Sunday 26 November 2017

I Am Your Fate Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen of I Am Your Fate is up on Wattpad! Only two episodes left in the first season, Break This Gilded Cage. Meaning soon the fancy, more polished, expanded version will be available on Amazon!

For now, you can read the entire story here!


Tuesday 31 October 2017

Wordly Warfare

I'm stuck in editing hell again. I keep coming back here despite my best intentions to never write again, because it drives me up a tree, even when I feel like I'm having fun. Right now I'm polishing up the first chapters of Break This Gilded Cage (the first installment in my new vampire serial, I Am Your Fate) before I write the last three.

In non-writing related news, I've honestly just been watching zombie shows on Netflix and napping. I'm so exciting, huh?

I spent my Halloween night drinking spiked coffee and listening to Spotify, so nothing too special is happening. I think I may put out a new chapter of Fascination on Wattpad tonight, though. So, slowly, the ball is moving forward on a few different projects. I just put Shadows of Ourselves on Pronoun for free, so once it's live maybe Amazon will finally price match?

It's been a hell of a time trying to get them to do that--Shadows is on InstaFreebie and Wattpad, but Amazon doesn't really care about that. RoAnna Sylver said they finally price matched her book once she put it up on Pronoun though, so maybe it will work for me too. I hope so. Shadows needs the love, and I think if it goes permafree on Amazon it will start to get the hype it deserves.

I'll probably make Break This Gilded Cage free, too. Every other installment of the serial will be 99 cents, since each one is only 15 to 20 chapters.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I'll have a better, less pointless blog post tomorrow or maybe even later tonight. Until then, here's some good music.


Thursday 26 October 2017

I Haven't Forgotten

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I mean, how could I? I have a long history of writing embarrassing, mortifying personal details on here because I like to pretend that nobody reads it. When I'm not pretending that everybody reads it, I mean.

I've just been really busy doing things like writing, putting off writing, hating myself for putting off writing, and more along those lines...

I've also been watching a shit-ton of American Horror Story and Riverdale, but you all probably have been, too, so you can't fault me for that. That's just how it is. Anyway, I haven't got much to say tonight; I'm listening to it rain cats and dogs outside, and our actual cats and dogs (including Roxy, the stray we took in) are all inside, safe and dry. I'm about to start drafting more on Dreamsinger, the sequel to Dreamseeker.

In case you missed the new edition of Dreamseeker, it looks like this;


The cover for Dreamsinger is even better. And it has a hot shirtless boy on it, just for bonus points.

In other news, Netgalley -or the St. Martins intern with their companies' Netgalley password, blessings to whichever- decided to treat me like the prince I am, and send me an arc of her new Valkyrie fantasy, which I've been waiting for for just about forever. I'll probably start reading that tonight and...well, I'll probably finish it tonight, too, because who are we kidding here. I just finished rereading The Selection, too, and now I'm gonna reread The Elite. I need good old comforting rereads right now.

I'l leave you with this: I just created a Medium account and you should definitely follow me there for articles and advice about publishing, book promotion, and my wild ranting about pop culture. Kind of like this blog. But better. And hosted on a more popular site. (I think.)

[Another reminder, Shadows of Ourselves is free on Instafreebie, and this is the newest edition with the best editing, so it's a sweet deal. Get it here.]

Monday 25 September 2017

Green Hair Don't Care


I'm uploading a new story to Wattpad and need this space to host this image of the main character for the first chapter :)

Wednesday 20 September 2017

Forsake This Violent World is out! (Book Release + Cover Reveal)

Forsake This Violent World is out! Finally! It hasn't been that long in the works, a few months in the most, but for me that's felt like an eon. I'm really happy with the final product; I think it's one of the best things I've written.


It's dark and gritty and fast, and it introduces several characters meant to play important parts in later Liesmith's Sins books, although it works as a standalone title (I originally wrote it as one before deciding it fit with the series) so you can definitely pick it up without reading/knowing a thing about Shadows of Ourselves or the Liesmith's series. Although Shadows is available for free here.

Forsake is about a girl named Ruby attempted to avenge her dead mother. She's a young bisexual witch with a complicated family life and complex relationship with her best friend. It's a story about grief, trauma, insecurity...and portals, other worlds, freaky magik, crows, daggers, gender & sexuality (every character who appears on-page is LGBT) and it's just a fun adventure all around.

You can get it here! Or, if you'd rather, it's also available as part of my new story collection, Fierce Powers...



That's all I have for now, folks. Aside from maybe the new blog header. Which is pretty, right?















