Ideas of Shadow

So, in honor of Shadows of Ourselves being out (you can buy it here) I thought I would talk today about how I got the idea and inspiration for the book!

Shadows really exists because of the scene in the alley in the first chapter. I had the image of Hunter protecting this boy from a pair of Charmer Hounds, and it was really the monsters that drew me in - I wanted to know what they were and who had sent them.

 

I'd always wanted to write a main character who could tell when people were lying - because wouldn't that be the best power? But Sky hates it, and as I wrote him I started to understand what kind of toll it would take. And, of course, since I'm a glutton for punishment, I made the magik hurt.

Originally, the book was supposed to be a novella set in Chicago, but after a few false starts where I played around with the character ages and verb-tense, I started my outline from scratch, moving the book to Saint John. I grew up here, and I've always wanted to set a full-scale paranormal novel here. I think the city really lends itself to magic, and my upbringing really factors into my writing and how I view cityscapes when I'm writing. Plus, looking at the city through the eyes of a bunch of powerful, often immortal, beings, was really fun.

 

 

With the changes, I rewrote my outline, and the story kept growing. I knew I wanted Sky and Hunter to be on a race against time - some of my favorite fantasy novels take place over the course of a few days, and I wanted to keep my timeline tight, so Shadows takes place over the course of five.

I think the thing I love about novels that are fast, that are races, when the villain is chasing the heroes around, is that you're jolting through these intense, magikal landscapes in a very fast, but very close-up way.

Sky gets a bit of magik culture shock throughout the novel, traversing places like the bazaar and the Seelie Court, and I wanted to make those settings as colorful and mesmerizing as possible.

I really can't wait to write the second novel, because I think the direction the series takes will surprise a lot of people. The books get bigger and bigger in scope as they go, and I'm going to have so much fun turning over the city to look at the magik beneath the surface...

Publishing Questions + Answers

Alright. I realized I always have a lot of things/projects/series going on at once, and it might confuse a lot of potential readers, so I figured I'd make a post to talk about what's happening right now, as directly and clearly as I can. Here you go:

My next book, Shadows of Ourselves, is out May 27th. It's a new adult gay urban fantasy novel. It's the longest book I've written, and the best, in my opinion, and you can pre-order it here.

After that, my next publications will be the Dreamworld Duet - an urban fantasy duology comprised of the books Dreamwalker and Dreamkiller. The prequel novella is available now, here! They're inspired by magical girl animes, and they've got some epic action scenes.

I'm writing them both to completion before publishing them, so they can come out days within each other. Because having to wait for the next book in a series is the worst.

After that I'm putting out We Die Like Angels which is part sci-fi, part urban fantasy. It's set in Midnight City, so if you've read my horror anthology, you might have an idea of what's in store in this novel, which is queer romance. (Nb X M)

Then I'll be moving on to Maelstrom and Tears of Sunrise, before I finish up the Charmers series.

I know it's a lot (seriously, try juggling it all when you're the one who has to write it) but I tend to post updates about this stuff as it happens, and I'm always happy to answer questions and clear up misunderstandings or confusion!

Shadows of Ourselves Pre-Order!

Shadows of Ourselves is available for pre-order! The book is out May 27th, but you can buy it now and it will be delivered to your kindle instantly.

To be clear, I think this is the best book I've written. It's the longest, at roughly 120,000 words, and it's the most unique, I think. It's got everything I love, and I had more fun writing it than I can remember having writing anything, really.

I'm going to be sending the book to plenty of bloggers, and you can add it on Goodreads here. If you're a book blogger or reviewer in any capacity and you'd like a review copy, you can email me at ApolloBlake@mail.com and I'll be happy to provide one.

I'll be blogging a lot more in the next few weeks, leading up to the release, so check back often for chances to win free copies of the book and learn more about it and the writing process!

Shadows of Ourselves Character Spotlight: Jackson

Time for another character spotlight! Shadows of Ourselves is out May 27th, and it should be available for pre-order within the next two days! I really love this book. Edits took it from 73,000 to 120,000, and it's a much stronger, more nuanced book now.

I cringe to know there are a select few people who read the rougher drafts. The final one is a lot better than I imagined the book could be. I'm glad I let it sit for a decent chunk of time, before editing.

Today's character spotlight is for Jackson - who gets a bit more screen time now than he did in the original book.

Jackson is a stranger who comes into the picture with a job offer for Sky, but there's a lot more to him than meets the eye. He's still a bit of a goofball, though.

You can add the book on Goodreads here and, if you review books in any capacity and you're interested in an ARC, you can email me at ApolloBlake@mail.com, and I'll send you one!

Take This

This is the face I make when I remember the sheer amount of editing I have to do in the next seven days in order to get this book out by my entirely self-imposed deadline. This is life.

Shadows of Ourselves Character Spotlight #1

I'm editing Shadows of Ourselves now, so over the next few days I'll be doing character spotlights! Today's is for Riley! She's one of my favorites from the novel, and I have some big plans for her in the sequel! (She might even become a POV character!)

Write a Book in Ten Days

So. I'm writing a book in ten days. Well, not a book. A draft of a book. So basically a book. Why? Because; productivity, and innovation. And I really want to finish this book before NaNoWriMo starts, so I can work on ADSD during that.

The book is called Shadows, it's set in my home city, Saint John, New Brunswick, and it's about a race of modern witches called Charmers living among us. And other creatures. It's set in what I call the Menagerie world - it's bursting with paranormal creatures and different breeds of magik.

I'm estimating that it will be about 55,000 words when complete, and right now I'm at 17,553. So how am I going about it? Easy, I've got a polished, streamlined outline, a set pace, and a set of tools to get me into the writing mood, including Pinterest boards and playlists.

Here's a sneak peek at my Scrivener doc:

My schedule is chapter-based, with a set number of chapters to write each day. Today is the 24th, so today and onwards my schedule is:

The 24th: have up to chapter ten finished.

The 25th: have up to chapter thirteen finished.

The 26th: have up to chapter sixteen finished.

The 27th: have up to chapter eighteen finished.

The 28th: have up to the last chapter finished.

As far as writing, I'm using Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k method, which means I'm outlining extensively each day (jotting a more detailed scene outline in a notebook before writing it) and setting aside certain times to write. To get in the mood to put words on paper I have a pinterest board: Shadows on Pinterest! And set paranormal romance playlists on 8tracks that I've been loving. I'm also listening to the new Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato albums on repeat. As far as inspirations go, I feel like this is influenced by books like Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater and Ink by Amanda Sun.

I'll be posting updates daily with updated manuscript wordcounts and quotes from the draft! If you're interested in seeing how this little experiment turns out and catching a look at the world and characters before the book is published, it will be a fairly interesting glimpse into my creative process!

Today's Quote:

Something started to spill from his open hand, like dark blood dripping from a wound. But it wasn’t liquid — it was like smoke, except that it was evaporating; the edges of its form licking the air like tongues of black flame. It grew. The darkness twisted and writhed in the air like a living thing, and began to pool on the ground between Jackson and the blonde guy.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stared at the thing taking shape there, sure that at any second I would snap upright in bed, panting, out of the nightmare.

Except this wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t waking up.

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