I'm Not Shy But I Refuse to Speak Because I Don't Trust You to Understand Me

Title from My Name Is Dark by Grimes.

I'm probably not going to win NaNoWriMo this year; I only have like 3000 words left to go, but I'm probably not going to hit it because I'm in a bad place psychologically and probably won't write that much before 12, if I write today at all. I slept all day and played a little Kingdom Hearts 3 and that's it. And if that's it, that's fine, at least I was lazing off instead of getting into more trouble. I really don't trust myself to do much else today.

Basically I've been listening to Grimes and enjoying moping around hating myself and life and feeling all defeatist about everything.

Obviously I should have loftier goals, but we all have Those Days TM.

I picked up a copy of Awakener by Alisha Howard on Kindle because it's free on Amazon.ca right now, and I bought all the paperbacks for the My Blood Approves series by Amanda Hocking. I'm finally going to own one of my favorite self-published series in physical copy! It's hard to invest in indie books, and I say this as an indie author, because they're so damn expensive for print-on-demand books, and it sucks, but it is what it is. I'd love to buy the Hollows series too, and in fact, I'm hopping over there to do that now, because I just talked myself into it, it's only two books, and God knows when I'll have the money again. It came up to like 95 bucks for the MBA books, they're like 17 bucks each. Hmmm, maybe I will wait to buy the Hollows. I talked myself into it and then out of it again, lol. Money is scary, especially when you have very little.

I honestly think I'm supposed to help my cousin move in a couple days and watch all my packages come while I'm out and get stolen. I'll have to build a contraption or box or something for the mailmen to put them in that doesn't draw as much attention.

I'm honestly reeling from what a weird November it's been. It's crazy that this month is over because it felt like it went on and on and on forever. I'm kind of in denial that it's winter again, but at least it's mild so far. Thanks for that, global warming. You ruin the things that ruin everything else, but you also kill polar bears, so you can still go fuck yourself.

Yup, I'm gonna go NOT-write and wish aliens would abduct and murder me already. I know at least ONE galactic overlord has to have internet access, I know y'all see this; what's taking so long?

Forsake This Violent World is out! (Book Release + Cover Reveal)

Forsake This Violent World is out! Finally! It hasn't been that long in the works, a few months in the most, but for me that's felt like an eon. I'm really happy with the final product; I think it's one of the best things I've written.

It's dark and gritty and fast, and it introduces several characters meant to play important parts in later Liesmith's Sins books, although it works as a standalone title (I originally wrote it as one before deciding it fit with the series) so you can definitely pick it up without reading/knowing a thing about Shadows of Ourselves or the Liesmith's series. Although Shadows is available for free here.

Forsake is about a girl named Ruby attempted to avenge her dead mother. She's a young bisexual witch with a complicated family life and complex relationship with her best friend. It's a story about grief, trauma, insecurity...and portals, other worlds, freaky magik, crows, daggers, gender & sexuality (every character who appears on-page is LGBT) and it's just a fun adventure all around.

You can get it here! Or, if you'd rather, it's also available as part of my new story collection, Fierce Powers...

That's all I have for now, folks. Aside from maybe the new blog header. Which is pretty, right?

Beacon & Chosen Double-Feature Book Release

Hi! Long time no see. I've been spending most of my time wallowing in bed, watching too much Netflix. Sometimes I get a little writing done, though.

Sometimes I even publish it O_o

In that vein, I've got two new books out! The first is Beacon, a young adult urban fantasy which I've been teasing you guys about forever and decided to just go ahead and drop.

(You can get it here.) [$1.99]

The second is Chosen, which is a previously un-announced spin-off of Beacon. It's a new adult paranormal romance about an unrelated set of characters in the same world, and you can (and should!) read it as a standalone.

(Grab a copy here.) [$0.99]

I'll add new pages for Beacon and Chosen at the top of the blog! I'm also going to be fiddling with the blog design for a while tonight, so don't freak out if things look a little wonky or ugly for a while.

I started working on an exciting new project the other night, but I'm going to try to reign myself in and finish Forsake This Violent World tonight before moving forward on that. I'm also still editing Shadows of Ourselves to catch errors I missed in the first edition, so I can put out a cleaner new one. Nothing has changed or been cut or added, I'm just addressing grammar mistakes and spelling errors I never caught the first time around.

My editing process has also changed a lot since I wrote Shadows of Ourselves, so it's nice to go back and fix those oversights I was once oblivious to.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I'll post more about Chosen in the next few days, including an exert from the story & a few facts about the book & writing process.

~

Follow me on twitter here.

