In The Trees, The Air, Everywhere But Here

 I'm still committed to bringing this blog back to life. Today at some point I want to edit and reformat some of my book pages with updated information and stuff, but for right now I figured a new post would be much better than nothing. Being an author is weird; I really don't like doing admin stuff but if I don't I feel weirdly restless and frustrated, so, there's gotta be a balance to be struck there.

I've been watching The Orville and while I can understand why season one got some harsh reviews (some of the jokes go on too long or feel too pointless, some of the worldbuilding details are too unspecified and unexplored) but for the most part I love it. The episodes with Liam Neeson (just a cameo) and Charlize Theron (carried her entire episode) were fantastic. Pria was an amazing character, it looks from TV Tropes like the fans wanted her to return but she never did, I figured throughout the entire episode it felt almost like a backdoor pilot for a spinoff she could carry.

I would love to work on a space union crew exploring the galaxy, having adventures, sure (who wouldn't, right, it feels redundant to even say so) BUT I know I would have bad luck and would be stuck wearing a color I don't like. Like, the green jackets on the Orville look amazing. And that one general in a purple jacket? Stunning. But the red and blue look a little patchy and cheap to me. And I'd never wear the yellow ones, I'd mutiny if I had to.

I made a playlist the other day for Atrocity, the sequel to Divinity, and I'm excited to start working on that. I do have a couple other projects I'm going to finish first, including a round of edits on Divinity. I don't know when the new edition will be out, since I've only edited half of chapter one, but it's already so much cleaner and more professional than it was.

I don't think the book was bad before by any means, but it's amazing I figured it was publishable with so many clunky sentences and fragments and weird phrasings. I am having a lot of fun giving it more professional shine. My writing and tastes have levelled up since I published this book back in 2017, but then again the entire world has changed so drastically since then that kind of figures. A plague and a war and a bunch of other stuff happened. Is happening. That's the crazy thing; it feels like it's in the past but we're all still living it, it's just become the daily reality so we barely second-guess it. It's hard to fathom totally.

This morning I made a list of author things I have to do today. Most of them revolve around Digital Demon (which is still available on Wattpad here!) and formatting the ebook for it. I have to spruce up my personal template and watch a couple of tutorials on ebook formatting.

I see such a big difference in quality between my formatting and the stuff in other ebooks so obviously the goal is to bridge that gap. Figure out how to add illustrations/images for my chapter breaks so I can include exclusive art, figure out how to space and format the margins better so it doesn't look as compacted or jarring on-screen, that sort of thing. They're fine details I'm sure a lot of readers don't pay much attention to, but they add up quickly.

My dream is to afford Vellum, but that's very expensive software, at least when you're broke, which I am. It sure looks intuitive and fun, though. Intuitive software suits me best, anything that looks ugly or too complex for no reason is instantly off-putting, but if something is designed with a very nice intuitive layout and I can learn it by using it instead of watching a billion tutorials, then we're rolling. Vellum seems like one of those programs. Design and user experience need to be focused on as much as function when you're trying to create a tool for mass-use.

Anyway, that's what I'm focusing on today; making Digital Demon more available in more forms to more people. And I figure part of that is singing its praises, so I might have another post about it later, because I want more people to read it, because it took a long time and I think it's good.

I put off editing that story for so long but I like the way it turned out a lot, so maybe that's a sign I should stop listening to my writer's block so much and just trust my own voice, right?

I watched Kiki's Delivery Service for the 30th time today and I cried again, multiple times. It just gets me like that. It's a quiet movie but so relatable. Kiki losing the ability to understand Gigi leaves me sobbing every time.

When Kiki says to Osono "I'm still a witch in training, so if I can't do magic I've lost everything!" it hits so hard because I've totally been there, as have most people: when you rest your entire identity and personhood and purpose of existence on one thing, and then it's taken from you? That rocks you to your core and can truly be such a hollowing and shocking experience you really feel like all is lost, all hope has fled.