Saturday 19 August 2017

Beacon & Chosen Double-Feature Book Release

Hi! Long time no see. I've been spending most of my time wallowing in bed, watching too much Netflix. Sometimes I get a little writing done, though.

Sometimes I even publish it O_o

In that vein, I've got two new books out! The first is Beacon, a young adult urban fantasy which I've been teasing you guys about forever and decided to just go ahead and drop.

(You can get it here.) [$1.99]

The second is Chosen, which is a previously un-announced spin-off of Beacon. It's a new adult paranormal romance about an unrelated set of characters in the same world, and you can (and should!) read it as a standalone.

(Grab a copy here.) [$0.99]

I'll add new pages for Beacon and Chosen at the top of the blog! I'm also going to be fiddling with the blog design for a while tonight, so don't freak out if things look a little wonky or ugly for a while.

I started working on an exciting new project the other night, but I'm going to try to reign myself in and finish Forsake This Violent World tonight before moving forward on that. I'm also still editing Shadows of Ourselves to catch errors I missed in the first edition, so I can put out a cleaner new one. Nothing has changed or been cut or added, I'm just addressing grammar mistakes and spelling errors I never caught the first time around.

My editing process has also changed a lot since I wrote Shadows of Ourselves, so it's nice to go back and fix those oversights I was once oblivious to.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I'll post more about Chosen in the next few days, including an exert from the story & a few facts about the book & writing process.

~

Follow me on twitter here.

Wednesday 26 July 2017

Under his Touch Quotes

These are for Wattpad; a quote for every chapter.










Blue-Eyed Surprise


Lucky you! I just put out a hot new gay erotic romance short that you can read for free on Wattpad here. Under His Touch is short and sweet and sexy, and it features a very cute, protective hunk with a pair of frosty blues.


Clearly this is under my adult pen name, Cosmo Knox, meaning there's going to be explicit sex in it, so read at your own risk!

You know you wanna ;)

Aside from getting back into the writing groove, I've been watching a bunch of Strange Empire on Netflix.

I've also been producing a bunch of music. I've been using Soundation & Looplabs, & it's nothing fancy - just digital instrumental stuff, like background music in video games, but if you want to you should check it out on my Youtube page.

I'll have a finished version of Forsake This Violent World up on Wattpad and Kindle soon, and then I'll be working on putting out two novellas on the same day :) One of them is Beacon, and the other is a surprise, but I will say it's also young adult...



Thursday 13 July 2017

Forsake This Violent World Teaser



Chapter one of my new story Forsake This Violent World is up on Wattpad! The novella should be out sometime this month, but I'm still working on it. In that vein I thought I'd share a snippet!



:)

FTVW is basically a paranormal Kill Bill. It's also influenced by stuff like Coraline and Crimson Peak (freaky mansions anybody?) and good music I've been listening to like Astrid S, HANA, and the new Lorde. It's mostly about killing an evil crystal goddess, but it's got plenty of snark, sexy bits, and themes of grief, strength, overcoming self-hate, et-cet...

I think this is one of my favorite covers I've ever made, and maybe one of my strongest pieces of writing yet?

I may be biased, but I really love this main character, Ruby. She's a darker hero with a lot of emotional baggage and anger, and she's a lot more in-your-face about it than my other characters. She's fairly dramatic, but then, her life has been pretty dramatic.

You can read the first chapter here.

Wednesday 12 July 2017

I Don't Know Anymore



I don't know anything anymore, so I'm going to stop trying to figure things out and just float. I'm a mentally ill basket case so overthinking things is kind of my one and only skill, but I'll just have to work around that.

Y'all probably have no idea what I'm taking about, which is cool, because neither do I half the time. But lately I've been really stressed out. I've relapsed with self-harm, I've been basically having an emotional breakdown a day. I don't think I'm alone in that regard because everybody has been stressing the fuck out for...a long time, honestly.

Still, I'm at a point in my life where I never thought I'd be. I don't really recognize myself, know who I am or who I want to be, or where I'm going.

So, I guess...I'm in my early twenties?

I don't know. I didn't anticipate being this person. I can't say I hate myself, I understand certain reasons why I am the way I am, why it's so hard for me to connect with people or let anybody in, why I'm such an easier target for addiction and destructive behaviors, but understanding doesn't necessarily absolve me or make me feel any better, you know?

At the end of the day, all of the questions we ask ourselves - Am I a good person? Do I have a soul? Is there a God? Am I wasting my life? - are all in our heads, and they'll stay that way, like they always have, until we die. So it doesn't really matter.

But then again, knowing it doesn't matter also doesn't make me feel better. Or make me any less guilty for existing.


I read in this Grimes interview recently where she said something like, she's sorry she can't do anything more useful to society than sing or produce, and I can relate to that. I've never really felt useful/necessary. I never didn't feel useful or necessary growing up, but I hadn't fallen into a void of depression, apathy, and emotional trauma at that point, either, so I don't know.

This post isn't meant to sound as angsty and whiny as it does, but I find it really fucking crazy that there are people who wake up and go through their day and don't have to contend with the constant urge to end their own lives and/or do fucked up shit, that people get through a day without having an intrusive thought or purposely chasing down their own darkest memories even though they know it isn't a good idea.

I don't know what it is to not be in the middle of a crisis, because everything is a crisis for me. The fact that I exist, in this universe, in a physical human form, is a crisis. I am not equipped to deal with this shit.

I'm also not equipped to kill myself.

I mean, yeah, I want to on a daily basis (awkward lmao) but I'm not about to rush out and do it. I don't know what stops me, if it's just fear of physical pain or a natural survival drive, but something does. I'm not going to act like I don't self-harm, because I feel like hiding it does more harm than good and, honestly, I'd rather be open about the fact that if you want to even try and recover, you're going to fucking relapse a few times. I relapse. At least I'm trying to do better for myself. Which is all any of us are in a position to do, honestly.

All I'm saying is that a lot of people tell me I seem like I have things figured out, from an outside perspective. But I don't.

I'm stoned every day, I have literally one friend, who I rarely see, and 99% of my time is spent in one room, in the dark, writing or beating myself up for not writing.

I'm 21, I still live at home, I'm borderline and ocd as fuck, I'm not happy with my career, and I have zero close personal relationships.

But I'm still here. I'm counting that as a win even though I don't particularly like myself or my life, because I'm alive and I'm fighting and I'm pretty sure I'm going to look my demons in the eye and kick their asses, any day now.

I don't believe in happily ever after. I don't believe I'm going to wake up one day a month or a year or five years from now and magically be happy. But I do know that if I do wake up a year or five years from now, it's going to be the same way I do now - fighting. I know that I've been through some of my darkest moments and woken up the next morning even though ever fiber of my being was screaming that I wouldn't, or that I couldn't.

I want to be a better person, I'm fighting to be a better person, and I'm serving paranormal romance escapism realness along the way. That's all I know how to do, so I'll make it work.

The truth is I'm not writing this post for anybody else. I'm writing it for myself, to let myself know it's okay to keep moving.

Saturday 24 June 2017

WOLVES is out!


Wolves is out! I've been so excited to share this story, it feels really vindicating to release it. You can buy it here!

In case you missed it, Wolves is an urban fantasy featuring an ensemble cast. It has surreal elements perfect for fans of Welcome to Night Vale, but with a grittier, slightly more relatable edge to it. It's inspired a lot by the area I grew up in. The New Brunswick wilderness is very beautiful and the small towns and farms can be charming and also kind of eerie.

In slightly less exciting news, I published a new edition of Blood of Midnight. I'm about to start writing book two (And, oh boy, is the cover beautiful!) and I wanted to spruce up the first book to go with its new cover.


The changes aren't that significant. The chapters have titles now. There's a new prologue called Before: Pulse which I feel sets the tone of the book much better than the first chapter. The first two chapters have slightly expanded material, just new bits peppered in here and there. The end of the book also has updated acknowledgements and an Inspirations page where I talk about inspirations of the book, like songs that several chapters are named after, other vampire books that influenced my views of them and what their society would look like, and stuff like that.

The new edition is available on Wattpad in it's entirety here! If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's got action, romance, and intrigue.

The new edition of Iceblood is also finally finished updating on Amazon, so you should grab it if you're interested!

You can check the tabs at the top of the blog for the new Wolves page which has more info on the new release!

Thursday 15 June 2017

Iceblood (Cover Reveal)

Hi guys! I know I haven't been active a lot lately, but I have been writing. Obviously I'm always active on Twitter, but I like to keep this blog alive as often as possible.

Right now I'm gearing up to publish the solo edition of Iceblood, as well as editing a new draft for publication.

The deal with Iceblood is that I posted a couple months ago talking about how I was expanding it and adding in more of the world and expanding the plot. I did try that in several different ways, but eventually I realized it just wasn't working. I do want to tell those stories in Josmea, but I don't think they're Atka's story. I realized I like Iceblood as is; it feels like a complete, finished peace.

That said, I've shelved the expanded edition and any idea of a sequel. I'll probably use those plotlines and scenes in other books set in this world, and I'm sure I can squeeze Atka cameos into a few later titles.

That said, I'm just formatting the ebook now, so I thought I'd show the beautiful cover!




Is it not perfection?

I'm publishing the ebook edition tonight and formatting the paperback sometime this week! I'll post links when it's up on Amazon <3





Tuesday 9 May 2017

Blur

I haven't posted in a while because I've been trying to work on stuff (and mostly failing) when I'm not in bed bingeing Sense8. I'm super lazy.

They say depression makes you sleepy, that it gives you physical fatigue, and I understand that, but I also still kind of blame myself for it. I hate not getting things done or being able to focus on anything. I hate feeling like an invalid.

I've mostly been spending my time designing and formatting book covers because it's the easiest, funnest part of my job. At the same time, I want something to put out.

The other day I wrote the first bit of Beacon book two, finally. I think the Beacon trilogy probably will be my next release, if I don't hop over and finish something else first, which could always happen. I'm trying to finish book two by Saturday the thirteenth, which is scary considering how close it is, but I haven't been setting deadlines for myself recently and I'm determined to get back on track.

Tonight before I start work on that I'm going to free-write a bit to try and get myself back into the writing groove.

 
(This is the deadline face...)


I have no idea what the hell I'm going to write about. People think the hardest part of being a writer is the long hours or the pressure to write something great. For me, it's picking out which paranormal creature to make the hot dudes in my books.

I love stuff like the Trylle Trilogy or the Paper Gods Trilogy, books where the paranormal aspect is something newer and original. I like stuff you don't see often.

The market is flooded with werewolf books and I'm sure there's always a market for them, but as much as I love them I'm not sold on them. I don't know if vampires still have a market. My vampire book doesn't sell well, but I don't market it much and it is kind of a niche title. I still can't tell if it's urban fantasy or paranormal romance, really, and I wrote it. (I still love Blood of Midnight, I think it's a good book, it's just not an easy one to sell >.>)

Need by Carrie Jones has pixies, which is cool as fuck. I've written about those before, in a vastly different way, so I don't want to do that. I can't write about faeries because I'm not in the mood. Gargoyles? Not right for this project. Genies? I'm too white and Canadian to pull that off respectfully without a bunch of research first, which I really don't want to do with a 'just-for-fun' project.

See how hard this is?

What kind of paranormal beings can my hot gay heroes fall for? It's an eternal plight.

I'd love to write about the undead or zombies, but I have no clue how to make them hot and not gross and/or mildly horrifying. I have some ideas, but I'm not sold on 'em.

This is the struggle.

I'm gonna go brew too many coffees for one person, which is what I usually do when I'm stressed, and never helps, but does taste good. Maybe I'll find the answers I'm looking for in a human-sized vat of boiling coffee...

~

You can buy my books here or follow me on Twitter.

Tuesday 2 May 2017

Letting Things Take Time

I know that things take time. Especially manuscripts.

I know that I should let things take time and run their natural course, but it's hard. It's hard not stressing out over my not finishing a book in months when I'm also freaking out about everything else. My human existence. Whether or not I or anyone else is a good person, or at all redeemable. If God exists. If ghosts exist. What the hell I'm going to do for a living. How I'm going to survive and make end's meet if I can't even get out of bed or dress myself most days.

To be clear, I'm not making myself out to be some great victim. I'm not like, quivering and rolling around on the floor in a state of constant crisis. I might be close, but I'm not there yet.

I just stress myself out.

The thing is this entire struggle will probably remain forever a figment of my own emotions and imagination and paranoia, stuck inside my head, and I should ignore the fear and live my life to the fullest I can enjoy it.

But, you know, that's not how this whole existential dread thing works. I can't shut it off. And I need to chill.

So I'm dubbing this month the month of short stories and relaxation. Next month I'll worry about getting more serious and setting deadlines and really tackling whatever it is I'm feeling. But for now, I'm going to let myself wing these strings of random short stories and ignore the market and trends and what sells and what I want my author image to be and who I want to be as a human and if I can even become a halfway normal, functioning, worthwhile person, and just fucking write.

The truth is even though it all feels suffocating, most of what I'm feeling is not new. Other people have felt it and are feeling it every day. So I should breathe and not convince myself that my problematic symptoms make me evil, because I know who I am, or I should, and I'm trying to get back in touch with that person.

Maybe this month I'll somehow achieve that by writing a bit. Just for me, not anybody else.

My wip has fancy gowns and mansions and it's giving me Pretty Little Liars vibes, big time. Except it also has magic. Lots of it. And my worldbuilding is basically 'anything can happen' so I can write whatever the fuck I want. I probably won't write in this world again, which is also really freeing because I don't have to think ahead to what I want to do in future installments while writing the current story and building my world.

This is what I've been doing for the last five hours.

I'm going to get back to it and hope it makes me want to jump off a high surface a little less, and maybe produces something publishable.

(A totally unrelated aside; anyone else screaming with joy at the prospect of the new Shatter Me books?)








Sunday 30 April 2017

The Best Diet

I've been living on weed and coffee, which is probably not the healthiest diet, but also kind of the best one. I'm working on a fun new adult standalone set in the same world as Beacon that I'm pitching as Paranormalcy meets Kill Bill.

It's got witches, secret government agencies that deal with the magical world, steamy romance between a witch and a beacon/werewolf hybrid.

Writing has been really hard recently, and I think the only thing that will fix it and get me back in the groove is to finish another book and just get it out. Which is partly why I wanted to write a standalone - so I don't have to write a bunch of sequels before I can put it out.

After this book is done I think I'm going to wrap up the Beacon trilogy and then put out a new Liesmith's Sins novella. Then I can attempt to finish the Deadheart Saga. It's daunting to think of writing a four-book series. Really, really daunting.

I've outlined the first three, and although I think the second one needs a bit more work, they're fairly strong. At least in my opinion. Which might be a little skewered. Still, I'm glad I decided to expand the length of the series because there was no way I'd be able to develop the main romance and all the side characters with the depth I want to in just two books. Plus, more books = more villains, and we all love that. :)

I'm not outlining this, aside from jotting down rough scene ideas as I write, like I did with the first Blood of Midnight book. I don't normally wing things, but I just want to take my time with this and have fun so I can remember why I got into writing in the first place.

So yeah, that's where I'm at - I've been getting stoned and mainlining coffees and writing about witches and wolves.

Wednesday 26 April 2017

Vampires and Lana

I wrote 1,300 words this evening and outlined the first novella in a new m/m vampire series I'm starting. I'm going to go write more in a minute, but I wanted to post another quick update. It's like, two in the morning and I'm listening to Lana Del Rey's new single Lust for Life while I write. I think what's so fun about this project is it's just for me.

I really love vampires, and this is kidnap romance, which is obviously my favorite. It reminds me a bit of the seraph chronicles, but it's also definitely its own unique creature. I think it's a little more intimate and darker than that--it's easier for me to work with vamps as a cultural touchstone because I grew up on them.

This is called Stolen, and I'm gonna try to put it out really soon. So get ready for gay vampire antics!

Down In Atlantis

If I haven't been blogging as much as I want to lately, it's only because I'm trying to break out of my weird writer's block. I have plenty of projects to work on, but I'm not sure if I'm in the right place, so I have to force myself to sit down and hammer out words every day, and most days I'm only hitting 500 or so before I call it quits. For comparison, I usually hit 4k a day at least while I'm in the middle of a project.

But that's not what's really depressing me. The fact that nothing ever changes has been what's depressing me. The fact that I live in the middle of nowhere with little human contact is what's been depressing me.

At least now it's summer. I deactivated my Facebook the other night, and I think I'm going to spend a lot of the next two months taking daily walks down to the river or other nice little areas around my house.

Back in summer 2015 me and Kuma were out running the roads a lot, and it felt like where I was supposed to be and everything was okay and the future looked good, so I'm trying to get back to that, because lately most days when I picture my future there's nothing but suicide or a big black blur. We walked to a nearby lake one day back then, and it took three hours but it was so worth it.

And now I can't believe it's been two whole years, that it's 2017, and I'm in the same place. We were planning so many big things back then that never happened, and I'm worried to let myself start living or planning things again when I know that those hopes might just crumble too.

I'm trying to keep my head down and work my way through whatever this funk is, and at least come out on the other side of it with a heightened wordcount. But it's been hard.

Which is why this blog has been drying up.

That, and I spend most of my days inside, sitting at the same spot, and don't have much to talk about. Like I said, though - winter is gone, and with the nice weather here maybe I won't be such a hermit.

Another big problem that keeps me from, you know, being me, is that every day I convince myself I'm dying of a terrible disease. I wake up like, "Oh my god, I think I have bone cancer!" And everybody else is like, "Kai, shut the fuck up."

And they are probably right.

But logic does not apply to the mass of writhing black gunk, toxins, and mental illness that is my brain. Meaning I spend my day imagining symptoms and worrying for nothing.

Or maybe I'm right, and one day soon I'll keel over of some undiagnosed monster tumor or something and you'll all be like, "We should have listened!" Either way, we're all cool. I am at peace with the void. Or if not peace, then like, a level of familiarity where the void and I could go shopping together without a third friend to be the buffer and it wouldn't be awkward, you know?

