There Is Nothing But Ice

 It's insane to think that pretty soon it's going to be winter - the leaves all fell so quickly I pretty much missed it. I guess I should look up more. :/

Some insane stuff was happening in my personal life lately, so this blog has been neglected as a result. I didn't forget about it (even though nobody really reads it, or at least very few people do) and I'm not going to abandon it. I mean, I do abandon it for months at a time sometimes, but I always intend to come back.

I mostly just want to keep a log of what I'm working on and when, what my mindset is regarding my books and my writing, etc. It's useful to me when I'm looking back, and it's a nice momento to have for my writing life.

I'm back on Prozac (those aforementioned insane things happening in my personal life demanded I face my demons) so that's slowly been kicking into my system and I'm settling into a new sort of normal. Medicated normal. Which is good, because I need to be. Mental health issues are so easy to ignore and push-off dealing with until it's almost too late, but I got a couple large wake-up calls and I had to rely on my family and my doctor to make the right choice for me.

Prozac worked really well when I was on it back in high school, so I'm hoping revisiting it as an adult is an equal or greater success. I probably shouldn't have stopped taking it, but that's a learning experience, I guess.

Still, stuff will hopefully be better from here on out.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about zombies and dragons, and now I'm working on a project that has both. I have to get them both done before NaNoWriMo, because God Damn, I am going to sit down and hammer out my vampire serial for NaNo if it kills me. And if it does, maybe I'll even get to come back as a sexy fanged goth femboi fiend. :) I bet immortality would be fun. It would have to be that cool X-Men regenerating properties kind of immortality though, because what's the point of living forever if you're not also a super-cool badass?

The first episode of that vampire serial is written, but I don't think I've mentioned it here and I am not naming it until I have more work done on it. I have loose outlines for the first four to five stories. There's going to be six in the first season.

But it doesn't matter, 'cause I have too much to do before thinking about that. No vampires for the next ten days of October; these days are about white blizzards, snow-frosted dragons, and magical artifacts.

I am putting out a pretty new edition of Iceblood soon! Maybe early next month, which seems way too far away even though the dates I'm looking at are like, 12-12 days away, lol. It's not going to have any real changes in it, it's just a new cover to go along with the new sequels and their stunning covers. I love the new cover of Iceblood, though, it's finally just right and it really suits the story more than any of the previous covers. I think Iceblood and Blood of Midnight were the two hardest books to put covers to, for me, which is why they've been through so many.

If I'm being honest, Rage & Frenzy may need new covers soon as well, but I'm not thinking about that right now! Here's a little thumbnail version of the new Iceblood cover for your enjoyment, though:

Books 2 & 3 are going to be called Scoundrel and Catalyst! I hope you guys will really check them all out and enjoy them. And really, I hope enough people buy them that I can afford to get Cyberpunk2077 next month, but that's probably a pipe dream, ha.

More later. Time to write write write! If you guys are doing NaNo next month comment about your plans and motivations below! I'd love to hear about people's preptober activities!

In The Belly of The Voodoo Machine

Title from Hades Pleads by Parker Millsap...

I'm staying in bed all day today in order to edit Dreamseeker and try to draft (or mostly draft) book 2, Dreamsinger. I think it will be good to take a break from my current novel WIP today and draft a novella, plus I've wanted to update the front- and back-matter of book 1 for a long while!

Book 2 is a rock star romance AND it has a human protagonist who serves in a damsel distress role a lot, so it's a lot different than book 1 and it will be a lot of fun to write. I still have to finish glossing over book 1, though, and I'm dragging my feet.

I've already had way too much coffee and tea today and I've been pigging out on potato scallop and baked ham. I played a little Fallout earlier and I'll probably play more tonight, but for now I'm cooped up in my room avoiding writing to blog. I also really want to read a lot today, but I can't let myself be sucked into some good book before I work on some of my own. My output for the last week has been shameful and I have to wrangle February back on track, productivity-wise.

