Confusion & Pizza

I thought today was Thursday, but it's still just Wednesday, which makes me sad. I thought Riverdale would be out, but now I have to wait another 24 hours, since in Canada it comes out on Netflix the day after it airs in America. In lieu of another episode of Riverdale I'll probably spend my morning writing. I finished a short last night, which ended up 2000 words longer than I thought it would be, so now I'm debating whether to draft another erotic short, draft the rest of Glimpse, or finish up my story I Kill Your Gods.

I'm supposed to have the house to myself today at least for a few hours, which sounds nice. People stress me out even when they're not doing anything, even when they're sleeping in another room making no sound, their presence unnerves me. Sometimes it's nice to have folks around, but mostly I find it very irritating, especially since the folks in question are my parents, and although I know they love me, I also know they judge me a lot and I don't live up to their expectations, so that's stressful. I mentioned to my mom yesterday that I wanted pizza (just an offhand comment about a craving) and when I woke up at ten last night, she'd ordered a giant pepperoni for me and a veggie pizza for her, so that was sweet of her. My dad, weirdly, does not like pizza.

My mom and I are usually more on the same page, and I look like her, but I have my dad's irritant personality and quick temper. He and I fight like cats and dogs, which is insanely stressful, but it's better than when I never stood up to him and just let him snap at or yell at me instead. At least I feel better about myself if I yell back, because then I have a backbone, right?

To be fair my dad works hard and is constantly tired, and he smokes too much and doesn't eat enough, so he probably feels like warmed over crap most of the time. But he quit for years and the new started again, so he only has himself to blame.

With that anti smoking PSA aside, I am going to listen to Grimes and get ready to write. Hopefully I have a cover reveal to share tomorrow! I do have finished works I can publish but I'm waiting until my backlist is longer; right now it's six titles total.

Someone Free Grimes (Plus Adventures in Puppysitting.)

Remember when Grimes put out the best album ever? Remember how we've been waiting for new material ever since and it hasn't happened?  Remember a couple months ago when she posted shady Tweets about her label and gave us some tea?

The only new music she's put out since then is a snippet of a new bop in an Apple commercial:

It sounds like a bop for sure, but we need it now, not later. I'd love to hear the full version. I'm glad more artists are going independent. Even if it means lower budgets at least it minimizes situations like this with shitty labels. It happens in publishing too, people get fucked over by their labels and publishers and management all the time. There are shady business practices and betrayals and drama. It makes my head spin.

I was watching an Emma Blackery video (I'm waiting for her new album too!) earlier where she talked about a chain bookstore basically blacklisting her and refusing to list her book or promote it because she got mad at them on Twitter for violating a release embargo on the book. Since when is that okay?

It's wild to me that people's entire careers are subject to random whims like this on the part of people higher up in the chain. Or to bandwagon hate, because that happens and ruins careers too. It's also weird how so many artists in the past just couldn't put things out on their own, at least not if they wanted decent exposure.

Now we have the Internet and everyone is kind of enabled to build a brand and name for themselves off of nothing. 

I recently put out a new EP on my SoundCloud called Plucked From Orbit:

(Listen Here)

I don't really make music with the expectation of being known for it or it gaining a lot of attraction. I just like tooling around with synths and different sequencers, and I like making glitchy sounds and album arts. For me it's more about enjoyment and the concepts than making /actual/ bops.

Although I do want to learn to make more mainstream sounding pop bops eventually. Right now I'm basically creating ASMR sounds :P

I'm supposed to be working on a new edition of Shadows to put out next month. But I'm a serial procrastinator, so instead of writing the new novella Lovecursed or updating my notes, I'm planning a new edition of Souls of Salt & Seawater. And listening to lots of Billie Eilish. Not gonna lie.

I've also just been stewing over how many good movies are coming out.

Aquaman, The Nun, Godzilla, that new Bella Thorne movie with the ghosts (it looks cheesy as hell, but that's half the fun) and stuff like Darkest Minds, Glass, Mary Queen of Scotts. I'm really excited for Riverdale season 3. Cults and supernatural elements? Sign me up. I didn't expect them to go full supernatural until season 4, but I'm all here for it.

A couple weeks ago I spent an entire royalty check on vodka, 'cause that's the kind of irresponsible human I am, and got smashed. My parents were having a huge party with dozens of people milling around and bonfires and camping and stuff, so that was a mess, and I didn't want to be sober throughout it, and I'm guessing neither did Kuma. We also babysat my brother's wild dog during the whole ordeal, and the thing is vicious. Also, my selfie stick finally came! Here's some snaps from the weekend:

(Otis is cute but don't let it fool you! He bites! He still thinks he's a lap dog, too...)

(Me & Kuma!)

(Testing the selfie stick, lol)

Now the vodka is all gone and I'm left with an empty wallet. Next time I get paid I'm buying charcoal toothpaste to remove the coffee stains from my teeth, and some charcoal face masks to go with it. I need to do something about this breakout. Ugh. 

I've gotta go take the dog for a walk and then come back and hammer away at this new edition of Shadows so I can finally share the cover with you. I only made it yesterday so I can't act like I've been sitting on it long, but it feels like it. It's very Pirates of the Caribbean... And I really have to go finish it, so I'll leave you with this here:

Thanks for reading!

Buy my books here.

I Haven't Forgotten

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I mean, how could I? I have a long history of writing embarrassing, mortifying personal details on here because I like to pretend that nobody reads it. When I'm not pretending that everybody reads it, I mean.

I've just been really busy doing things like writing, putting off writing, hating myself for putting off writing, and more along those lines...

I've also been watching a shit-ton of American Horror Story and Riverdale, but you all probably have been, too, so you can't fault me for that. That's just how it is. Anyway, I haven't got much to say tonight; I'm listening to it rain cats and dogs outside, and our actual cats and dogs (including Roxy, the stray we took in) are all inside, safe and dry. I'm about to start drafting more on Dreamsinger, the sequel to Dreamseeker.

In case you missed the new edition of Dreamseeker, it looks like this;

The cover for Dreamsinger is even better. And it has a hot shirtless boy on it, just for bonus points.

In other news, Netgalley -or the St. Martins intern with their companies' Netgalley password, blessings to whichever- decided to treat me like the prince I am, and send me an arc of her new Valkyrie fantasy, which I've been waiting for for just about forever. I'll probably start reading that tonight and...well, I'll probably finish it tonight, too, because who are we kidding here. I just finished rereading The Selection, too, and now I'm gonna reread The Elite. I need good old comforting rereads right now.

I'l leave you with this: I just created a Medium account and you should definitely follow me there for articles and advice about publishing, book promotion, and my wild ranting about pop culture. Kind of like this blog. But better. And hosted on a more popular site. (I think.)

[Another reminder, Shadows of Ourselves is free on Instafreebie, and this is the newest edition with the best editing, so it's a sweet deal. 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/