Forget My Name At Midnight

(*Title from the lyrics to Night Mime by Melanie Martinez)

First of all, I need to point out how pretty and sleek this blog is now. It was pretty and sleek before, but the new blog templates are super simple and aesthetically pleasing. I've been meaning to make this space cleaner and more professional looking for a while, especially since I'm not interested in making a static author site - I find them boring and dated, and I suspect most other readers do, as well.

That said, this page itself has been pretty static lately. Part of that is just me being the reclusive hermit I really am at heart and moping in a depressive state. I recently turned twenty-one and I always get weird and introspective around my birthdays. (Which is to say most of my days this month have been spent in bed, staring at the wall and musing about mortality and the human soul. Total downer, right?)

Another part of it is that I've been on an outlining kick, writing treatments and summaries for a bunch of books, along with designing covers and trying to hash out when I'm working on which projects.

I just finished revamping Blood of Midnight and publishing it under my adult pen name, Cosmo Knox. The main difference is that it has a new cover and a new name on it, but the material of the book is unchanged, aside from a new author note explaining the concept of the series. Essentially I decided that Dru's story from Blood of Midnight was complete in and of itself, despite the open ending, and I didn't want to write a direct sequel. Instead, each book in the series will be a new take on the same characters and scenarios, in the vein of the Legend of Zelda series.

In book two, Dru and Lucia will be boys, named Dru and Lucien, Vincent will be a Magister instead of a prince, and the Evernight curse will take a different form. The paranormal element also changes from vampires to sphinxes, which I'm excited about, since I feel like it's a more interesting, original mythology than vamps - although I do love hot boys with fangs. :)

That's not to say it's the same story repeated again - several aspects of both the world and characters are tweaked, but the plot always plays out a different way, with characters filling different roles. I've even considered making Dru the villain in a few of them... Book two in particular is going to play into a lot of different tropes and stories than what I explored in Blood of Midnight.

Some will be high fantasy while others are urban fantasy and paranormal romance... I may even write a contemporary slasher iteration of the story. (Scream vibes, anyone?)

Which is to say, each book is a standalone, and they can be read together or alone, and in any order.

Right now I'm editing the four original Lilac Jones Adventures stories to be republished as Beacon, the first in a trilogy of short story collections.

I have a cover to share, which is really pretty, neon, and hazy, but I'm holding it hostage for a while since I'm not done editing the stories. That said it should be out sometime this week.

In case you're wondering, that does mean there will be some fairly glaring changes to the stories before I republish them.

First of all, I wrote the first few when I was eighteen, and I'm just a way better writer and editor now.

Second of all, I want to spruce the books up for clarity and mine them for deeper material; mostly just developing characters and relationships further and showcasing who Lilac is as a person, outside of her adventures as a beacon. Also, when I wrote them I wanted them to be fast, fun, light stories that were kind of juvenile, and while they're still whimsical and entertaining, I did want to make them slightly more mature and display more of Lilac's intelligence and capabilities for the books to come. (I'm calling them Shine & Hex as of now, but they may change.)

I'll be updating the Lilac Jones tab at the top of the blog soon, but until then the old versions of the series will be there. Once I update it the page name will change to Beacon to match the new publication!

Beacon will contain the previous four stories with new editing and a few brand new vignettes added between them, while all the material in Shine and Hex will be new and never before published, and is yet to be written. The main bulk of my editing is updating the previous stories to match my current voice the the jump between books isn't too glaring, although there will be a time jump of half a year between the end of Beacon and the start of Shine.

I do plan on releasing other books set in this series in the future, and I have three other short story/novella series in the works right now that I want to focus on this year.

I'll be blogging more in the days to come - both about Beacon & those other projects, plus some craft stuff, so stay tuned! :)

***

You can follow me on Twitter here, or buy my books here...thanks for reading!

More, More, More

I feel like I start too many of my blogs with disclaimers, but here goes another: this isn't an *actual* blog post.

It's just that in 2014 I only posted eight blogs, and I want to post way more this year, because I hate the idea of this blog going back to the old, empty, sad husk it used to be. In 2015 I made well over a 100 posts and I want to continue in that vein.

This will be the eighth post I've made this year, meaning I've officially equaled out with my 2014 self, and after I write my next post, I'll be ahead. I can't believe I'm so petty I compete with myself, too, but here we are.

Since I have nothing of interest to say here, I'll leave you with this:

I made two quote posts for Dreamseeker for social media, and I haven't shared them here yet, which is crazy, since I love them so much:

Also, Shadows of Ourselves is free for the next two days! You can get it here.