#TightWithTheVoid

Outside of all the gross personal stuff, I've been drinking as much coffee as I was before I said I wanted to try quitting caffeine. I'm still sleeping weird hours. I'm still outlining more projects than I can possibly write.

My brother really wants me to go see his new house, to the extent that he's holding my birthday gift hostage there, but I honestly never get a chance to go. I probably won't go until he gets a dog, and then I'll never go back again because I'm not welcome, because I tried to steal his dog, even though I have three of my own.

Although we may have to put our dog, Kota, down--she's really old, and her back legs are going and have been getting worse and worse for months.

Honestly, once I move out on my own I don't think I'll own pets. If I do, it will be like, a goldfish or two. That's it. Animals get too close to you and then they die. And they shed all over your house and keep you sneezing daily.

I'd love a little puggle, but I don't think I'd be a good pet owner on my own. Especially in the city...I wouldn't want to walk a dog at like 3 in the morning in the winter months. Plus I have strings of days where I don't shower, or brush my teeth, and I can't get out of bed, and I walk around in three-day-old pajamas with tangled hair and hiss at anybody who tries to talk to me. I don't know if the responsibility would be great for me, and I'm not one of those people who thinks the mere presence of a furry body is going to magically induce a cure for my mental illness or personal problems.

I think most animals are a lot of work, and I'm still trying to work out how to exist as a human, let alone a responsible adult. So. No pets. If I can show the self-restraint not to impulse buy a rabbit or some shit...

Aside from the threat of me someday coming home with a tortoise or a hamster I don't know how to properly care for, the most pressing issue for me has been my lack of finished work. We're just under halfway through the year and I still haven't finished a single book. I've barely done any work on the new edition of Iceblood, I just realized that Deadheart is going to be a four book saga instead of a duology (if I want to do the story justice, at least) and I'm feeling overwhelmed.

I also haven't been reading much at all, because nothing can catch my attention. Last night I finally gave up and started rereading Switched by Amanda Hocking, which is an old comfort read. (I think I've read the Trylle Trilogy six times since the first time I finished them in eighth grade, honestly.)

There really is never enough time. Especially not when I spend it blogging instead of peeing, making more coffee, or writing a chapter, all of which I have to do right now. So that's that.

Later :)

Tuesday 18 April 2017

What To Write?

No clue what to write today. I'll probably settle on starting my Evernight Falling Miniseries (Dru, Vincent, and Lucia as superheroes anyone?) but I have so many on the go it isn't even funny. I could start Iceblood or finish my novella Afterglow, but I'm not really feeling them.

So yeah, it's probably gonna be superheroes.

I really need to publish something that will make some money and I'm not sure if superheroes will do the trick, especially since these are both novellas and my novellas haven't sold as well as my other books. We'll try, though!

I feel bad always talking about money like it's my sole goal, but I am human, and I do need to eat, and if I'm being honest I barely have the funds to do that right now. If things could get a little easier financially, I don't think writing would be as hard as it is all the time - some of the pressure on my shoulders would be removed. Often when I sit down to write it's not just me thinking, "You love this and it's your dream." It's actually me thinking, "You love this and it's your dream, and also, you can't even afford instant coffee mix right now. You have to do this. Do you want to be poor forever?"

Which is kind of not getting me in the writing mood. However, this superhero tale (Hush) should be easy to write, since it's in my main genre (gay kidnap romance) and although it's a lot different, it does have similarities to Divinity, so I may do a few things here I wanted to do in that book but never had time to.

(Not to mention I am probably gonna add like 20 or 30 words to that before republishing it, when I get the chance :)

In the meantime here's an excerpt from Hush:

“Let me go!” I hiss.

“Nah,” he replies, a smile etched on his face. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m about to bite you!”

“Do it, cutie. I’m into that stuff.”

I scream and start wriggling again, trying to fight him off. His arms are like two cement beams wrapped around my shoulders.


“Calm down,” he whispers in my ear, voice brushed with influence. I go still, eyes widening at the sound of his deep hum. I can feel the haze descend over my brain, but I don’t try to fight it—nothing in my is willing to try. I relish his control.

Saturday 15 April 2017

Everything You Need to Know

So. I'm changing my name. From here on out I'll be going by Kai Bishop. I really didn't feel like Jinx suited me for a long time, but I was waiting for it to click or settle into place, and it never did.

