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/

Thinking Your Way Back

Earlier I was reading old posts from January, which is only two months ago but feels eons ago. It was eons ago, because time is relative and time doesn't exist, but I'm not here to blow your mind or lose my thought process talking about weird time jumps. There are shitty B movies that can do that for you better than I ever could.

I'm here to talk about thinking my way back to when I felt, for a while, like things were really looking up. I wasn't in the greatest place, but the world still felt brimming with possibility.

And with my birthday coming up, I've been freaking out - you know, that old paralyzing anxiety about aging and death, right? And I had a bit of a breakdown for a month or so, there. I'm back now.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm fine when just the other night I was talking about mental illness and suicidal thoughts, but I feel like I worked some stuff out of my system and I'm in a slightly better place after a day of reflection and calmness.

I'm still stressed about nineteen million things, but I can't change any of it, I know I can't, so I have to stop blaming myself for things I have no power over and just take it as it comes, because that, how I react to it, is something I have power over. I'm gonna use that power.

So that's how I'm feeling today. I'm dealing with school stuff (stressful) because after easter I have to go and get my diploma. I was originally going to go for an adult diploma but I think I'm going for my GED or equivalency now, because I know if I go back to that school not only will I not learn anything I need to, but I'll also A) have a relapse with my mental illness and B) get into a fistfight with one of the various racist, sexist, and homophobic students there. I'm not even joking - I have an inability not to start a fight if I see a wrongdoing. But basically I just need to not go back into the Canadian public school system, ever.

I started outlining a new project the other night and I have a cover for it, it's gonna come out a few weeks before Shadows of Ourselves, I think. It's longer than a novella but probably not a novel. I think it should be around 35 thousand words, but I'd like to stretch it to 40k or so if I can. I know there's enough story there, but I refuse to add words unless they're needed for the story to function, so we'll see.

It has the best cover of any of my books, ever, in my opinion. Better than the cover for a (possible) sequel to Shadows of Ourselves, which nobody has seen yet. Better than the cover of Maelstrom, which no one has seen yet. I just love it. Not sharing yet, but I love it.

But the book has a Pinterest board, and you can find that here for some glimpses about it. You should also check out the boards for my other books, and I dunno, maybe follow me? For reasons. For science.

And, for fun, some facts about the book:

• It's inspired by magical girl animes.
• And some mythology I love but feel is underused.
• It's paranormal, and the main romance is a lesbian one.
• It's standalone for now but there's room to tell other stories in the world that would also stand on their own.
• MONSTERS.
• A private academy.
• Long lost family members.
• Biracial main character! (Kat is white and Japanese.)
• FANCY BALL GOWNS GALORE.
• Did I mention the monsters?
• Romance!
• Slightly odd romance - or just more realistic? I'm going for a kind of Rainbow Rowell angle on the romance, so while there's a bit of romance genre cheese, for the most part the romance develops in kind of lowkey, average, everyday ways.
• Dragonflies.
• Magic weapons.

So yeah. I'm excited. I'm taking a break from SOO editing to draft this over the next four days, then I edit Shadows in around a week or two, edit this, do my copy edits on Shadows, and then put them both out around the same time. Maybe a week apart?

I have no clue, nothing's official right now, but I'm excited.