I Am A Total Liar (Here's Why) + NaNoWriMo!

 I wrote a blog post the other day where I totally just lied. I THINK I said my NaNoWriMo project this year was probably gonna be a dark contemporary. Or at least I said I was working on one. And it was gonna be my NaNo novel. That book about wildfires/grief is still in the works, but I'm not working on it this month. I'm gonna write a good old paranormal romance for NaNoWriMo instead.

It's called Lovely Omens and it's about witches and that's all I'm gonna say. It also has lots of cute animals. But that's it.

I think some of the ideas and vibes and stuff I'm putting into this book are ideas I've had in some form since 2013, so it's been a decade of wanting to write a witchy romance just like this. I have written witchy romance before, Shadows of Ourselves, anyone? And I will do it again. But this one is unique as fuck, if I do say so myself.

So. That's my NaNo vibe.

The playlist is mostly Smashing Pumpkins, Blur, The Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, etc. The more of this classic stuff I find the more Spotify wants to rec it to me. I like Blur and I've loved every Pixies song I've heard over the years, but both Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine are 'classic' or semi-classic bands I've never listened to. I missed those pivotal phases. So I'm going through it now, and loving it. I think Smashing Pumpkin's will be Ophelia's favorite band.

I'm also putting a little Joy Division in there. And the new Melanie Martinez album is iconic, of course. But I'm gonna continue prepping and drinking and getting ready to write! Once midnight comes I gotta get in at least the first few chapters. I know exactly what scenes I want to open the novel with but I don't know fully how to pull it off.

I hope people like this romance. The guy, Gage (his original name was Gunnar, but I think Gage fits him MUCH, MUCH BETTER) is so cute and tragic but so nice, he has a bit of a mysterious broody punk vibe, but he's mostly a good, normal man, not a crazy villain type. Maybe my next love interest will be villainous.

Anyway I ordered something the other day I cannot wait for. It's shipping in two packages and Canada Post says the main one with two books in it will be here April 5th. It's Switched, Torn, and Ascend by Amanda Hocking; the Trylle trilogy. I already have them, because Amanda Hocking is one of my favorite authors ever, and I've read them a billion times already. I have all three troll trilogies, I have two copies of Switched and a paperback arc of Crystal Kingdom. I got Tidal for free back when it came out for doing free publicity for it.

I've always loved Amanda's books, is my point. She's how I learned about self-publishing and I read her books and blog a thousand times throughout middle school and high school.

So it's exciting to me that I can finally own the original self-published paperbacks of the trylle trilogy, the ones with the turquoise/teal covers. I love them so much. It's one of my favorite covers. And I've seen them in pics and videos but never in person. Believe it when they get here I will take a bajillion pictures of them and post them everywhere.

After this the main thing I need to complete my Hocking collection is:

-The original Hollowland paperback edition with the red heart (I don't care about this one but it would be a nice thing to have one day.)

-The Hollows paperback editions with the old designs/Phatpuppy art designs. (I find these fugly but I still want them for nostalgia's sake.)

-The special edition omnibus of the Trylle that only had 100 copies made. (I really, really want this one enough to go feral and bite someone for it.)

I also still have to get Bestow The Darkness (an actual masterpiece) and Virtue/Tristitia in paperback, too. Then I'd have a complete collection and would feel like a total boss.

I'm so looking forward to seeing the difference between the self-pubbed and traditionally published versions of the Trylle trilogy, though. I know in these earlier editions Forening didn't have a name, so I'm curious what other little details were added later. I'm sure either way they're still good, though I'm also equally sure the trad-pubbed ones are probably better.

Anyway, I should get back to outlining my book. Because I haven't finished that, yet.

Also! Before I go, if you don't know, I often (not always, but often) use Katytastic's outline template/structure. It's three acts, each in nine parts, and it has never failed to create a very fun novel for me. You can use it for any genre and it never feels like a template because it's just basic story structure stuff. Like I said, I don't always use it, but I do like it a lot, I used it for Shadows of Ourselves, if I remember correctly, and I'm using it for this book too. I highly recommend it if pacing or plot isn't your strong suit.

On Self-Publishing. . .

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 your artistic integrity to please an in-house marketing agent.

I would never say don't go for traditional publishing - I plan to be a hybrid author someday, I understand the draw and benefits of that position - but don't eschew the indie route as a non-valid option. I didn't consider trying to traditionally publish when I started putting out books, this is not my backup route or my only option - it's what I wanted and what I went for because it worked best for me, and if you dismiss the fact that there are midlist and upper level authors turning down 6 and 9 figure deals to go it their own, then you haven't been listening.

40% of book sales today are ebooks, there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of beloved writers with devoted fanbases self-publishing, there are amazing resources and a close-knit, intelligent community. Beth Revis wrote the Across the Universe trilogy and then chose to self-pub The Body Electric, and it was arguably her best work yet. (IMO - I highly recommend reading them all though.) Look at what Joe Konrath is doing, and what Amanda Hocking achieved. Look at Nenia Campbell who have close-knit fanbases and erotica authors like Selena Kitt who have basically built an empire. And then tell me this isn't a valid option.