This post is a cop-out

I don't have a real post to share with you guys tonight. It's 5 in the morning and I have to leave the house in a few hours to pick up Kuma, which means that once we get back I won't really have time to write again today, meaning I have to draft at least 3000 words in 2 hours after I finish posting this blog, if I want to stay on schedule with this short story, which is set in a hotel and has monsters and a hot rock star boy.

I just felt bad not posting here, since I want to be more active on this blog. I don't think many people read it, either because I post at odd times, I'm bad at tagging/sharing things, and because author blogs are everywhere and I'm hardly famous, or even have a halfway decent following - but that will probably change if I'm more active and persistent, so, here we are.

I also just like looking back at all my blog posts and feeling productive, knowing I have those memories no matter what, and also knowing that there's something for people to read while waiting for books or if they want information on the process a specific book went through during its writing.

My birthday is in a few days, on the 22nd, and since I'll probably spend the day right here at my desk, alone, working, and may not even notice the date other than a cursory "Ha, I'm old now" (I'm turning 21 so I'm lying to myself, but still) Kuma figured they'd come out and celebrate with me now, while we have the chance.

My 20th birthday was miserable - I spent most of it sitting in the same place/position I'm in now, except instead of blogging or writing, I cried over my finances, got high and watched broad city, called the bank and SOBBED over my finances, then ate some bad pizza and watched more Broad City. If that sounds like a miserable twentieth birthday, it was, both because I was going through so much financial stress and also because I was snowed in so I couldn't go anywhere and it honestly felt like winter would never be over, and isn't March supposed to be in the spring?

I had to call the bank lady and she noticed my account listed my birthday as that day, and kept asking me questions about my plans, which made me both depressed and embarrassed because I didn't have any, wasn't doing anything or hanging out with anybody, and only 3 people remembered it was my birthday anyway, so after lying through my teeth and hanging up the phone I sat there and cried for like 20 minutes, and then got stoned. This year I'm pretty sure I'm even worse-off financially than I was then and for some reason I'm unphased by it now?

Maybe I just don't have the energy, or maybe over the past year I've just stopped worrying about my money troubles as much. I think it's a bit of both. In full disclosure I've made like 14 dollars off of my books in the last 90 days, according to kdp, which is really mortifying to admit, but also not, because I know it isn't a reflection of the quality of my work.

My books are good. They're entertaining. I'm writing the same stuff popular authors like Laini Taylor and A.G. Howard are writing, with more diverse characters and some really pretty covers that I know for a fact stand up to the covers of traditionally published books and are, in some cases, even better looking than those. But I also know I have zero marketing budget, not to mention that I am the only person marketing my books, with no outside help, and I know that there are so many books being published right now it's hard to find a number to describe them all. Many people only read one book a year - that's a lot of competition.

If I had to choose one thing about my books I'd like to improve, it would be the formatting. I'm not even sure how it displays on other devices - I know it looks fine on mine, or as fine as I can make it, but who knows?

If I ever take off and start making real money I'm going to buy a Macbook so I can get Vellum and make them pretty, with chapter heading illustrations and stuff like that, which I can't do alone using Kingsoft Writer and Calibre, which are my formatting tools.

So yeah, that's that. Things are looking up (slightly) emotionally but looking down financially, and I want that to change.

I don't want to get rich off of my books. For the next few years I just want to earn enough to buy a new laptop, buy Grammerly, get some new headphones, and maybe a new desk. Just spending money that I can put back into my books and career, you know? Within ten years I do want to be living entirely off my books though, and considering how fast I can write them once I get down to it, I don't think that's so unrealistic.

So, we'll see. First I have to survive this birthday, and everything else will follow from there, right?

Anyway, I'm going to go and draft this short story, pick up my best friend, and then scream my way through another episode of Riverdale, which I will officially boycott if they don't give me AroAce Jughead and more Cheryl-centric episodes, because we all know Cheryl is the show's saving grace/

5 Things You Should Know Before Self-Publishing

1) Your First Book Won't Be Your Big Break

Take a deep breath. Now exhale.

Your first self-published work probably won't launch you to the top of bestseller lists or turn you into an overnight rockstar. This is okay. It's normal. You are not a failure.

The market is overflowing with indie books at the moment, and that will not be changing anytime soon. Readers want to see that an author is dedicated to their calling and capable of producing multiple works sometimes before taking a chance on them. Chances are you might not see a huge jump in sales until after you publish your third or fourth work. That's okay. It's normal.

Focus on creating good art and nurturing other artists, and in time, you will succeed. You have to prove you have the chops to keep at it even if it seems like stormy waters at first.

Tips: 

• Books 200 pages and longer tend to sell better. Your cover is pretty important, but a good cover is worthless without a blurb that can keep up with it.
• 
  
• $2.99 is the best price point, but 99 cent deals do have their limited power.
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• If you can afford a placement (I can't) Netgalley is a lifesaver, and will help your book find readers better than almost anything else. Even I use it to find books to read, and end up reviewing and rating a large amount of them on other sites.
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• Writing an entire series to completion before publishing the first installment, so the reader has less wait time between books, is a genius idea, if you have the patience to carry it out.

2) You Need to Multitask

You can't just be a writer. You need to be an editor and a marketer, a cover artist and an agent, a website moderator and a social media guru, all while presenting a strong brand and personality. It seem impossible - supporting other writers and creators while maintaining an Instagram account while writing your next book while editing another manuscript while you format paperbacks and launch marketing endeavors. You will find your stride, though, I promise.

Sometimes this work can be overwhelming, sometimes it will feel like you are drowning. Turn off the wifi, pour a glass of wine, open a blank word doc, and go crazy. Or don't - open a new Chrome tab and binge on American Horror Story. You deserve it, you golden angel, you.

And when you're in a better place, and you feel like the superhero you are once more, get back to doing what you know you're meant to.

Tips:

• If social media makes you gag like me, it can be best to stick to one site and make good friends, so it feels like less of a chore to use it. Twitter has a great community of authors.
•  
• Self-publishing forums like those on Reddit and Absolute Write will teach you everything, make you feel less alone, and save your ass ten times at least.
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• People will tell you not to work on more than one project at a time: those people are boring and lack vision, but to each their own... I find multiple projects at once keeps me fresh, on my toes, and focused on what I'm doing. I tend to draft one project at a time while editing one or two others, and I'm constantly working on new outlines. I know it sounds overwhelming, but being able to jump from project to project and still feel productive might just be a godsend for you like it was for me - you do not want to feel trapped by your own art.
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• Building a network feels like less of a chore when you're making friends and helping authors achieve their dreams as well. Make friends, do your best to support them and take a genuine interest. It makes this so much easier.
•  
• Be yourself. And when I say this, I mean it less in the corny, 'They'll like you for who you are!' way, and more in a 'Don't be a fake, phony asshole!' kinda way. Don't be fake. Don't feel like you need to perform or change yourself to please others or move product. It will blow up in your face: nobody likes a fake bitch, not even when she's writing The Next Big Thing TM.

3) Focus on What Interests You

I've written a lot of books. I've put my heart and soul and blood and tears on paper (Shadows of Ourselves), let myself get lost in a pretty, captivating daydream (Souls of Salt & Seawater), and written simple, bubbly commercial novels, just for fun (Storm of Masks), and you know what I learned?

If you are working on a project that you love and believe in, a project that feels like a part of you, you will work faster. You will work better.

When I truly love one of my books, I'm more willing to champion it, more willing to put my stock and money and time behind it, and this work feels less backbreaking.

AKA, do your best to pick projects you will have fun with and see through to the end - don't force yourself to write something to an audience that you have no strong feelings for. A book you love will write itself, a book that isn't right for you will feel like torture to complete.

Tips:

• Let an outline or idea sit for a time before leaping on it, to see if it takes over your subconscious mind. If a world or character won't shut up, it's probably worth exploring.
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• Do not ignore early warning signs, or you will end up scraping 30,000 words and having to start a book again from scratch. Or, worse, abandoning it entirely. It is not fun throwing out days worth of hard work, people.

4) Don't Lose Patience

Rome was not built in a day. If your work is out there, it will find readers. Somehow, some way. Sometimes it takes a shove, or a gentle nudge. Sometimes you have to let it find its own way. Just trust yourself and keep moving forward. Letting yourself stagnate and your muscles atrophy serves nobody. All authors have that one book that under-performs. Do not let it be the end of your art.