For me that was placing my entire identity and personhood on being an artist, an author, and then when I got writer's block and stopped writing for years it basically gave me a nervous breakdown. I had no clue who I was or what worth I had without writing and being successful at it, and I felt like I'd failed utterly on every level. So I had to relearn who I was and develop my sense of identity and worth in other ways. But writing again definitely still feels like flying again, especially when I get into the all-encompassing flow state where you're flying by the seat of your pants, or I guess by how fast you can type, and you know nothing can ever slow you down or touch you. That fire. That's magic.

I'm gonna go try to write something and cook up some magic, but then once I get my daily words in, it's time for formatting and watching tutorials and the likes.

Oh, and Digital Demon is good and you should read it. It only has like 26 reads as of this writing compared to Shadows of Ourselves which has 80 thousand, so obviously that's a pretty big discrepancy. Of course Shadows is a much longer and much better book than Digital Demon, but I still want Demon to have its moment! So please check that out here.

Or keep an eye on this space for free epub/pdf downloads to appear later!

Much Ado About a Troll Review

Troll reviews are one of the weirdest parts of being an author. I'm a gay guy. I'm specifically a gay guy who talks about homophobia when I see it, and who gets in arguments with anti-SJWs and incels and idiotic Trump supporters sometimes, because I can't help myself. I'm learning to engage less and less, but sometimes someone just needs to call them on their stupidity or hypocrisy.

The problem with that is the red-pill weirdos have no lives, so they then stalk my social media, find my books and author info, and leave troll reviews of my work on Amazon.

The last time it happened was around the time my novella Wolves came out, and a bunch of awesome people helped me by reporting those reviews. A few are still up, but most are gone, as they should be.

Last night I checked my Amazon page and noticed that a couple months ago someone threw more up.

One of them is for Shadows of Ourselves and the other is for Wolves. The one for Wolves Is actually hilarious because he says he bought it on another site, which is impossible, since it's only available on Amazon. He also calls my main character an obvious self-insert, which is hilarious because the main character of that is a surly twink with a truck and a boyfriend, and I'm a shy fat dude who can't even drive, let alone handle a relationship. He also says that writing a sex scene doesn't automatically make it sexy, which is further hilarity because there's no actual sex scene in that book, and if there were, it would be more desperate and emotional than sexy, because that's not a sexy book. I think it may mention sex in passing, but there's no sex scenes,

The one for Shadows just goes on about how Sky and Hunter are stupid and how I 'write like a teenage edgelord' which is hilarious because Sky IS a teenage edgelord and I wrote his voice that way on purpose. That's the entire purpose of the character. He's depressed and cynical and has to stop choosing to be snarky and bitter and isolated. He's a semi-goth painter with an abusive mother and a grunge aesthetic, and a drug problem. Of course he's an angsty edgelord; if he started the series as a well-adjusted adult there'd be no point or room for him to grow.

The one about Shadows actually talks about the content, so it may be a genuine rant review even though it reads like a troll who has a personal vendetta against me. So as much as I hate it I'm not going to report it, because people have every right to trash my books if they actually read them and don't like them. They even have the right to trash me, if they really want.

But the Wolves review is not only trolling, but also telling random lies about the book and attempting to insult me personally, and is obviously not a verified purchase, so I reported it. That's all I can really do, aside from attempt to garner more positive reviews for both of them to combat the trollish ones. Shadows deserves more attention anyway, but I'm sure the new edition coming out and the sequel following in the early or middle of next year should also help. I have a novella coming out for it before the year is up too, so.

Tonight I got way more done that I thought I would. I hit publish on A Twink in the Woods and Ian's Fetish, which are just silly, sexy fun, so hopefully both of those should be up by tomorrow or the next day, unless Amazon pulls some foolery or decides the titles or covers are too risqué and makes me change them. Cross your fingers it all goes as planned! If it does I'll post cover reveals and links tomorrow as well as add new pages for both of those!

Storm of Masks is now live again, and I made some slight adjustments to the colour filter and text/layout of the cover I like. It's still the same image, but it's a fresh cost of paint. I also have two new shorts to publish tomorrow and the next day as well, so it should be a steady stream of releases for the next few days.

Now I'm going to eat Mini Snowballs and drink black coffee and recover from all my hard labour. Peace!