Stop chasing dreams that revolve around gatekeepers and massive slush piles and rejection after rejection because you're letting valuable, good books go to waste because one agent didn't like it or one house didn't think it was a great fit for their imprint and take matters into your own hands.

Blogs Are My Favourite Books

So the other night I realized blogs are my favourite books. I was sitting in bed reading Amanda Hocking's old blog posts for like, the millionth time, and I realized I am obsessed with reading blogs. And I don't mean blog posts - I mean blogs themselves. In their entirety. When I find a new blog, I will go to the last/first post in the archive and read the entire blog from the first post to the newest post, even if it means reading three to four years worth of posts.

I've read blogs like Amanda Hocking's (http://www.hockingbooks.com/blog/) and Zoe Marriott's (http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.ca/) and then I'll read ones about military wives who travel around to different bases around the world, or uni students living in Japan, or manga artists moving to Hawaii. And I'll read them more than once.

A good blog is like a good book, but even better, it's like a good conversation. A good blog has that nostalgia to it, like remembering a 3am conversation with your best friend from three years ago, except you can reread them again and again and again. They're a glimpse into other people's lives. Like right now, I'm sitting at my desk listening to Young by Vallis Alps, with a mug of black coffee beside my computer. The window behind me is open letting in the mid-September air, and I'm about to go do some laundry when I'm finished writing this.

Or, like, last night, when I though this post up, I was lying in bed, reading Amanda Hocking's blog, listening to Enemy Fire by Bea Miller, I was a little bit stoned, drinking lukewarm peppermint tea out of a chipped mug, eating leftover donair pizza from Pizza Shack, thinking about how blogs are nostalgia fodder and how I really, really love them.

See? Reading a blog gives you a glimpse into someone else's humanity - into their existence and what it feels like to be them. It's really, really cool, and there's nothing else exactly like a blog: it's basically a public diary. A bit invasive at times, maybe . . . but still interesting as hell.

Your Favourite Candy's Cotton, That's Why All Your Teeth Are Rotten~

~Title from Sippy Cup by Melanie Martinez.

A lot has happened. I haven't written much in the last two weeks, and I don't know if I mentioned why or not, but it's because I went on vacation. I bought a lot of books. And chocolate. And I got my first tattoo!

My cousin and I went to visit my grandmother and my aunt in a small town near Quebec and it was a damn experience. The town was tiny, but charming - every house looked like a witch lived there and if you went inside you'd find a cozy place with a pantry full of herbs, a grimoire and a bunch of cats. It was all wide porches with wicker chairs, small town gossip filtering through the oppressive heat, sweat beading on foreheads, the strong tide at the river - where we saw a massive truck get stuck in the water - and the kind of laughter you can only enjoy in the company of good family and close friends.

It was an eight-hour bus ride, both ways. I have never gone on a longer or further trip before, so it was fascinating, and I was paying attention to every tiny detail - the tricks people would pull to sneak extra luggage aboard, like tying a pair of shoes to your bag or having a huge overflowing purse on top of your carry-on, and the way you could feel the dust and pebbles scatter over the road underneath the bus as we flew along.

We went for walks every single night while we were there; we being myself and my cousin, led by my aunt and her plethora of unique and colourful sisters. They led us around town like saints leading the blind, pointing out local hotspots and talking over each other a mile a minute during a heated discussion on Justin Trudeau. It was on a late run to Tim Hortens for our Gramma one night that I first saw the tattoo shop across the street.

"Let's get tattoos," I jokingly said to my cousin.

"Okay," she told me - except unlike me, she was dead serious.

So we did it. We researched, planned, discussed, and deliberated before settling on a matching set of tattoos: the outline of a crescent moon on opposite wrists. The left for her and the right for me:

I love it. I'd always planned on getting tattoos, but I never thought I'd get my first one on a whim, on the last day of a vacation, without telling my parents - but it happened.

Our tattoo artist was a cool guy, and the shop was incredible - I'll write a bit more about the shop and my experience there when I get the name off of my cousin - but I liked it there. The sensation of getting a tattoo was similar to the wasp sting I got once, like a sharp pinch that lasted for just a few seconds. It is a small tattoo.  But I love it, and every time I look down at my wrist it just feel right.

I am a very big night-owl. It's 12:15am as I write this, and my work day is just getting started. I'll be writing for hours, reading, listening to music, blogging, and trying not to die in this heat. My cousin is a night-owl too, though. We're nocturnal together - and we're so alike. We were born seven days apart - as my mom left the hospital with me, my cousin and her mom were just being rolled in. We stay up late reading side by side, arguing, having movie marathons, just lying in the dark talking and playing games like twenty. questions, having heart-to-hearts. We became who we are today in the dark. So I think the moon is very fitting for us.

So I just wanted to let you guys know I'm still working on Souls of Salt and Seawater, and Shadows, and soon I'll be staring the rewrite on BOM. I'm not not working just because I'm not blogging.