Tips:

• AT LEAST ONCE in your writing career, but probably way more times than that, you will find yourself sitting on the floor in your underwear, getting drunk and crying, wondering if you're throwing your life away. You may or may not try to ask your dead relatives for advice from beyond the grave. They won't give it to you, though, selfish villains that they are. This is normal. This is the stress of being a living, working artist. But you know why you got into this and you know what it means to you, so don't you fucking let your stress win. We've all felt like we were facing doomsday at one point or another, legacy or self-published, and those storms always pass. It doesn't matter if you're a first-time indie or the next Suzanne Collins with hype and a big six publisher and a movie deal at your back - you have undertaken a huge project, and you are allowed to have a human moment about it, okay?
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• Sometimes you need to unplug your wifi box, turn off the lights, crawl into bed with a pizza pocket and a good book, and lose yourself. Sometimes you need to spend four days not writing, just watching an entire season of a TV drama in one sitting every day, in order to give your brain and soul a rest. This is alright, you are not awful and you are not a failure.
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• Some books are a success right off the bat, others do not find an audience for years. The guy who wrote Moby Dick didn't get famous until after he died, and we all love that ugly ass white whale and the rugged sailors who hunt it now, don't we?
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• You may stress eat an entire box of crackers, half a cake, ten greasy burgers, and an entire bottle of wine. It's part of the job: don't beat yourself up.
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• Books go through many incarnations; a future edition with a new cover or marketing angle might do better, so never lose hope!

5) Have Fun

Don't worry if what you're trying is what other people are doing or if you don't fall enough into line with conventional wisdom. History has been made by those who left old paths behind and formed new ones!

At the end of the day you cannot force yourself to do something you don't want to do. If you have to ignore marketing to finish a book, do it. If you have to sacrifice social media followers to finish a project or you have to spend more time on each book than other authors do, so be it. Do whatever feels right for you - and whatever is effective. You're aiming for results, not another way to blend into the herd.

Once again: TRUST YOURSELF, and know that if you're having fun, you've gotta be doing at least something right.

Tips:

• Let inspiration take over. A few days before publishing Shadows of Ourselves, I took the book in a new direction at the last minute - changing the cover and pitch focus of the book. It turned out to be (at the time, though I think Divinity may have surpassed it by now) my most successful book yet. I was very weary of making changes like that so late in the process, especially since I'd shared the old cover widely, but it was worth it. I put out the book as an Urban Fantasy instead of a Paranormal Romance, and it was a very good idea, even though it scared me at the time. Don't be afraid to listen to your inner voice and follow your instincts. It pays off.
•  
• Some days you will write 15,000 words in a day and gain twenty new followers and sell thirty books and feel like you're flying. Other days managing 500 words feels like pulling hairs from your head, and your zero sales so far do not help, and so you will end up on the couch rewatching Confessions of a Shopaholic because you have an insatiable crush on Hugh Dancy. It is all good. Don't be too hard on yourself.
•  
• Remember that at the end of the day, life is a journey. My biggest goal in life used to be becoming an author. Once I actually became an author, I realized letting the people in my life know I love them and experiencing new things is vastly more important to me. Your work is not everything. You are not building the great wall or saving millions of lives or changing the world - you're telling a fun story. Go write your YA robot war manifesto complete with cheesy love triangle and chosen one trope and just have fun with it. You'll be okay.

***

Like my work? Buy my books!

Or, follow me:

Twitter.

Instagram.

Things I wish I Knew Before I Started Self-Publishing

There are plenty of posts like this out there, and plenty more that teach you how to self-publish piece by piece. I don't feel the need to make too many in-depth tutorials about that, because there are people who have already said those things better than I can.

There are also certainly authors who have been both writing and self-publishing for much longer than me. I've been writing for nearly nine years now, but I've only been publishing since 2014--first, writing erotic romance under a pen name, and later, the young adult and new adult books I write and publish now as Apollo Blake. On July 29th I'm putting out my first New Adult paranormal romance with erotic aspects in it as Cosmo Knox to separate it from the more tame books. So while I do feel confident giving publishing advice and guidance, I'm also aware that there are authors out there with much more in their repertoire to share than I have.

If anything, the most advice I have to offer is about graphic design (I do have some cover design tutorials planned for the future) but there are quite a few thing I wish I'd known when I started self-publishing, and I find it fascinating to hear about other writer's processes anyway, so I figured I would share them for any beginners out there.


Writing your next book is more important than any kind of social media marketing you can do.

Social media followers aren't necessarily book-buyers. Having a large number of followers doesn't guarantee success or sales, and relying on them too much as opposed to producing more product will hurt you in the long run. It's good to get the word out there, but another book that's produced with care and good craft has more push behind it at the end of the day than a tweet that gets 15 minutes of attention.

This isn't to say social media is useless; it can lead to increased sales, but it's much more common for a new book to spur on sales than it is for one of your tweets or blog posts to be one of the few that goes viral. Sure, a new social media post might get you some more sales, but a new book is almost guaranteed to.

You can make good book covers yourself, but you have to be honest with yourself.