I think one of the reasons I felt so detached from it is because most people would give me odd looks or outright laugh me off when I told them my name was Jinx, which was annoying. I can see where it might be hard to take that name seriously, though, especially after knowing me under my birth name. A lot of people in my personal life refused to call me Jinx, too, which was annoying - not necessarily because I wanted them to call me Jinx, just that I definitely didn't want them to call me by my birth name, either.

Kai is a nickname I had for years long before the idea of changing my name at all was a gleam in my eye, so a few close friends already call me that on instinct. I feel like it suits me better. It feels right, it sits on my shoulders well, and it rolls off the tongue. Plus it's a lot more common than Jinx, and a lot less campy.

As for Bishop, I wanted to stick with the same initials as my birth name to placate my parents, but my actual birth surname is really clunky and also hard for me to pronounce clearly because of this annoying mini-lisp I have. Bishop is a lot easier for me to pronounce and also sounds nice, so there you have it.

I'm updating my social media accounts and the content of my ebooks to reflect the change and this is what I'll be going by from now on :) and that's everything you need to know about that

Thursday 13 April 2017

Airships & Ice Plains

Tonight I get to start writing the new edition of Iceblood! Wait, another one? Kinda.

The last 'new edition' of Iceblood I put out was actually just Iceblood as a standalone. It was the same edition of the story published in Souls of Salt & Seawater, just available as a solo.

This is an expanded version with new scenes and chapters, more romance, more fighting, and...airships!


Obviously, I'm a little excited.

The reason I'm writing this is because while I originally intended for the sequel, Anarchy, to be about new characters in a new situation, when I sat down to write it, nothing would come out. It just wasn't a story I was interested in writing. I wanted to continue Atka's.

So now that this is an actual series - as in both books are about Atka and are from her pov, and you have to read them both for the complete experience, some things about the first book need to change.

First of all I'm publishing the new edition under my Cosmo Knox pen name, which should be enough to tell you it's gonna be a bit more mature - more killing, more steamy romance scenes, et-cet... But also, I wanted it to resemble more of a complete fulfilling story than just 'two street criminals rob a mansion together' - and this version is going to deliver that by raising the stakes and widening the scope of the story.

I love fantasy, and I put a lot of work into this world, so I figure I should use it.

I'm also going to be publishing Beacon sometime in the next two days, and I'll post links when it goes up! Until then I updated the series tab for that at the top of the blog, and added a tiny blurb for book two, Shine!

Beacon Cover Reveal

I've been up for way too long, but I finally finished editing Beacon! I just compiled the ebook and I'm gonna read through it and check for any errors I missed in the line edits/formatting, but that's just to be safe - the book is done.

Which means I get to post the cover!

I'll be publishing it sometime this afternoon, so I'll post here & on social media when it goes live, but until then, here's the pretty new cover!




Lilac Xia Jones is a beacon. Supernatural beings are drawn to her like moths to a burning flame, and the only thing she can do is hold on for the ride and hope she survives. As extraordinary adventures bleed into her everyday norm, dark forces begin to gather at the edges of her consciousness. Malevolent covens, demon boys, spirits, and vengeful goddesses have all converged on Lilac’s life—but none of them can prepare her for what’s to come...

How The Moonlight Burns

It's 4am and I only just finished editing the third Lilac series, which means I basically want to cry. I still have to edit the final one before I go to sleep, and even after that I want to draft a couple chapters of something else. I'm taking a quick break before I dive into it, but I am going to edit it tonight, just so I can share the cover, 'cause that's how I roll.


I also have nothing else to do with my time or energy so it makes sense to just write until I drop. I spent most of today sleeping. My aunt and her boyfriend came over for a while and I had no energy to deal with people so I just stayed in bed, though I had to get up and open a window because they were smoking and the house reeked.


So now I'm up. Writing. Being productive.

I need to put out more titles because the few I have out aren't selling well, which means I have to keep trying new things. I think it's mainly because:

A) I don't do much marketing (I honestly don't have the energy for it and interacting with people makes me really anxious so it takes a lot of build-up to force myself to do it, even with people I like)

B) The books I have out are mostly ya, and ya readers don't really take as many chances on new or unpopular writers, especially indie ones

C) I don't have /that/ many books out.

It's important to me to be prolific - I want to be consistently putting out new releases, and I haven't been doing that because life and mental illness and a million other problems, barriers, and admittedly, a few excuses.

Tonight once I finish editing Beacon I'm probably going to start on a new edition of Iceblood, which will be longer and have expanded scenes and passages. Instead of writing the original idea I had for Anarchy, which just wasn't working out, I'm going to make it a direct sequel to Iceblood, continuing with Atka's pov and story as opposed to exploring a new character.

So that's where I'm at! I'm sorry this blog is a bit of a boring 'here's what I'm working on' piece, but I haven't done much in the past few days. I did walk around the woods and take photos and selfies, since it's finally spring and the snow has melted for the most part, but other than that...not much.

But if all goes according to plan, I may be posting a cover reveal before the night is out! :)

Monday 10 April 2017

Wherever I Go He's Been

I finished editing the first of the Lilac Jones stories for Beacon tonight so now I'm letting myself start drafting a just-for-fun paranormal romance and I figured I'd throw some writing music at y'all!

So, here's what I'm listening to:


Bloodstream by Astrid S (The title of this post comes from this song)



Now or never by Halsey... I waited two years for this and I'm so, so in love with it.




And, obviously, Burning Bridges by Bea Miller.




Forget My Name At Midnight

(*Title from the lyrics to Night Mime by Melanie Martinez)

First of all, I need to point out how pretty and sleek this blog is now. It was pretty and sleek before, but the new blog templates are super simple and aesthetically pleasing. I've been meaning to make this space cleaner and more professional looking for a while, especially since I'm not interested in making a static author site - I find them boring and dated, and I suspect most other readers do, as well.

That said, this page itself has been pretty static lately. Part of that is just me being the reclusive hermit I really am at heart and moping in a depressive state. I recently turned twenty-one and I always get weird and introspective around my birthdays. (Which is to say most of my days this month have been spent in bed, staring at the wall and musing about mortality and the human soul. Total downer, right?)

Another part of it is that I've been on an outlining kick, writing treatments and summaries for a bunch of books, along with designing covers and trying to hash out when I'm working on which projects.

I just finished revamping Blood of Midnight and publishing it under my adult pen name, Cosmo Knox. The main difference is that it has a new cover and a new name on it, but the material of the book is unchanged, aside from a new author note explaining the concept of the series. Essentially I decided that Dru's story from Blood of Midnight was complete in and of itself, despite the open ending, and I didn't want to write a direct sequel. Instead, each book in the series will be a new take on the same characters and scenarios, in the vein of the Legend of Zelda series.



In book two, Dru and Lucia will be boys, named Dru and Lucien, Vincent will be a Magister instead of a prince, and the Evernight curse will take a different form. The paranormal element also changes from vampires to sphinxes, which I'm excited about, since I feel like it's a more interesting, original mythology than vamps - although I do love hot boys with fangs. :)

That's not to say it's the same story repeated again - several aspects of both the world and characters are tweaked, but the plot always plays out a different way, with characters filling different roles. I've even considered making Dru the villain in a few of them... Book two in particular is going to play into a lot of different tropes and stories than what I explored in Blood of Midnight.

Some will be high fantasy while others are urban fantasy and paranormal romance... I may even write a contemporary slasher iteration of the story. (Scream vibes, anyone?)

Which is to say, each book is a standalone, and they can be read together or alone, and in any order.

Right now I'm editing the four original Lilac Jones Adventures stories to be republished as Beacon, the first in a trilogy of short story collections.

I have a cover to share, which is really pretty, neon, and hazy, but I'm holding it hostage for a while since I'm not done editing the stories. That said it should be out sometime this week.

In case you're wondering, that does mean there will be some fairly glaring changes to the stories before I republish them.

First of all, I wrote the first few when I was eighteen, and I'm just a way better writer and editor now.

Second of all, I want to spruce the books up for clarity and mine them for deeper material; mostly just developing characters and relationships further and showcasing who Lilac is as a person, outside of her adventures as a beacon. Also, when I wrote them I wanted them to be fast, fun, light stories that were kind of juvenile, and while they're still whimsical and entertaining, I did want to make them slightly more mature and display more of Lilac's intelligence and capabilities for the books to come. (I'm calling them Shine & Hex as of now, but they may change.)

I'll be updating the Lilac Jones tab at the top of the blog soon, but until then the old versions of the series will be there. Once I update it the page name will change to Beacon to match the new publication!

Beacon will contain the previous four stories with new editing and a few brand new vignettes added between them, while all the material in Shine and Hex will be new and never before published, and is yet to be written. The main bulk of my editing is updating the previous stories to match my current voice the the jump between books isn't too glaring, although there will be a time jump of half a year between the end of Beacon and the start of Shine.

I do plan on releasing other books set in this series in the future, and I have three other short story/novella series in the works right now that I want to focus on this year.

I'll be blogging more in the days to come - both about Beacon & those other projects, plus some craft stuff, so stay tuned! :)

***

You can follow me on Twitter here, or buy my books here...thanks for reading!

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