And now, bonus, or 'books I bought on vacation' time:

1. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer (I already had this, but it and Twilight are the only ones I have in paperback, and now I'm one step closer to having all the hardcovers.)
2. Crystal Kingdom by Amanda Hocking (Already had this too, but it was an arc and I needed a pretty finished copy!)
3. Just One Day, Just One Year, & Just One Night by Gayle Forman (Which have been priority reads for months!)
4. Echo by Alyson Noel (Ordered on Amazon, not here yet!)
5. Fallen by Lauren Kate (need to snark-read this in anticipation for the movie - ordered on Amazon, not here yet either!)

Gimme Them Gold Coins

Today's - post title from Off To The Races by Lana Del Rey*

So, I'm working on a bunch of new stuff right now, and I don't want to say too much about it because it's all in the early stages, but the two things I can talk about are Blood of Midnight and Shadows.

Blood of Midnight is the first novel in a duology about vampires, called the Evernight Falling Duet, and right now I'm working on the first rounds of edits. It's tough, because I have to add in not just several new scenes but several new chapters, and there's a good chunk near the end of the novel that needs to be rewritten entirely as well.

Shadows is a New Adult novella, and it's the first in a series about witches called Charmers living in Seattle. It's dark and gritty and I'm just drafting it right now, but I love it.

The problem is, my brother has been coming home a lot lately, and since his room is right below mine I can't stay up all night or I'll keep him awake, and he needs to sleep so he can get up for work. But I work best at night. So as a compromise, I've been coming down to the basement every night to work for a few hours. It's really dingy and dismal and cold down here - it's all concrete floors and walls, and a half-finished wood stove (the stove is installed and works, but the stone wall behind it isn't finished. there's a couch and three tables from my brothers old apartment, and my dad's drumset under a big clear tarp. The dogs live down here, so they're hanging out with me as well, and there's a bunch of random stuff around, along with the recycling bins and a bunch of shelves full of spray paint and tools.

Some of my favourite weird things down here include:

• A painting my uncle did years ago of an eye, which has real dragonfly corpses glued to the canvas.
• An old black and gold locker from a closed down school.
• A giant transparent drape for Halloween that has pictures of grim reapers embossed on it and takes up an entire wall.
• An antique red siren light that no longer works, and isn't (hopefully) attached to an alarm/siren system anymore.
• A porcelain statue of a female cherub with a pearl strung flower crown on, holding a bouquet.
• A cardboard cutout taller than me from when The Avengers was in theatres.
• A giant green plastic chalice that says 'lucky' in big rhinestone letters on the side.

So yeah, it's a big haven of weird mismatched things that somehow works. We've got stuff from my Grandma's apartment we took after she died, boxes of my aunts stuff that she has no room for at her place, boxes of stuff from my brother's apartment, old art my uncle left here, junk my dad has collected...

I've been writing about 2000 words a night, which isn't as much as I'd like, but I got drunk at my brother's birthday party last week, fell over, and really hurt my wrist, so that's all I can take without the pain getting too bad/annoying. And you know, I think I might quit drinking. I used to self medicate with alcohol before I was even legally old enough to drink, but it always just makes my depression worse in the days after. I  lose interest in the things I care about and get stuck in that state of pure, all-consuming apathy where you just can't bring yourself to feel anything or care about anything. I used to smoke a lot of weed too, but it actually made me feel good and relaxed, and it never affected me that way alcohol does, so yeah, I think I'll probably stop drinking.

The past few weeks have been pretty wild. My best friend and my cousin came out. My friend was here for like two weeks, and my cousin was only out for two days, but we all had fun. We walked down to the river and spent a couple hours swimming, and then we all sat down and worked on some outlining for a collaboration novel we might do. We spent days on days filling ourselves up with fried steak and rice and grilled cheese and just eating a bunch of comfort foods and coffee. We ended up watching Scooby Doo zombie island, which we all know is the best Scooby Doo film ever made...right? We also watched a lot of Bojack Horseman, which is half incredible and half heartbreaking.

Anyway, I've been spending the last week thinking about nothing but Scream the TV show and rewatching the episodes to try and figure out who the killer is, but mostly I'm just sad they killed off Riley. That said, I can see how it was necessary considering she was the only character anyone liked enough for her death to have an emotional impact. I think either Brooke or one of the guys will die next, but who knows - maybe it could be reporter chick instead.

I also just finished reading my ARC of Crystal Kingdom by Amanda Hocking, and I really can't believe the Kanin Chronicles is already over. I cried like three separate times while reading this book, guys. I feel personally victimized by Amanda Hocking.

So yeah, all in all, that's what I've been up to. Trying to enjoy my summer and getting way too caught up in pop culture. I got paid my royalties from Amazon recently, so I ordered Zoe Marriott's Name of the Blade trilogy, and I'm thinking I might go into the city tomorrow for some Chinese food and book shopping in the morning.

I'm gonna have some news about new stories and releases in the near future so keep checking back for new posts if that interests you! I have a new project coming up after Shadows that I'm really excited about, but it's still in the early stages right now so I can't say too much yet!

-Oliver