Buy a graphics program like Photoshop or Paint Tool Sai. (I use Sai, because I like it best, but it's not really meant for photo-manipulation.) If you can afford it, a graphics tablet. (I like Wacom.)

Now learn to use them. Learn by doing. You can be surprised how purely awesome you can get at developing new skill-sets when you have the internet at your disposal. Learning new languages and instruments and stuff like graphic design or how to build furniture gets much easier. Develop an eye for good stock and look at photo-manipulation tutorials and learn how to create new effects. Improvise using the tools in the program you like and you'll develop both a style and a useful eye for aesthetic and emotion in imagery, over time. It helps to watch a lot of video tutorials and look at which kind of covers you like, observe how other editors place things and how they adjust colors. There is a wealth of both speedpaints and tutorials on Youtube that are not only amazing, but also entertaining as hell.

Eventually you'll be producing high-quality covers and saving costs on cover design by doing it yourself while getting just as good a product, but you have to be honest with yourself; evaluate your art and question how it stands up against other authors, compare it to the covers on bestselling books. Learn about what draws the reader eye and what people like in visual imagery, learn about colors and how certain aesthetics evoke a certain emotion, look at other covers in that genre. You can't learn design if you can't see where you error and learn to improve, but it is both fun and worth it.

I have never taken a professional design course, everything I know about image editing I learned myself, and (not to brag) I think I've created some very pretty book covers:

 

You can find good stock on Canva for a dollar an image, Pixabay and sites like it have free commercial-use stock, and you can even find cool textures and stock on DeviantArt that creators put out for free commercial use. (Always be sure to read stock and resource rules! I tend to use DA for textures and little else.)

Reviews aren't always an indication of sales.

I have some books that have four- and five-star reviews that don't sell as many copies as my books with zero. Publishing is a weird industry, and while reviews (both positive and negative) definitely help, they don't always have an affect, or, when they do, a large one. My title with the best sales has zero reviews and has still become my top earner. Don't sweat it if your book doesn't get reviews straight off the bat; a quality product will still draw sales regardless.

It's better to write the book only you can write than try to fit into genre norms. 

Genres are meant to indicate certain aspects of your work to readers and buyers, not to dictate every aspect of the content itself. Allowing genre or age group to force your writing into a box where you strive to hit genre trends will hurt you and your career. More importantly, it will usually negatively impact your creativity and take the fun out of writing. Don't sacrifice aspects of your art in order to turn your book into a clone of its peers. Allow your original voice to shine through. It's easy to start thinking of your books as solely commercial ventures once you become your own publisher, but don't lose sight of your unique artistic voice, because it will always strengthen the personality of your work. 

It's good to have a backlist, even if waiting to publish is painful.

Waiting to put out a book you know is ready sucks, but you will always draw more readers putting out the books in a series closer to each other than you would putting out one book at a time. Even unrelated novels are more beneficial financially if they're put out closer together--readers want to binge, just like TV audiences do. Content consumers have big appetites all around. If you want to be prolific but don't want to waste time building up a backlist of long novels or simply don't have it, novellas are a fun way to put out titles faster without sacrificing story and quality, sort of a showcase of what you can do as an author, and a fun little reading experience on its own. Be warned, though--novella readers and novel readers tend to run in different crowds, so you can't always be confident in them following you over to longer works. There is a decent market for novellas, though, and they're both fun to write and useful for developing a stronger writing skill-set, just like short stories, but with a bit more meat on their bones.

Other authors are your friends and you should be giving back.

The indie community has your back. Really, they do. For every author that seems like a living spam-bot just throwing their books at you, there are two more who are kind, thoughtful, talented, and creating good art. Give back. Spread the word, offer a helping hand, use word of mouth to help the careers of other indies. Put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

Making good art is better than making acceptable art.

Good enough isn't good enough. You should be striving to make each book you put out better than the last and deliver the best product you can. Always be looking for ways to improve on all aspects of production, be it voice, cover design, formatting, marketing, or more. You owe it to people buying your books to work as hard as you can to create an enjoyable, riveting experience.

Authors like Jennifer Ellision, Leigh Ann Kopans, and Nenia Campbell make really good art and put out books with production value (editing, cover-quality, prose, and formatting) that matches their traditionally-published peers.

