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.

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