Force & Other Ghosts

Force is still coming out! I've postponed it until next month or the next, but I will probably put it out once the second book is done. I just want extra time to polish it, but I want to stress it is done and it is coming soon! I felt like I had to take some time and be extra patient with it, even if it meant pushing back the date.

On the bright side the new Lilac editions are happening this month and early next month, and I'll have updates about them as more of them come out. I also have a couple other finished and semi-finished projects I'm just being very patient with. I want all of them to have a lot of love and a long journey that ensures their quality. I can't make anything perfect, but I want to be sure it's 'ready' at least, whenever I feel that it is.

Anyway that's all I really have to say, and I wanted it to be up here that I am working on it, and it's still coming out, as are other cool things!

All The Fancy Books

I got my copy of The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich in the mail today and can't wait to start reading it, but I should probably wait until after I finish the third Riverdale book, and maybe a couple of Amanda Hocking books I'm reading/rereading (I'm halfway through my My Blood Approves series reread, and I'm also reading her book Freeks for the first time.) I also bought the Beautiful Creatures graphic novel and The Body Electric by Beth Revis in paperback.

Honestly I think 2020 is going to be a good reading year for me. I've got a lot of reads and rereads slated and I'm super excited about all of it. I even have the final Emily The Strange book coming. I've only read the first three, and I just reread books one and two, and am moving onto three, so I can be prepared to finally, finally read the last book! I really enjoyed rereading the first couple these past few days, for the first time in two or three years.

I want to put out some new music sometimes this year, too. So that's a thing I'm stressing about. I have ideas but no real products to show for them. I'm still tooling around with the vocal mixing on songs on my last album.

Okay actually since I wrote that last paragraph the other day I HAVE made and released some new music, 2 songs; Aries and No More. I'm not even sure if I like them but they certainly do exist and I had a lot of fun making them. I made some more cool shit but Bandlab decided to delete the stronger songs because of course. It was during a storm and the internet was acting up, so I can't fully blame them for the sync issues, but damn, I loved those vocals and they're gone.

Anyway, Aries and No More are here and exist and I like them a lot. I think. Aries is kind of corny, but I had written the lyrics a few nights ago and wanted to try them on a couple of different beats, and then before I knew it I had made 2 tracks and I DID like them enough to put them out. I think I'm improving but I also think my vocal mixing needs a lot of work and my level of skill is obviously not high enough to execute the actual song ideas I usually have. It's fun making music, though, so I can't see myself stopping even though I hate half of what I make.

In other news, I've hit 25k on my current wip!

I can't even say anything about it, just that it's gay romance and it has a psychopath in it. I mean, I can say I like it, and it might have at least one sequel, but aside from that, nah. Nothing. I'm trying to hold it in mind that the most important tool writers can develop is patience and even though things aren't coming along or coming out as fast as I want them to, doesn't mean I'm a failure or things are going wrong or 2020 is off. It's just that books, even shorter ones, take a lot of love and time and work and PATIENCE. I draft fast so it's hard for me to let things sit or let editing drag on even if a book needs it, because I want to release things so badly, but I'm not rushing these stories or myself.

That said, I am going to get back to work, because I am finishing this book this week, and that is that. Once it's drafted I can hop back over to my focus on editing that I just ruined and build that back up. I have so many finished titles to polish up it makes my head spin!

Night of The Dragon (Definitive Edition) & Where Six Souls Meet

So, the first Lilac Xia Jones story, Night of the Dragon, just got a new round of extensive editing and a new cover. The new, definitive edition of the story is out. I'm very happy I was able to go back and edit this, and I'm not going to lie, I edited...a lot. I added about 4k to 5k words of new material and rewrote a lot of the other material.

You can get the new edition here!

I'm much happier with this version of the story. I wrote this when I was about 17 and it probably wasn't ever ready to come out when I published it. I'm about to turn 24 so being able to go back and fix a lot of the stuff I didn't like or didn't have the technical skill to pull off the first time I wrote it was very satisfying.

I also love the stylish new cover, which is definitely more in line with the rest of my catalog:

 

I included the cover for the 5th story, which is coming out sometime mid-February! This week I'm focusing on editing and publishing new editions of volumes 2, 3, & 4, and then I'm going to get to work drafting Where Six Souls Meet, which is the first chapter of the 2nd act of the story. I'm really excited for this phase, and I'm glad to finally have an overarching plan and end-goal in place for this series and these characters. There will be 13 stories total, and then they'll all be bound up in a special omnibus.

I'm devoting the first half of 2020 to my three serials; Lilac Xia Jones, Superhero High, & Dark Territory (which I haven't talked about at all yet, but will have more details on later in the month!) and editing my previous novels (Shadows is already mostly done and on the way, and Blood of Midnight and Divinity are both next!) and the second half of the year to writing sequels for some of my novels, particularly for the Deadheart saga and Divinity.

I'm also devoted to writing a second Liesmith book this year if the stars align! I have a lot of ideas for it and I'm gearing up for it but I still have a lot of mental anxiety about it, because I'm stubborn and weird like that.

I actually had a lot of fun editing the first story this last week, even though I drank way too much coffee and beer. It doesn't count if it's after Christmas but before the New Year, though ;)

Anyway, you can check out Night of The Dragon here or add Where Six Souls Meet to your Goodreads shelves here!

I hope you all have a happy new year!