Be honest with yourself with what you're putting out and do your best to improve it. It's not uncommon for me to release new editions of old books that I've given a firmer editing or a new cover because of how much I've learned since its initial release. That's another thing: no book left behind. You might think its too late to save a title in your catalog that didn't have the best cover or had a few odd quirks in the formatting, but it's next to nothing to give a book a new, better cover or another editing pass and tweak it to improve the overall quality, and it can rejuvenate an old title and bring in new sales. You might not think it matters, but it matters to people who will read that book in the future, so don't just strive to improve with new books--apply what you learn as you go to the old ones, too.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

The number one cause of writer's block is putting too much weight on your own shoulders. Let's be honest for a minute, okay? You're not curing the zombie virus, you're not ending world violence, you're not building a helicopter or sailing across the ocean on a floating mattress--so take a deep breath and chill. At the end of the day no matter how much work goes into your book it isn't going to turn into some magic tome whose pages glow that cures diseases with just a touch and saves the world. You're just writing a book. Have fun with it, and try to make it fun for the reader. Accept that when it's done it's done, and move on to the next project.

Seriously, write the book only you can write.

You will always write faster when you're not writing something just because you feel like it's what you should be writing. What do you like in a story? If you love problematic kidnap romance (ahem, ahem) then don't force yourself to write worldly literary fiction, just 'cause it seems proper. If you like experimental lyrical prose, quit forcing yourself to slam out chick-lit novels that annoy you. If your favorite books are trashy paperback crime novels or formulaic fantasy romances that are fun to read at the laundromat, why are you writing dark magical realism and trying to be the next Neil Gaimon? It's not that hard to figure out that if you write what you love, you will love writing. Have fun and you'll get more done, that's my motto and I'm sticking to it.

To be clear, there can be a marked difference between reading tastes and writing tastes. I love reading memoirs, but whenever I try to write one of my own I cringe. I adore historical novels, but I think if I ever try to write one I'll rip my own hair out of my head. I like to read light, fluffy, breezy romance books to wind down after stressful work days, but whenever I try to write them I end up with really gritty, dark stories about, like, substance abuse and mental illness and abuse, but with werewolves and pixies running around in the background.

So, really, there's no accounting for your tastes as a writer--but you know you best. Do what you enjoy and leave the rest to other writers. Don't fight your voice, and you'll find writing regains its joy for you.

Also, read these books:

2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron, Let's Get Digital by David Gaughran, On Writing by Stephen King, Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine.

I will freely admit that I regularly reread sections of 2k to 10k every time I start drafting a new manuscript. The editing method she puts forth in that book also changed the way I edit forever, making it much more time-efficient and effective for strengthening my stories. And fun. I used it for Shadows of Ourselves and edited that book in record time, so I am never going back.

That's what I got, really. My other advice is basically drink lots of water and some coffee, take breaks from writing to walk around and breathe for a minute, and make lots of cool writing playlists on 8tracks to inspire you. Pinterest is also a life saver.

(You can see my endless pretty boards here, if you like nice pictures and magic and apartment porn!)

*Bonus; the best writing snacks you will ever discover!

Swiss Cheese Crackers:

I honestly don't know if these exist in the US or other countries, but if you live in Canada (at least on the East Coast) then you'll probably be able to find them, and let me tell you--I WOULD GIVE UP MY FIRSTBORN RAPUNZEL-STYLE FOR A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF THESE SWEET LITTLE MIRACLES. I can't tell you how many times I've crammed a box of these down my face while pulling off an eleven thousand words writing night. They never get old. These are the ones I pull out for long-haul, I'm gonna be here for twelve to fifteen hours writing fests.

PB & J on Toast.

I'm crying right now. The only thing better than pb & j is pb & j oN TOAST. Seriously, take a break to eat this and feel that godly peanut butter energy flow back through your body. Drink some water (or more coffee, if you roll like me) and hop back on the keyboard to watch the words fly.

Plain, Salted Crackers

Yeah, I admit it, sometimes I go two days without consuming anything but water, black coffee, and plain crackers. Am I a destitute London street urchin who sometimes steals away into the kitchen of a hipster cafe at night to get some brew? Does some tragic disease make it so I can only digest saltines? Nope and no way, my friend, it's just that sometimes the best thing to take the edge off is a crunchy cracker. And, also, sometimes, you work better when you're hungry. Obviously don't starve yourself, but it's okay to let yourself feel the edge of hunger sometimes, and you might just find it sharpens your mind for a bit and helps you get in touch with the psyche of your characters. Especially if you're writing like, angsty emotional scenes.

Plus, crackers are pretty good, either way.

Microwave Rice. (Bonus points if you also fry an egg or slice up cucumbers or mushrooms.)

  

If you want the warmth and heartiness of a big meal but not a lot of cooking time, because you've been running on fumes for hours and hours now and you just remembered you're a human being who needs food to survive, and not just words, then throw a cup of rice and a cup of cold water in a microwaveable dish with a teaspoon of butter and microwave it for 6 minutes, stirring at the 3 minute mark. 9 times out of 10 this makes perfect, delicious rice that's even better with a hot fried egg on top.

