Blue-Eyed Surprise

Lucky you! I just put out a hot new gay erotic romance short that you can read for free on Wattpad here. Under His Touch is short and sweet and sexy, and it features a very cute, protective hunk with a pair of frosty blues.

Clearly this is under my adult pen name, Cosmo Knox, meaning there's going to be explicit sex in it, so read at your own risk!

You know you wanna ;)

Aside from getting back into the writing groove, I've been watching a bunch of Strange Empire on Netflix.

I've also been producing a bunch of music. I've been using Soundation & Looplabs, & it's nothing fancy - just digital instrumental stuff, like background music in video games, but if you want to you should check it out on my Youtube page.

I'll have a finished version of Forsake This Violent World up on Wattpad and Kindle soon, and then I'll be working on putting out two novellas on the same day :) One of them is Beacon, and the other is a surprise, but I will say it's also young adult...

Forsake This Violent World Teaser

Chapter one of my new story Forsake This Violent World is up on Wattpad! The novella should be out sometime this month, but I'm still working on it. In that vein I thought I'd share a snippet!

:)

FTVW is basically a paranormal Kill Bill. It's also influenced by stuff like Coraline and Crimson Peak (freaky mansions anybody?) and good music I've been listening to like Astrid S, HANA, and the new Lorde. It's mostly about killing an evil crystal goddess, but it's got plenty of snark, sexy bits, and themes of grief, strength, overcoming self-hate, et-cet...

I think this is one of my favorite covers I've ever made, and maybe one of my strongest pieces of writing yet?

I may be biased, but I really love this main character, Ruby. She's a darker hero with a lot of emotional baggage and anger, and she's a lot more in-your-face about it than my other characters. She's fairly dramatic, but then, her life has been pretty dramatic.

You can read the first chapter here.

I Don't Know Anymore

I don't know anything anymore, so I'm going to stop trying to figure things out and just float. I'm a mentally ill basket case so overthinking things is kind of my one and only skill, but I'll just have to work around that.

Y'all probably have no idea what I'm taking about, which is cool, because neither do I half the time. But lately I've been really stressed out. I've relapsed with self-harm, I've been basically having an emotional breakdown a day. I don't think I'm alone in that regard because everybody has been stressing the fuck out for...a long time, honestly.

Still, I'm at a point in my life where I never thought I'd be. I don't really recognize myself, know who I am or who I want to be, or where I'm going.

So, I guess...I'm in my early twenties?

I don't know. I didn't anticipate being this person. I can't say I hate myself, I understand certain reasons why I am the way I am, why it's so hard for me to connect with people or let anybody in, why I'm such an easier target for addiction and destructive behaviors, but understanding doesn't necessarily absolve me or make me feel any better, you know?

At the end of the day, all of the questions we ask ourselves - Am I a good person? Do I have a soul? Is there a God? Am I wasting my life? - are all in our heads, and they'll stay that way, like they always have, until we die. So it doesn't really matter.

But then again, knowing it doesn't matter also doesn't make me feel better. Or make me any less guilty for existing.

I read in this Grimes interview recently where she said something like, she's sorry she can't do anything more useful to society than sing or produce, and I can relate to that. I've never really felt useful/necessary. I never didn't feel useful or necessary growing up, but I hadn't fallen into a void of depression, apathy, and emotional trauma at that point, either, so I don't know.

This post isn't meant to sound as angsty and whiny as it does, but I find it really fucking crazy that there are people who wake up and go through their day and don't have to contend with the constant urge to end their own lives and/or do fucked up shit, that people get through a day without having an intrusive thought or purposely chasing down their own darkest memories even though they know it isn't a good idea.

I don't know what it is to not be in the middle of a crisis, because everything is a crisis for me. The fact that I exist, in this universe, in a physical human form, is a crisis. I am not equipped to deal with this shit.

I'm also not equipped to kill myself.

I mean, yeah, I want to on a daily basis (awkward lmao) but I'm not about to rush out and do it. I don't know what stops me, if it's just fear of physical pain or a natural survival drive, but something does. I'm not going to act like I don't self-harm, because I feel like hiding it does more harm than good and, honestly, I'd rather be open about the fact that if you want to even try and recover, you're going to fucking relapse a few times. I relapse. At least I'm trying to do better for myself. Which is all any of us are in a position to do, honestly.

