Isn't It Weird How I Only Blog At Night???

Last night I managed to finish editing (line editing but not copy editing, but the difference is splitting hairs to me anyway) Under His Touch. The new edition clocks in at just around 14k. I am always surprised how worth it the effort is to revise and fix up old stories. I'm always surprised by things past me missed, or what new skills I've developed. Of course I had to polish this one up anyway because I want to write the sequel now, but that doesn't mean it didn't need it.

And now I'm taking the night to outline stuff for the sequel, mostly making up my character sheet and locations sheet. I might make a timeline, but that's so time-consuming. But so worth it. But since these are simple stories that have no flashbacks and don't require too much focusing on dates, I'm not going to go too hard into that.

I DID make a huge decision regarding the sequel though, or two, to be specific, which is that:

1) There's not going to be a time-jump of three years. I don't know why I thought I'd do that. I want to see their relationship develop. Skipping two or three years is skipping the most interesting stuff, watching them adjust going from friends to a couple especially as Declan navigates his sexuality and coming out. Instead I'm going to give it a time-jump of like five or six hours. So it opens with them waking up the morning after and picks up right where we left off.

2) I think they're going to stay in Rockton, so I'm staying away from the vacation idea. I might have them go on a vacation for a future story as a special episode or something, but for the sequel I think they should stay in Rockton, especially since I want to develop the town and setting a little.

So I've got to completely scrap that first chapter I put up on Wattpad, but I'll post it on this blog or something as an extra scrap, like an easter egg or bonus content or whatever.

I have also slowly yet steadily making plans to release my next few musical projects. I want to put out my next album soon but I have one demo for it and nothing else but like half a page of notes. I do have track titles and a concept for the sound, imagery, etc...

BUT. In the meantime I'll probably release more digital/instrumental music like my last song Rejuvenate. I was going for a Final Fantasy/video game score with that, so I might continue in that vein or create some ambient music of some kind.

I've been reading CHARM by Tracy Wolff and so far I'm mixed on this entire series. I loved the first three books, but book four dragged a lot for me, and this book is a mix of hilarious fluff, filler content, and random new developments like a shadow world/alternate dimension and it's turned into portal fantasy. On the one hand I appreciate the balls to go from dark academia paranormal boarding school, to straight up save-the-world urban fantasy, to full Isekai, all without giving a damn what anybody else thinks, but it's kind of a set-up book for the next one and I'm just eager to get to THAT.

Because I'm mainly here at this point for Jaxon and Flint and whatever scraps of them I can get. And I WANT that spin-off book. I want my gay dragon vampire story. I do. And I deserve that.

In the meantime I know there's a lawsuit going on with Tracy Wolff and her editor, and I'd be pissed if I were her. It sounds like Tracy Wolff wanted to write a series that was nostalgic for Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, and her editor fed her a concept and ideas another author had created and written. It's sad because clearly Wolff actually created her characters, world, and wrote her own story, but knowing large parts of it she thought were her collaborator's ideas turning out to be plagiarized has to sting. I don't think she's the guilty party here and I don't think it should stop her from writing more books - I honestly expect to see them settle out of court or something with a caveat that the OG author is credited as a partial creator in future printings, but we'll see what a judge thinks.

I do have a soft-spot for this series because it reminds me of the vibe I was going for with the Lilac Xia-Jones stories when I started them. Another series I have to continue and have lots of plans for. But need to make new covers for...

So I have lots of work to do. But that's not new.

I have a really good cheeseburger waiting for me, but I'm not going to eat it until I've written at least 3k words. So that's how you know I'll get my writing for the day done today, instead of flaking out. :)

Anything That It Takes To Keep My Head Screwed On Straight

Title from Silence by Emmy Meli.

It's been slow-going trying to come out of my fog and embrace the new year. That doesn't mean it hasn't had its upsides, because it definitely has. The weather is getting fresher and warmer daily, the sun is showing his face more and more every day, and there's always something to do, which might be overwhelming, but still, at least there's always something to do, right?

For me, it means working on the new edition of Under His Touch. It's been a lot more of a project than I thought it would be, mostly because I was never planning to create a sequel but also because I've been in the mood to write, to draft, and now I have to hold myself down and engage the editing brain. I know I can do it.

I enjoy it. I know that too. I always have fun with editing, when it's developmental edits. But this, alas, is line edits. So it's a slow, tedious brand of work that is almost like writing, but much more agitating. And I'm not good at being agitated.

So I'm doing my best. But I'm also trying to read more: it's actually insane that this is the same brain that read an entire book a day in high school. I try now, but it takes me two to four days to get through books I'd read in one before.

Is it my brain aging? Is it from smoking too much weed? Is it just my natural pace slowing down? Or is it that I'm out of practice? I think it's a little bit of all these things, to be honest, but I'm doing my best. My reading goal for the year is only 80 books, which is 20 less than usual, but even with giving myself that break I've got six books behind somehow. I'm determined to catch up!

But first, I want to write. Like a lot. I don't know how I always put it off until it drives me insane, but then when I do it it's such a relief it makes up for it.

So, first, editing. Then do what I actually want to do.