Water.

I'm not one of those people who thinks water is a cure-all, but get up right now and go take a drink of cold water and tell my it didn't clear your head and refresh you. I tend to keep a cup or bottle beside me as I'm writing, both because it's my favorite drink and because it's an excuse to get up and stretch my feet for a second. Most people don't consume enough water, so this one is really important to remember.

Raw Carrots.

You guys have no idea how much I love carrots. Seriously, grab one from the fridge, peel that shit with a peeler or a knife, and run it under cold water--tell me you don't feel like you just leveled up. They're just really refreshing, they perk you right up. They have the added benefit of being really crunchy.

Coffee.

I drink my coffee black. Am I a hipster? No, I am, sadly, just A Sucker With Bad Genes. For some reason if I put sugar and milk in my coffee I get really bad heartbearn and acid reflux. Sometimes I put cinnamon in there, though. Or ice cream. But usually it's black.

I will fully admit that I sometimes drink up to nine coffees a day. I will also freely admit that I added this to the list pure to add delicious coffee pictures.

...Now go make a coffee and get writing! (Or, if you like reading and wanna support me, you could check out my books, here!)

Some Things I Need To Say For Reasons

• In my post about Divinity, my m/m romance novella coming out soon, I said it would be out on the eight. I lied. It will probably not be out until closer to the end of the month, but I do intend it to be out this month. These things happen with publishing sometimes.
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• I still have no release date for Untold but it will likely be sometime next month or the one after.
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• I am still not accepting unpaid writing work, so please don't send me offers to write for 'experience' or 'the pleasure of it' because there is more pleasure in writing my own books that I know I am actually getting paid for, along with said experience.
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• The 99c promo for Shadows of Ourselves is over and you should check and see if it's still up on your Amazon storefront while you can, before the price change takes effect, if it hasn't already.
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• As always, I'm very grateful to everyone reading and giving feedback on my work! If you've bought one of my books, thanks a million!

Awkward In The Woods

The other day I went on a walk and learned that I'm even awkward in the woods. There's a river I like to go to near the house, and it's maybe a twenty five minute walk. Right next to it, though, there's this nice house where these two tiny, angry dogs are always in the yard, barking, and when they bark at me their owners come out and like, snap at them, and it makes me so awkward. Like, let your dog bark itself out without reminding me of your existence. Human interaction messes me up.

I think mainly I just wasn't prepared to see so many people out, since it's the middle of nowhere and I was in the mood to be alone (hence the walk to the secluded river and all) but overall it was still nice, even if walking by people doing yard work is cringe-worthy to me for some reason. And I worked through some plotting issues while I was walking, so that's a plus.

When I got to the river I was walking across the rock wall that stretches across it, like a damn or something, and someone had caught and decapitated a fish and left it's head there, and a swarm of flies was buzzing over it. It wasn't exactly pleasant. But it will probably make it into my next book, nonetheless.

It's weird to think it's almost summer again. Like, it's been an entire year since last summer. I am twenty. So much has happened - I've put out my first couple full-length novels, I've started on anti-depressants again and quit drinking. I've lost a lot of weight. At the same time though, things are mostly the same.

This winter was really hard in a lot of ways - there were a lot of times where I honestly didn't expect to make it through.

But now that the warm season is here and things are slowly but steadily getting better, I feel like I'm reclaiming pieces of my identity every day, and coming back to myself. It's nice. And I keep reminding myself that I'm not in that place I was, but it hasn't fully sunk in yet that I got through it.

The thing is, every time you fall into that black well of depression, there's a part of you that doubts you'll make it out.

I'm learning to tell that part to shut up.

And, in other news, writing a bunch. I want to do a blog every day in X one of these months, I just haven't picked the one yet. I meant to blog a lot more once Shadows of Ourselves came out, to promote it, but I haven't had the time as I jumped right into drafting the sequel to Blood of Midnight. The thing is, Shadows has been doing pretty well on its own (thank you to everyone who's bought the book!) and it's even gotten some good ratings on Goodreads, which is nice.

I actually just got a new writing desk the other day that I kind of love. It's made the idea of sitting down to work a lot more appealing actually.

So when I haven't been being awkward in the woods, I've been listening to Astrid S and writing this vampire book. You can check it out on Pinterest here if you like pretty pictures, and I do: https://www.pinterest.com/writerlyprince/tears-of-sunrise/