Lately I started binging The Good Place and it's hilarious, but it's also made me cry a couple times. Definitely an amazing show. I already knew the season 1 plot twist before I went in and I still enjoyed it immensely as I saw it pulled off. I highly recommend it! I love afterlife stories so I wish I had started it sooner, but I saw a bunch of people in the BoJack subreddit ranting and raving about it during the BoJack finale threads (because they used similar plot devices but in opposite ways) and I had BoJack hangover from that shotgun blast of an ending to what is probably the best show ever, so I started The Good Place to help distract me a little...

Now I really am going to stop ranting and raving about TV shows and stuff and go write my damn book. Because I am a capable author who promised himself he'd make 2020 his bitch...

Confusion & Pizza

I thought today was Thursday, but it's still just Wednesday, which makes me sad. I thought Riverdale would be out, but now I have to wait another 24 hours, since in Canada it comes out on Netflix the day after it airs in America. In lieu of another episode of Riverdale I'll probably spend my morning writing. I finished a short last night, which ended up 2000 words longer than I thought it would be, so now I'm debating whether to draft another erotic short, draft the rest of Glimpse, or finish up my story I Kill Your Gods.

I'm supposed to have the house to myself today at least for a few hours, which sounds nice. People stress me out even when they're not doing anything, even when they're sleeping in another room making no sound, their presence unnerves me. Sometimes it's nice to have folks around, but mostly I find it very irritating, especially since the folks in question are my parents, and although I know they love me, I also know they judge me a lot and I don't live up to their expectations, so that's stressful. I mentioned to my mom yesterday that I wanted pizza (just an offhand comment about a craving) and when I woke up at ten last night, she'd ordered a giant pepperoni for me and a veggie pizza for her, so that was sweet of her. My dad, weirdly, does not like pizza.

My mom and I are usually more on the same page, and I look like her, but I have my dad's irritant personality and quick temper. He and I fight like cats and dogs, which is insanely stressful, but it's better than when I never stood up to him and just let him snap at or yell at me instead. At least I feel better about myself if I yell back, because then I have a backbone, right?

To be fair my dad works hard and is constantly tired, and he smokes too much and doesn't eat enough, so he probably feels like warmed over crap most of the time. But he quit for years and the new started again, so he only has himself to blame.

With that anti smoking PSA aside, I am going to listen to Grimes and get ready to write. Hopefully I have a cover reveal to share tomorrow! I do have finished works I can publish but I'm waiting until my backlist is longer; right now it's six titles total.

Everything Is Too Short

Everything is too short. That's what the problem is, if you ask me. Obviously you didn't, but here I am to give my opinions on random stuff nobody else cares about anyway.

What brought this thought on?

I replayed Saints Row 3 (one of the greatest and most absurd video games ever made) and I finished the game in like three days. It's the fifth or sixth time I've finished it--I remember playing it back in eighth grade in 2012 when my brother was away for school in another province. He left his xBox and I'd stay up every night after school playing it and listening to Kimbra while I drove around Steelport causing trouble. So it's not just nostalgic, it's comforting.

But the game is also too short. I was thinking how much better it would be if the first act was expanded; more missions exploring being a fish out of water in a new city and taking down the syndicate, since it feels like you move on to the other gangs too quickly. I'd also love an expanded third act with more of a battle against STAG, maybe with The Boss and Killbane teaming up.

Honestly, they could have made it a two-disk game and have disk two take place in an entirely different city.

I guess I just want another great Saints Row game, just not as abstract like 4 was.

But then the Star Wars trailer dropped and I got thinking the current trilogy would work better as a six volume story, since Rey's rise to power seems so rushed and there's still so much to explore with her past, and her and Kylo's chemistry, plus I want Stormpilot to happen, but obviously it won't. Maybe in a dream world audiences are enjoying a six movie epic (and I mean, Star Wars as a whole is nine movies plus Rogue One and Solo, which is great, but as a Reylo shipper, I want an entire movie of them running around as an odd couple, solving mysteries or some shit) but this is not that universe. I was hoping for a ballroom scene, an undercover mission, some romance....just more glamour from number three, but it looked kind of bland compared to The Last Jedi.