All I'm saying is that a lot of people tell me I seem like I have things figured out, from an outside perspective. But I don't.

I'm stoned every day, I have literally one friend, who I rarely see, and 99% of my time is spent in one room, in the dark, writing or beating myself up for not writing.

I'm 21, I still live at home, I'm borderline and ocd as fuck, I'm not happy with my career, and I have zero close personal relationships.

But I'm still here. I'm counting that as a win even though I don't particularly like myself or my life, because I'm alive and I'm fighting and I'm pretty sure I'm going to look my demons in the eye and kick their asses, any day now.

I don't believe in happily ever after. I don't believe I'm going to wake up one day a month or a year or five years from now and magically be happy. But I do know that if I do wake up a year or five years from now, it's going to be the same way I do now - fighting. I know that I've been through some of my darkest moments and woken up the next morning even though ever fiber of my being was screaming that I wouldn't, or that I couldn't.

I want to be a better person, I'm fighting to be a better person, and I'm serving paranormal romance escapism realness along the way. That's all I know how to do, so I'll make it work.

The truth is I'm not writing this post for anybody else. I'm writing it for myself, to let myself know it's okay to keep moving.

WOLVES is out!

Wolves is out! I've been so excited to share this story, it feels really vindicating to release it. You can buy it here!

In case you missed it, Wolves is an urban fantasy featuring an ensemble cast. It has surreal elements perfect for fans of Welcome to Night Vale, but with a grittier, slightly more relatable edge to it. It's inspired a lot by the area I grew up in. The New Brunswick wilderness is very beautiful and the small towns and farms can be charming and also kind of eerie.

In slightly less exciting news, I published a new edition of Blood of Midnight. I'm about to start writing book two (And, oh boy, is the cover beautiful!) and I wanted to spruce up the first book to go with its new cover.

The changes aren't that significant. The chapters have titles now. There's a new prologue called Before: Pulse which I feel sets the tone of the book much better than the first chapter. The first two chapters have slightly expanded material, just new bits peppered in here and there. The end of the book also has updated acknowledgements and an Inspirations page where I talk about inspirations of the book, like songs that several chapters are named after, other vampire books that influenced my views of them and what their society would look like, and stuff like that.

The new edition is available on Wattpad in it's entirety here! If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's got action, romance, and intrigue.

The new edition of Iceblood is also finally finished updating on Amazon, so you should grab it if you're interested!

You can check the tabs at the top of the blog for the new Wolves page which has more info on the new release!

Iceblood (Cover Reveal)

Hi guys! I know I haven't been active a lot lately, but I have been writing. Obviously I'm always active on Twitter, but I like to keep this blog alive as often as possible.

Right now I'm gearing up to publish the solo edition of Iceblood, as well as editing a new draft for publication.

The deal with Iceblood is that I posted a couple months ago talking about how I was expanding it and adding in more of the world and expanding the plot. I did try that in several different ways, but eventually I realized it just wasn't working. I do want to tell those stories in Josmea, but I don't think they're Atka's story. I realized I like Iceblood as is; it feels like a complete, finished peace.

That said, I've shelved the expanded edition and any idea of a sequel. I'll probably use those plotlines and scenes in other books set in this world, and I'm sure I can squeeze Atka cameos into a few later titles.

That said, I'm just formatting the ebook now, so I thought I'd show the beautiful cover!

Is it not perfection?

I'm publishing the ebook edition tonight and formatting the paperback sometime this week! I'll post links when it's up on Amazon <3

Blur

I haven't posted in a while because I've been trying to work on stuff (and mostly failing) when I'm not in bed bingeing Sense8. I'm super lazy.

They say depression makes you sleepy, that it gives you physical fatigue, and I understand that, but I also still kind of blame myself for it. I hate not getting things done or being able to focus on anything. I hate feeling like an invalid.

I've mostly been spending my time designing and formatting book covers because it's the easiest, funnest part of my job. At the same time, I want something to put out.

