Chaotic Array

I haven't mentioned these on here (I don't think) but I make playlists on8tracks all the time. There's one for Dreamseeker, and one for Shadows of Ourselves. There are also some for writing in general. You can find them all here:  http://8tracks.com/jinx-king

Right now I'm uploading the newly revised edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater to Kindle and I just finished creating the paperback cover. It's mostly the same as the old one, with a few tweaks and a new font  and layout. I'm pretty fond of it. The paperback will be 214 pages, and the paperback of Blood of Midnight will be 239. I have no idea how much they'll cost, but I think roughly around ten dollars. I would make it lower, but, you know, Createspace doesn't roll like that. I'm listening to old Selena Gomez music. I know Revival like just came out a few months ago, but I need more. Mostly I'm hoping tonight will be productive. I'm aiming to finish editing Shadows of Ourselves within the next three or four days, along with writing a new collection of vignettes, kind of like Things We Saw at Midnight but. . .not. These ones are light contemporary, with a matched theme and interlocking cast. I'm thinking it will be 3 short stories and six vi...

I do not think I'm going to write more Lilac Jones Adventures stories. In fact, I think I'm going to unpublish them. At least on storefronts.  The KDP term for those ends May 7th, and I've already unpublished them, so when their enrollment in that ends I'll be posting the first three stories on Wattpad as freebies. I have more important/meaningful.developed projects to work on and Lilac herself will probably make an appearance in another book someday, so I'm not too worried about any of this. In more positive news, the paperback designs I'm coming up with (wraparound covers) are very pretty. I like pretty.

While going over SOSAS another time I've been listening to The Walk , by Imogen Heap, on repeat. I've also been stuffing my face with barbecue chips. But I thought I would take a break from that to post a quote from the book really quickly: You can buy the book here , or just wait until it's out in paperback. The new edition will have a map of the world in it. If I can figure out how to format that. Or, you can request a free review copy by sending me an email, which I talked about in my last post. The gist of it is this: you like free books, I like honest reviews. And giving out free books. So shoot me an email at ApolloBlake@mail.com for a free ebook if you're interested. Now, back to work!

Today I'm doing some editing and then hopping over to formatting work for paperbacks. I haven't put out any paperbacks yet because, frankly, I'm lazy. But I've had people tell me they want physical copies of the books, and I want them too, so I'm putting them all out through Createspace. I've used them for paperbacks before, back when I wrote my first book, at seventeen (a novel that nobody but me is ever allowed to see, that will never see the light of day, because that's just how bad it was) and liked the finished product. So. I'm making SOSAS my priority, and Rage and Frenzy will both be available only in the bundle edition because on their own I think they'd make too-small, floppy books. Plus they're better when read together. I think I'm personally most excited for the Blood of Midnight paperback, though. It's going to contain Scars of Dusk, the short story, in the paperback edition, and I can't wait to see them in person. ...

Here's a list of some songs I'm listening to while editing: Just One Yesterday by Fall Out Boy Too Much by Pale Jinx by DNCE Mirrors by PVRIS Make a Shadow by Meg Morris I also have Lemonade playing on repeat, but my favorites are Daddy Lessons, Don't Hurt Yourself, and Six Inch. It's all good as long as I'm getting work done. Which, you know, I am. When I'm not reading. I just went through a really big reading slump and I'm starting to get out of it. I just devoured the last Lunar Chronicles book, which pissed me off, because it introduce the first canon gay character of the series as a nameless throwaway who preyed on a straight lead with mind illusions. Not really cool. It was still a great book, though, I just get annoyed at how a lot of straight authors write about us sometimes, especially when they just don't write about us at all, like we don't exist. On the more positive end of the spectrum, I picked up Cut Both Ways ...

OBLIGATORY INSTAGRAM PLUG, THAT'S WHAT, BITCHES. YOU SHOULD FOLLOW ME: It's mostly selfies nobody asked for and pictures of the nature around my home, but there's some art and books thrown in there for good measure. Check it out! (If you dare.)

In honor of Blood of Midnight being free on Kindle for one last day, I decided to countdown my top ten vampire novels. I have read a lot of vampire novels. What qualifies? Every genre, from urban fantasy to paranormal romance, ya to na to adult. No holds barred. For me, vampires are a fixture of both horror and sex appeal, and they can make or break a book, depending on how they're depicted. The books aren't organised by literary merit (for example, I believe Carry On is a much better book all around than Shadow Souls, but as far as the depiction of vampires themselves go, Shadow Souls takes the cake.) 10 -  City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare City of Ashes isn't technically a vampire novel, but this fantasy novel has a few of my favorite bloodsuckers in it; Simon, Raphael, Lily, Camille - Clare has a some of the best members of the undead masses, here. Plus, that scene where Simon bites Jace is really, really hot. Jimon for the win, bitches! 9 - Dead Until Dark by ...

A lot of people like to talk about how annoying it was that Stephanie Meyer made her vampire sparkle, but I never minded that. The affront, to me, was that she took away their fangs. Fangs have to be the most important part of the vampire anatomy, even more so than pallor, ugly capes, bad accents, and red eyes. Fangs are my bread and butter. In all honesty I just love the aesthetic. Something about a pair of vampire fangs with some blood dripping or biting into a throat, that's picturesque. I think that's why vampires will never go out of style; they manage to be sexy and really, really fucking scary and disgusting, all at once, there aren't many other paranormal creatures who manage to be both alluring and grotesque in the same way. Werewolves come close, but most of the time its no dice. It takes a special author to really do werewolves right, at least for me. Vampires are another story. That's not to say that I haven't read my fair share of vampire stories,...

Blood of Midnight is going to be free in the Kindle Store for the 24th and 25th! If you're looking for a fast read with some dark subject matter, intense action scenes, and vampire court intrigue, pick it up! You can find the book here ! And here's a quote;

This is the face I make when I remember the sheer amount of editing I have to do in the next seven days in order to get this book out by my entirely self-imposed deadline. This is life.

A lot of writing Desperation comes from a place of disappointment; it's waking up and finding out you're special, you're the chosen one, there's magic around you - but it doesn't matter because you feel alienated and none of your problems are fixed and it doesn't make up for the fact that you're an orphan and your Dumbledore is kind of a grouchy bitch who has no clue how to help you. Throw in boys kissing boys, insect metaphors, and old mansions, and you've got this book. There's this place Val, as a character, comes from, where it's all indecision and self-resentment. He feels like he's wasted precious time and he's always one-step behind, and he's suffered this big loss to the point where he doesn't know who he is anymore, if he's not the person who just. . .survives. Essentially, what happens when you move past trauma and realize you have lost a lot of your own identity, as a person? How do you redefine who you are? How...

Here's a Desperation quote! Again? Yes, again. I am having a lot of fun writing this book:

I'm going to draft the next 3 or 4 chapters of Desperation tonight, concluding the first act of the novel, and then have the next two acts done within the next four days. That means that this book will be out sooner than I thought! It helps that it's a lighter, fun project to take my mind off a more intense beast I'm about to tackle another round of edits on. Plus, gay faeries. It's just a fun, romantic story with lots of action. Here's an extract: The lingering echo of death filled my mouth like the taste of copper, and I turned around and plunged into the forest after the rude boy who’d just saved my life. Rowan led the way through the dense forest without a word. I spent most of the walk staring at the rippling muscles of his back. He was muscular, but not overtly so—more lithe and slender. There was something slightly feline about the way he walked, graceful and silent, while I crashed through the underbrush like a bull in a china shop. By ...

Look, queer people exist. You don't have to like us, you don't have to want to write about us. But we exist. And if your fictional world doesn't at least acknowledge that we exist, it's gonna feel unrealistic, and at least a third of your readership is going to think you have ingrained homophobic tendencies. Seriously. I can not tell you how many times I've had the immersive experience of a book ruined simply because it felt so unrealistic that every character in it was heterosexual. And the thing is, you don't even need to write queer main characters. I mean, you should, yeah. Representation is important, and a big chunk of getting over ingrained self-hatred and internalized homophobia is about seeing healthy, happy reflections of yourself represented in fiction. But that said, if you, for some reason, be it personal preference or publisher interference or just the fact that you're one of those trash human beings who really thinks queer people are evil,...