I have this problem with my books too; I was supposed to write a four chapter short story but somehow it got bumped to six chapters, but the scenes I'm adding are necessary and make everything better. Even then I'd love to add more to explore a certain character and a cool location a little more, but then it wouldn't be a short story anymore. I can't help it, I love big plots and I can not lie. I also want readers to feel like they got their money's worth out of a story.

Today I got too stoned and ate a lot of pizza and tried to record but didn't like anything I was doing, and then my mic started acting up. I really want to put out an EP soon and even drop an album this year, but I need a new laptop to make music on and write in a more comfortable position. I do have some cool potential album art and concepts lined up though.

That said, tonight and tomorrow are devoted to drafting this short story! It's called Glimpse and it's about a pixie and that's all I can really say until it's done.

Someone Free Grimes (Plus Adventures in Puppysitting.)

Remember when Grimes put out the best album ever? Remember how we've been waiting for new material ever since and it hasn't happened?  Remember a couple months ago when she posted shady Tweets about her label and gave us some tea?

The only new music she's put out since then is a snippet of a new bop in an Apple commercial:

It sounds like a bop for sure, but we need it now, not later. I'd love to hear the full version. I'm glad more artists are going independent. Even if it means lower budgets at least it minimizes situations like this with shitty labels. It happens in publishing too, people get fucked over by their labels and publishers and management all the time. There are shady business practices and betrayals and drama. It makes my head spin.

I was watching an Emma Blackery video (I'm waiting for her new album too!) earlier where she talked about a chain bookstore basically blacklisting her and refusing to list her book or promote it because she got mad at them on Twitter for violating a release embargo on the book. Since when is that okay?

It's wild to me that people's entire careers are subject to random whims like this on the part of people higher up in the chain. Or to bandwagon hate, because that happens and ruins careers too. It's also weird how so many artists in the past just couldn't put things out on their own, at least not if they wanted decent exposure.

Now we have the Internet and everyone is kind of enabled to build a brand and name for themselves off of nothing. 

I recently put out a new EP on my SoundCloud called Plucked From Orbit:

(Listen Here)

I don't really make music with the expectation of being known for it or it gaining a lot of attraction. I just like tooling around with synths and different sequencers, and I like making glitchy sounds and album arts. For me it's more about enjoyment and the concepts than making /actual/ bops.

Although I do want to learn to make more mainstream sounding pop bops eventually. Right now I'm basically creating ASMR sounds :P

I'm supposed to be working on a new edition of Shadows to put out next month. But I'm a serial procrastinator, so instead of writing the new novella Lovecursed or updating my notes, I'm planning a new edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater. And listening to lots of Billie Eilish. Not gonna lie.

I've also just been stewing over how many good movies are coming out.

Aquaman, The Nun, Godzilla, that new Bella Thorne movie with the ghosts (it looks cheesy as hell, but that's half the fun) and stuff like Darkest Minds, Glass, Mary Queen of Scotts. I'm really excited for Riverdale season 3. Cults and supernatural elements? Sign me up. I didn't expect them to go full supernatural until season 4, but I'm all here for it.

A couple weeks ago I spent an entire royalty check on vodka, 'cause that's the kind of irresponsible human I am, and got smashed. My parents were having a huge party with dozens of people milling around and bonfires and camping and stuff, so that was a mess, and I didn't want to be sober throughout it, and I'm guessing neither did Kuma. We also babysat my brother's wild dog during the whole ordeal, and the thing is vicious. Also, my selfie stick finally came! Here's some snaps from the weekend:

(Otis is cute but don't let it fool you! He bites! He still thinks he's a lap dog, too...)

(Me & Kuma!)

(Testing the selfie stick, lol)

Now the vodka is all gone and I'm left with an empty wallet. Next time I get paid I'm buying charcoal toothpaste to remove the coffee stains from my teeth, and some charcoal face masks to go with it. I need to do something about this breakout. Ugh. 

I've gotta go take the dog for a walk and then come back and hammer away at this new edition of Shadows so I can finally share the cover with you. I only made it yesterday so I can't act like I've been sitting on it long, but it feels like it. It's very Pirates of the Caribbean... And I really have to go finish it, so I'll leave you with this here:

Thanks for reading!

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