What It Takes

What it takes to write a book:

  

Yup, that's it. Coffee, and cookies, and my butt in a chair. That last one is the hardest part. Especially since these dogs want to distract me so, so bad... I'm babysitting my brother's dog Otis. (Follow him on Instagram here.)

He's adorable, but don't let it fool you, since we've got him he's eaten 3 dish towels, a $600 dollar cheque, a blanket, 2 chew toys, 2 footballs, and more. We can't keep him out of anything, and he has a bad habit of jumping onto the kitchen counters and grabbing anything out there. He's a cuddlebug, though, even when he's biting at you.

I'm determined to finish the new edition of Shadows within the next few hours, though, so I can publish it already! 

I'm hoping I can head up to the she-cave today and record some music in there, since I have no privacy in the house while everyone else is on vacation. I really want to put out a new EP today. Too ambitious? We'll see, lol.

Listen to my latest song here: Maybe You Were Right

Back on the Bandwagon

I'm hopping back into writing and being productive. I'm putting out the new edition of SOSAS in a few days so I'm trying to finish it tonight so I can write a short story before morning.

Today I'm recording a couple new tracks or even an entire EP. I'm slowly getting the hang of cutting and enhancing vocals, so that's nice, and I'd like to apply it and put out something that feels more professional than my last few EPS.

The other day I went wild and bought like 15 or 16 new stock images and made a bunch of new book covers and I'm in love with them, so I have to do something with them. 2018 has not been half as productive as I hoped it would, so, I have to do something about that...

Hopefully I can update later today and say the new edition of SOSAS is publishing!

Rich Bitche$ Don't Die

Can we talk about how iconic Iggy Azalea's new EP is?

It's a bop.

I've also been listening to a lot of Sky Ferreira's cover of Voices Carry;

Truly iconic! She needs to put out a new album pronto. I do appreciate that the photo she used for this track is totally taken from Huji Cam, because, damn, do I relate. That app saved my life. (And aesthetic. Which is arguably more important.)

Honestly I've been putting off writing for days to work on music. I'm working on a novella about gargoyles right now, but God knows when that will be out. I still fully intend to publish the new edition of Souls of Salt and Seawater this month, and update the current edition of Shadows with a clean, firmer round of edits. However I probably won't be able to put out the special edition of Shadows until next month.

It's pesky to wait, I know, but I'm juggling a lot and I don't want it to feel rushed or sloppy. These characters deserve better.

I have so much cool shit I wanna put out, but it's hard to keep up a constant work rhythm.

Or maybe I'm just making excuses for myself >.>

I wanted to put out the second Shadows novel before 2019, but it will probably come out in like mid-2019, I'm not going to lie. Which is disappointing, but again, these books deserve better than me rushing and being sloppy. I rushed out Storm of Masks early because I felt a big pressure to be more prolific and now I'm stuck in the boat of rewriting it entirely. And it will be a better book because of it, but it's embarrassing that the old version saw the light of day. Lesson learned.

In the next couple of months after revitalizing some old titles, my focus will be on hammering out a bunch of novellas and short stories. Like dozens of each. And I'm going to sit on every last one of them for at least a month and a half before putting them out.

So that's what's happening work-wise.

On the other side of things I've been doing my usual; vegging out, obsessing over the internet, drinking too much coffee, worrying about how it will affect my health, ignoring said worries to make even more coffee. You know. The works.

Honestly the other night I almost died, because I stumbled across a video of Michelle Buteau on YouTube and was almost shook enough to perish.

I hate standup comedy. It's just not my brand of humor and it doesn't help that most of my exposure to it had been watching really old white men just say straight up offensive things and then act like they made a joke. Which is stupid. And I'm into dark and/or racy humor, I like when people poke the bear and pull stunts, it's just those other comedians try to do it and it falls flat.

Then they cry about the PC police when really...it's just not that funny. Joke about race/sexuality/gender if you want, but make it entertaining or do something unique with it, you know?

Michelle does that. Her set was so good. When she called herself Raven Raven-Symoné I deadass had to pause the video because I was cackling too hard.

Her Dutch in-laws sound hilarious and her set was endearing and cute enough that the risks she took with more edgelord material didn't come across as hollow or trying too hard. It balanced out well and it just works. Plus she has a great personality and presence so she owns whatever she's doing--including when a joke bombs. Which, really NONE of the jokes should have bombed, but the audience was clearly shocked and didn't know what they were getting into with her, which makes it even funnier, because she gives zero fucks and makes it clear.

Obviously I immediately went and followed her on Instagram. Which, again, is weird for me, because I HATE standup comedy, and that's most of what she does for a living.

I just finished reading a short gay romance novella I downloaded the other day, and now I'm reading an m/m fantasy novel, and it's freaking wild. It's called Slave by Kate Aaron, and it's exactly what it sounds like; a slave in a fantasy world who is the only surviving member of his nomadic clan rescues another slave (a captured soldier from another country) from an auction by buying him to keep him out of the hands of more cruel, sadistic masters who want to rape and/or torture him to death.

So the main character is jealous of this new slave because he wants to continue being their masters favorite, and the new slave wants no part of any of it, except he kind of does because he comes from a homophobic country where men aren't even supposed to touch outside of fighting, and he may or may not be falling for the main character.

It's m/m/m between the two of them and their master and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it? Like, slavery is BIG BAD. And the author kind of acknowledges that? But in a way that's like "Yeah slavery is bad, but our personal experience as slaves is cool because we kind of got lucky, so let's ignore all the iffy moral asides and focus on the romance, kay?"

I don't love that approach. And I'd like the world itself to be expanded on more.

HOWEVER. It seems like the sequels will get a little more political and ramp up the fantasy elements over the gay sex elements? And also develop their master further, which is good, since he's the only character of the three I don't love or understand so far, so him winning me over in any way would make his literal legal owning of these two other humans a lot more palatable? Because as it is I don't trust him? I mean I don't think he's /evil/ or would hurt them, but he's kind of ignorant of their situation and experiences?

Either way, the prose is quick and concise and the character dynamics are interesting. It's mostly a character study with fantasy window dressing. Which I'm cool with, I guess.

Anyway I'm going to wrap this up because I have way too much to do to keep blogging, but I may post again later today with some special stuff! 

Thanks for reading!

Check out my books here.