The other day I wrote the first bit of Beacon book two, finally. I think the Beacon trilogy probably will be my next release, if I don't hop over and finish something else first, which could always happen. I'm trying to finish book two by Saturday the thirteenth, which is scary considering how close it is, but I haven't been setting deadlines for myself recently and I'm determined to get back on track.

Tonight before I start work on that I'm going to free-write a bit to try and get myself back into the writing groove.

 

(This is the deadline face...)

I have no idea what the hell I'm going to write about. People think the hardest part of being a writer is the long hours or the pressure to write something great. For me, it's picking out which paranormal creature to make the hot dudes in my books.

I love stuff like the Trylle Trilogy or the Paper Gods Trilogy, books where the paranormal aspect is something newer and original. I like stuff you don't see often.

The market is flooded with werewolf books and I'm sure there's always a market for them, but as much as I love them I'm not sold on them. I don't know if vampires still have a market. My vampire book doesn't sell well, but I don't market it much and it is kind of a niche title. I still can't tell if it's urban fantasy or paranormal romance, really, and I wrote it. (I still love Blood of Midnight, I think it's a good book, it's just not an easy one to sell >.>)

Need by Carrie Jones has pixies, which is cool as fuck. I've written about those before, in a vastly different way, so I don't want to do that. I can't write about faeries because I'm not in the mood. Gargoyles? Not right for this project. Genies? I'm too white and Canadian to pull that off respectfully without a bunch of research first, which I really don't want to do with a 'just-for-fun' project.

See how hard this is?

What kind of paranormal beings can my hot gay heroes fall for? It's an eternal plight.

I'd love to write about the undead or zombies, but I have no clue how to make them hot and not gross and/or mildly horrifying. I have some ideas, but I'm not sold on 'em.

This is the struggle.

I'm gonna go brew too many coffees for one person, which is what I usually do when I'm stressed, and never helps, but does taste good. Maybe I'll find the answers I'm looking for in a human-sized vat of boiling coffee...

~

You can buy my books here or follow me on Twitter.

Letting Things Take Time

I know that things take time. Especially manuscripts.

I know that I should let things take time and run their natural course, but it's hard. It's hard not stressing out over my not finishing a book in months when I'm also freaking out about everything else. My human existence. Whether or not I or anyone else is a good person, or at all redeemable. If God exists. If ghosts exist. What the hell I'm going to do for a living. How I'm going to survive and make end's meet if I can't even get out of bed or dress myself most days.

To be clear, I'm not making myself out to be some great victim. I'm not like, quivering and rolling around on the floor in a state of constant crisis. I might be close, but I'm not there yet.

I just stress myself out.

The thing is this entire struggle will probably remain forever a figment of my own emotions and imagination and paranoia, stuck inside my head, and I should ignore the fear and live my life to the fullest I can enjoy it.

But, you know, that's not how this whole existential dread thing works. I can't shut it off. And I need to chill.

So I'm dubbing this month the month of short stories and relaxation. Next month I'll worry about getting more serious and setting deadlines and really tackling whatever it is I'm feeling. But for now, I'm going to let myself wing these strings of random short stories and ignore the market and trends and what sells and what I want my author image to be and who I want to be as a human and if I can even become a halfway normal, functioning, worthwhile person, and just fucking write.

The truth is even though it all feels suffocating, most of what I'm feeling is not new. Other people have felt it and are feeling it every day. So I should breathe and not convince myself that my problematic symptoms make me evil, because I know who I am, or I should, and I'm trying to get back in touch with that person.

Maybe this month I'll somehow achieve that by writing a bit. Just for me, not anybody else.

My wip has fancy gowns and mansions and it's giving me Pretty Little Liars vibes, big time. Except it also has magic. Lots of it. And my worldbuilding is basically 'anything can happen' so I can write whatever the fuck I want. I probably won't write in this world again, which is also really freeing because I don't have to think ahead to what I want to do in future installments while writing the current story and building my world.

This is what I've been doing for the last five hours.

I'm going to get back to it and hope it makes me want to jump off a high surface a little less, and maybe produces something publishable.

(A totally unrelated aside; anyone else screaming with joy at the prospect of the new Shatter Me books?)