So today we're gonna talk about sex. And masturbating. Why? It's important. That's right kids, it's time to talk about the birds and the bees. And I don't mean the ones who make you think oh fuck, not again , when they start chirping outside your window at four am to remind you you still haven't slept, yet. Nope. I'm talking 'bout the ones you use to make babies. Or not, if you're me, and hate children, which I am, and do. Moving on: kids and teens need to read about positive portrayals of sex and masturbation. Teenagers need to be reading scenes where teenage characters engage in healthy, safe, consensual acts of sex and self-pleasure. They need to read these scenes with straight couples and queer couples, across spectrums of gender identity. Why? Because if they don't we're opening them up for an intense whirlwind of unhealthy attitudes and experiences and harmful situations/ Teenagers are having sex. They're thinking about sex...

Where the hell have I been? Writing a novella. And editing a book for publication. And turning twenty. And other things! So, awhile back I posted the cover for Dreamseeker, along with a blurb. That book is now published, and you can get it here ! But on top of that, I edited a novel I wrote about a year and a half ago, gave it a fresh round of edits, and published it as well! That book is a vampire novel called Blood of Midnight, and you can buy it here ! Here's a quote: So, what's up with Blood of Midnight? Well, it's essentially what happens when I write a book just to dissect and deconstruct a bunch of YA vampire genre tropes. It has bicurious vampire soldier girls and plot twists galore. It blurs the line between young adult and new adult, but I'm calling it YA. I would mainly call it a race against time mystery, about trying to root out a traitor in a vampire court before the future king's coronation. Also, there's a mysterious cul...

{AN: this is a short piece of a longer story I'm writing that I have no other info on, yet. I'm hoping to put it out this fall, though. It's gay romance, and it's, surprisingly, contemporary. Enjoy!} I can’t believe that this is how it happens; this is where I finally give up. One in the morning, standing out in the cold, screaming at the top of my lungs, while I slam this huge boulder against a car again and again. Inside, Santa is yelling and cursing and I can see him fumbling around. Ryan is screaming at me and trying to pull me away, and it makes me drop the boulder. I shake him off and pick it up again. Go for the taillights. The paint job. The windows. They’re built to withstand a crash, but the glass cracks, spiderwebs, and turns into a mosaic of violence and impact under the blows of a massive boulder wielded by an angry drunk bitch just about as well as it would upon kissing pavement during an accident, so I keep hitting it. I’m not hitting the car, tho...

Dreamseeker is my new novella, and it's got best friends falling in love and pretty alternate worlds and teenagers hunting monsters in small Maine towns. What more could you ask for? Dreamseeker is going to be up on the Kindle store in a few days for 99 cents, but it's also free to read on Wattpad here ! Here's a quote, to entice you:

I feel bad for dropping the blogging ball there for a while. It's going to happen again, and I can't avoid it, because when it comes to book vs. blog post, I choose book every time. Right now I'm stretched pretty thin, and I just started serializing a new book on Wattpad. When seventeen year old Valentino ‘Val’ Crenshaw’s father dies, he’s sent to live with his estranged grandmother, a reclusive novelist holed up in the decaying family manor in a tiny town called Bronzewood. But what Val doesn’t know is that the town he left behind at birth has been waiting for him, that his father took him away to keep him safe. Now, as Val attempts to settle into his new life, a vicious world of courtly intrigue, dangerous immortals, and ancient magic that lurks in the forest, waiting and watching, begins to emerge from the shadows. . . As Val starts to unearth family secrets that might be better off kept hidden, and discovers a secret world that could cost him his life...

Look, being a self-publisher is not easy. There are resources that aren't available to you and no marketing department with skilled agents to get your book into people's hands - people assume your book is going to be awful without glancing at it and other people assume you self-publish because you weren't good enough at writing to snag an agent and publisher, even though that's probably not an option/route you even considered or tried. Indie authors are our own agents and handlers, we're often our own cover designers and site builders and we have to pull twice the weight our traditional counterparts do. But it's worth it. It's worth it because when you do make a profit, you get to keep more of said profit. It's worth it because you don't have a publisher forcing you to remove queer characters and romance from your book, because you don't have the chance of getting stuck with a cover you don't personally like or have to jeopardize you...