It Begins Again and Again and Again

 I am still writing things. I'm always writing things. Right now I'm actually editing things, which is mostly the same but also incredibly specifically different.

The main thing I wanted to update anybody/everybody on was that when I start publishing these things I'm sometimes writing and sometimes editing, when I'm not snacking and making music and existing in a state of panic over...everything...it's going to be under new pen names.

I recently published and then unpublished a new edition of Faces in Weeds.

That's because I actually had to redesign the cover, add a subtitle to the story, and write two new pieces of bonus fiction so it could be 'transformative' enough that when I publish it under Amazon under my new pen name, it won't get de-listed or get my account banned for rank manipulation. It has to be demonstrably different from previous versions enough to count as a different product, so that's what I'm doing.

Ultimately this is also what I have to do with all my previous works: new covers, titles/subtitles, editing/expanded content, and new bonus content and exclusive extra chapters, that sort of thing. It's the only way to ensure I can actually publish them.

This basically has to happen because Amazon won't let me reclaim my old KDP account, which I can no longer access, or merge it with my new KDP account.

Since most book business is done on Amazon and I need money to live that's where I have to publish, and to do that, I have to make sure not to violate their rules, and using the same pen name on two different accounts is also a bannable offense according to their terms. It would help if their customer service was at all helpful or even sufficiently trained to understand how KDP and its features/systems/rules even work, but they aren't, which seems insanely unprofessional, but it is what it is. They can't help, apparently. Beyond them.

So we come to me having to launch new pen names to republish all Apollo Blake and Cosmo Knox titles.

I was kind of ready to retire the Apollo Blake pen name anyway, so that's fine, but Cosmo Knox was a fantastic pen name I never wanted to let go of, and now I do, and that sucks. Anyway things are in the works, projects are coming along, just slowly as I try to balance and actually enjoy life and not burn out.

The new Tomb Raider games look incredible, the Stranger Things finale was okay, and the new Cassandra Clare collection Better in Black is a lot of fun so far, making me nostalgic as hell.

I also recently read Sunrise on The Reaping and was emotionally devastated. Now I'm rereading Catching Fire. I was actually already reading it, but put it down when they rewatched Haymitch's games so I could go read his book. Pretty cool way to do it, I think.

I also put out a new album called The Chaos Precise, I'm gonna post more about it soon but I haven't done YouTube and SoundCloud uploads yet so.

I Am A Total Liar (Here's Why) + NaNoWriMo!

 I wrote a blog post the other day where I totally just lied. I THINK I said my NaNoWriMo project this year was probably gonna be a dark contemporary. Or at least I said I was working on one. And it was gonna be my NaNo novel. That book about wildfires/grief is still in the works, but I'm not working on it this month. I'm gonna write a good old paranormal romance for NaNoWriMo instead.

It's called Lovely Omens and it's about witches and that's all I'm gonna say. It also has lots of cute animals. But that's it.

I think some of the ideas and vibes and stuff I'm putting into this book are ideas I've had in some form since 2013, so it's been a decade of wanting to write a witchy romance just like this. I have written witchy romance before, Shadows of Ourselves, anyone? And I will do it again. But this one is unique as fuck, if I do say so myself.

So. That's my NaNo vibe.

The playlist is mostly Smashing Pumpkins, Blur, The Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, etc. The more of this classic stuff I find the more Spotify wants to rec it to me. I like Blur and I've loved every Pixies song I've heard over the years, but both Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine are 'classic' or semi-classic bands I've never listened to. I missed those pivotal phases. So I'm going through it now, and loving it. I think Smashing Pumpkin's will be Ophelia's favorite band.

I'm also putting a little Joy Division in there. And the new Melanie Martinez album is iconic, of course. But I'm gonna continue prepping and drinking and getting ready to write! Once midnight comes I gotta get in at least the first few chapters. I know exactly what scenes I want to open the novel with but I don't know fully how to pull it off.

I hope people like this romance. The guy, Gage (his original name was Gunnar, but I think Gage fits him MUCH, MUCH BETTER) is so cute and tragic but so nice, he has a bit of a mysterious broody punk vibe, but he's mostly a good, normal man, not a crazy villain type. Maybe my next love interest will be villainous.

Anyway I ordered something the other day I cannot wait for. It's shipping in two packages and Canada Post says the main one with two books in it will be here April 5th. It's Switched, Torn, and Ascend by Amanda Hocking; the Trylle trilogy. I already have them, because Amanda Hocking is one of my favorite authors ever, and I've read them a billion times already. I have all three troll trilogies, I have two copies of Switched and a paperback arc of Crystal Kingdom. I got Tidal for free back when it came out for doing free publicity for it.

I've always loved Amanda's books, is my point. She's how I learned about self-publishing and I read her books and blog a thousand times throughout middle school and high school.

So it's exciting to me that I can finally own the original self-published paperbacks of the trylle trilogy, the ones with the turquoise/teal covers. I love them so much. It's one of my favorite covers. And I've seen them in pics and videos but never in person. Believe it when they get here I will take a bajillion pictures of them and post them everywhere.

After this the main thing I need to complete my Hocking collection is:

-The original Hollowland paperback edition with the red heart (I don't care about this one but it would be a nice thing to have one day.)

-The Hollows paperback editions with the old designs/Phatpuppy art designs. (I find these fugly but I still want them for nostalgia's sake.)

-The special edition omnibus of the Trylle that only had 100 copies made. (I really, really want this one enough to go feral and bite someone for it.)

I also still have to get Bestow The Darkness (an actual masterpiece) and Virtue/Tristitia in paperback, too. Then I'd have a complete collection and would feel like a total boss.

I'm so looking forward to seeing the difference between the self-pubbed and traditionally published versions of the Trylle trilogy, though. I know in these earlier editions Forening didn't have a name, so I'm curious what other little details were added later. I'm sure either way they're still good, though I'm also equally sure the trad-pubbed ones are probably better.

Anyway, I should get back to outlining my book. Because I haven't finished that, yet.

Also! Before I go, if you don't know, I often (not always, but often) use Katytastic's outline template/structure. It's three acts, each in nine parts, and it has never failed to create a very fun novel for me. You can use it for any genre and it never feels like a template because it's just basic story structure stuff. Like I said, I don't always use it, but I do like it a lot, I used it for Shadows of Ourselves, if I remember correctly, and I'm using it for this book too. I highly recommend it if pacing or plot isn't your strong suit.

New Covers + Maelstrom News

So, I have a lot of things to say. First, I pushed back the Maelstrom release from late 2016 to early 2017, so if you see 2016 attached to that book anywhere, that's wrong, and it won't be out until after the new year, most likely. Second, I revamped the covers for Rage & Frenzy, and updated the interiors for both those, Dreamseeker, and Blood of Midnight - just rearranging back matter and cleaning up the formatting and stuff.

Here are the new covers for Rage & Frenzy:

Someone whose opinion I trust told me the font was too gaudy, and I agreed, so I changed them. I added the leaves just to bring more color variance to both of them and make them feel a bit more magikal, because they are.

Those aside, I'm almost finished with edits on Shadows, and I think that will be out around the end of this month or the beginning of next, depending on how much time that leaves me to come up with a marketing plan, because I want people to know about & read this book, a lot.

I also have a few tiny side projects to work on before jumping into Dreamwalker & Dreamkiller, which I'm going to draft back to back, so those should be fun (and ready to be shared, soon) but I'm not going to say anything official because I don't want to jinx myself. Pun intended.

Anyway, that's all I've got in the way of announcements, I think, but later on I'm going to use this blog to foist more of my music on you all, because I love everything I'm listening to right now.

Especially this: