different marketing tactics and options to get my books out there, and, I don't know, it all seems really difficult and . . . well, ineffective.

Like, I had a LibraryThing Giveaway where I sent out twenty copies of Frenzy in exchange for reviews, and got zero reviews. I made the book free on Kindle for several days, and scours of people downloaded it, but it only got one new rating. It was a five-star rating, which was very nice, but it was still one rating, and no reviews. With Souls of Salt & Seawater, I figured things would be different - why? The book was born of reader demand. I had 200 followers on Tumblr, when I wrote a single one-off scene in response to a prompt on my dash, and almost overnight my blog grew to over 900 followers and I had dozens of people demanding I write a full story, or put a book out. And I love mermaids, so I did. And I sent out free copies, and ran a free promotion on Kindle, and again, easily over a hundred downloads, and zero ratings, zero reviews.

To be absolutely honest, I don't even need my books to sell well. I would be perfectly happy finding another source of income. But I do want my books to be read. I could care less about the money, as long as they foster discussion. As long as there's feedback.

All writers crave feedback. But there isn't any, and it's hard to gain any, because not only am I an indie author, I'm an unknown indie author. Not many people have taken a chance on my work, since they have no idea who I am, and nobody is going to take a chance on it until someone else does, so me and my work are both trapped in this eternal waiting phase.

To be honest, I'm trapped in waiting phases in most aspects/areas of my life, so I'm used to it, and I don't really expect anything else at this point, but it would be nice if things could start happening. 'Cause at this point, even if they were bad things, they would still be better than this insufferable monotony that's taken over my existence.

So, that's where I've been at, lately, and that's partially why I haven't been posting here - because there's really nothing to post about. And not a lot of people read this blog.

As soon as that changes, I will probably be posting a lot more than I do now, which is already quite a bit, considering that most of my posts get few to no views. 

Things You Can't Calculate (Like The Future)

It would be pointless not to admit that I'm not where I expected to be in my life, at this point. I'm about to turn twenty, so I should probably be excited and happy - especially since I'm starting to publish and follow my career goals - but I'm poor, ridden with mental illness, my living situation is less than ideal, my academic life is a mess, and my personal relationships are all in shambles.

And there is no easy fix. It doesn't matter how hard I work, or how much I do, because - and this is something a lot of us refuse to believe - it is possible to do your best, to give something your all, and fail.

And that's okay. It's okay to fail and learn a lesson from it. It's okay to do your best and make the choices you think are right and still end up in an unhappy place.

I think sometimes when people see me mentioning these things, it can come off as complaining or giving up - and to be clear, I would never give up - but in reality I thinks it's just important to be honest about our struggles and the way we've either failed ourselves or been failed by the world, and, because of my situation, there are a lot of times where I can't talk about the ways I've been failed by the world, or it puts my current situation in jeopardy as well. I can talk about how I've failed myself, though.

I can talk about how fucked around in school, or how I haven't been kind enough to myself, or how it's taken me so long to learn certain lessons. I can talk about the fact that I put my trust in the wrong people.

I can talk about the fact that I failed, and continue to fail, to be able to predict the future.

I can't. None of us can.

What can we do? We can keep giving it our best, even when it doesn't seem to be working. We can have faith that just because we can't see to the end of the road doesn't mean it's not where we're meant to go.

There are some things in life you honestly, honestly, can not calculate. If you asked my fifteen year old self about his five year plan, current me is sure as hell not living up to any of it. If you ask current me about my five year plan, I would tell you I've stopped trying to make long-distance plans.

That's a side effect of being poor, but it's also a side effect of being disillusioned. I can't choose my future. I can plan and hope, but I can't guarantee the outcome. Honestly? I don't want to anymore.

At the end of the day, life takes us where it takes us. And of course, our choices influence where we go - our mindsets and our investments and our decisions now shape ourselves and our futures - but they aren't the only things that shape ourselves or our futures. They're just part of the overall equation.

And I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to control the world. I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to game a system that's always been stacked against me - one that's stacked against all of us.

I'm going to accept that there are some things you can't calculate and I'm going to be kind to myself, because god knows the world isn't, too often.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye (Blog Updates and a New Book + Double Cover Reveal!)

I updated the tabs at the top of the blog, including the contact page. I added info about my next publication - Rage - and updated the info about Things We Saw At Midnight, Frenzy, and added a page for Souls of Salt & Seawater, which is now out! (You can grab it here, and the price is going down to 99 cents within the next few hours!)

Aside from that, I have new covers to show you! (Who doesn't love a pretty cover?) And some info about the new book!

So, first, the cover for the paperback edition of SOSAS, which will be out in a few weeks:

And the cover & blurb for the new book, Rage!

Something powerful is festering in the shadows. . .

With four months to go until she turns twenty and the beginnings of a promising modeling career forming around her, teenage Harpy Myra Evans should be happy. And she would be. . .if she weren’t in mortal danger.

As an extremely rare breed of paranormal, Myra’s powers are highly coveted. When powerful beings begin to vanish one by one, the Reapers begin to suspect Myra could be the next target—and with deadly nightmares leaving her shaken night after night and the feeling of being watched following her everywhere, time is running out.

Can Myra piece together the clues and find a way to protect herself—or will the monster that haunts her dreams claim her as its own once and for all?

I'm having a lot of fun working on this one. In case you didn't catch it already, the main character is Myra - the love interest from Frenzy - except this is before she and Evelyn met, and it's focused on her and her history and story.

It's got a fun cast of characters and some great banter, plus, I really love hinting at the villain of Shadows. He's so deliciously evil and (to me at least) genuinely frightening.

The book is set in my home city, Saint John, just like Frenzy, and it offers more insight into the Menagerie world. It can definitely be read as a standalone, just like Frenzy can, but if you've already read that, it also serves to create a richer experience with the world.

And the main love interests of both Maelstrom (Ian) and Shadows (Hunter) make an appearance! If you're not interested in reading the other books and you're wondering is this one is for you, here's some basic info/facts:

• It's dark New Adult
• With horror elements
• And no romance
• It's got a racially and sexually diverse cast
• The focus is on the pshyce and decisions of the main character
• But there's plenty of world building & action, too
• No romance - but lots of sex appeal
• Touch of mystery
• The main character is a budding model
• There are kidnappings

So. Yeah. I'm hoping to publish it this Thursday, the 25th, but with Amazon there's always a chance it could take longer and end up coming out on the 26th sometime.

I'm having fun, though. I've been listening to a few songs on repeat as I write it:

I'll post about it once the book goes live, as always, but for now, that's all, folks!

Souls of Salt & Seawater is out! (Book Release & Cover Reveal)

GUYS. SOULS OF SALT AND SEAWATER IS FINALLY PUBLISHED.

I've been working on this project for months and I promised as soon as this book was out, I'd be shouting about it from the rooftops, so this is me doing that.

The book will be free in the Kindle store on the 19th and 20th! If you want a copy sooner than that, though, you can buy the book here:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BWN5VZW

I'm diving into work on other projects now, but I hope you all enjoy SOSAS, and I'll have a paperback info post up in a week or so! Thanks for all the support guys!

(*If you're a book blogger/reviewer and would like a copy, feel free to email me - JinxKing@null.net, and I'll shoot you an epub!)

Dropping the Blogging Ball and Stealing It Back

I dropped the ball as far as blogging is concerned this month. It really just has to do with mental health, which is always a struggle.

I wish I could say that it was because I was hard at work (and I am) or because I was kidnapped by a handsome foreign prince who now wishes to marry me (I'm still waiting) but in reality it's just because I struggle with my self-identity and caring for myself and sometimes I need to take a step back from the internet and social media and even work, in order to, y'know, not have a breakdown or die.

For a while - a while being the last eleven or twelve days - I've been really struggling to keep myself afloat, and working through a lot of difficult things. I'm feeling better now, and a lot has happened in that time that I can't wait to talk about.

This post is not about any of that, though. This post is just about the fact that I'm back. And that I got lots of work done, even though I wasn't here talking about it.

And that work I got done? It means that. . .Souls of Salt and Seawater is coming out in two days! Yup, I'll be publishing sometime tomorrow morning, so it will be out either late tomorrow night or, more likely, early tomorrow morning. KDP is random like that.

But I can't wait to share this book with you, and it's new cover, and the stories within it. I'm so happy to finally be at this point, and now that SOSAS is coming out I'll be able to work on my full-length novels!

Maelstrom and Shadows will be here before you know it. Keep an eye out for the cover reveal for SOSAS tomorrow!

Two Days.

Blizzards and Bills (also, Frenzy is Free!)

I haven't been blogging much lately. Why?

I have bills to pay and books to write and school to cope with. I had a meeting today, but it got cancelled, so I spent the day outlining a new project. I want to keep going with that for tonight, though I gotta get some editing done on Sosas later.

The thing is, between the books and school and learning French and trying to lose weight and deal with mental illness and maintain friendships and do marketing stuff, there's not much time for blogging.

I sent some free copies of Frenzy out for review, and it's also free on kindle right now! You can get it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B81HGQ0

Anyway, I'll be posting more once some of this workload is done and out, but for now it could be sporadic. (For now being the month - I'm attempting to blog ever day during March!)

What Am I Doing?

What am I doing? It's four am and I've suddenly become interested in True Blood again (I rewatched the first two seasons and saw the third for the first time this summer) and now I'm finally sitting down to devour the fourth season BECAUSE IT'S A PROBLEM OKAY? I honestly couldn't stop now if I wanted to. And boy, do I want to - because this show is keeping me away from my damn homework.

I have six assignments to do today, so once my parents leave for work I'm going to be spending hours sitting here finishing those up and then be able to hand them in tomorrow. I have to go back to school this week, and I don't know which one I'll even be going to or what I'm gonna be taking, so naturally it's fucking me up and I'm trying not to think about it.

Which hasn't been working out well for me so far, clearly. I need to finish them, but I keep procrastinating because, you know, that's who I am.

I also want to get in a workout today, which is going to be fucking painful, I already know. I did a nice one the other day, but now I'm sore all over. Fun, right? I know people say it's good to exercise, but I kind of feel like I died a bit.

What I need is to be able to focus on writing and publishing and building a career for myself, but I also desperately need this diploma, and to be healthy, and to, you know, face life. Which has been hard, since I'm also trying to balance the whole mental illness thing, and I'm not taking medication anymore because of the side effects. The upside is that I'm not going to randomly have a stroke or develop type two diabetes - the downside is, hey, I have to deal with all of this shit on my own now!

I don't like to talk too much about my mental illness, because I feel like sometimes in the past I've overshared and it hasn't been productive or healthy for me, but the basics of it is I have anxiety and depression, and minor paranoia.

I'm managing it, to be clear, but it's hard. And sometimes I do fail. And I know that that will happen; illness isn't easy, and sometimes it wins. But I like to win. And I do not like to feel helpless, which is how I do.

Right now I'm taking it day by day, focusing on self-improvement and trying to be kind to myself, and to be fair I think it's gotten a lot easier as I grow stronger and learn to take care of myself, but there are still days when I can't fight off invasive thoughts or work my way around it, and I go into a depressive episode or a state of mania and things get bad.

The reason I'm even bringing it up now is because I haven't really blogged since the beginning of the month, which makes me feel bad, because I like to keep this page updated and I honestly love blogging. But I went into a depressive episode that lasted a few days, and at the end of it I just knew I had to make some serious life changes and extract myself from certain situations that weren't healthy for me at this point.

So I did that, and it's been getting better, and things are getting back on track. I'm letting myself unwind with True Blood right now, but later today things pick up again.

The best thing I can do is pick myself up and do my best. So. Homework. Exercise. Healthy eating habits. Those are things I'm going to embrace today. And be productive.

School is going to be hectic, but Souls of Salt and Seawater will be out by the end of February or the beginning of March. I turn twenty on March twenty-second, so I want to be well-into edits on Shadows by the that time.