Wherever I Go He's Been

I finished editing the first of the Lilac Jones stories for Beacon tonight so now I'm letting myself start drafting a just-for-fun paranormal romance and I figured I'd throw some writing music at y'all!

So, here's what I'm listening to:


Bloodstream by Astrid S (The title of this post comes from this song)

Now or never by Halsey... I waited two years for this and I'm so, so in love with it.

And, obviously, Burning Bridges by Bea Miller.

More Music

I've been compiling a lot of good writing music lately. I should probably make another 8Tracks playlist but I'm lazy, so I'm gonna share some of it here instead. I listened to a lot of these while writing Divinity...

The Return to Editing Hell - Also, Cake

I'm deep in the pits of editing hell, sorting through alternate characterizations and back stories and fictional family trees, so I can't take the time to write a super long blog post today.

Once I finish this round of edits I'm starting tonight I'll be writing another self-publishing know-how type post, though. Probably.

Right now I'm focused on making Divinity the most fun adventure I can. . .

I've been eating this Dairy Queen ice cream cake while I obsessively edit and tweak the cover design. I think it's pretty fun, so far. It's got angels and monsters and hot boys and Devil Wears Prada-ish subplots. I feel like readers will be able to tell I'm only scratching the surface of things with this book, and the questions they're left with will lead them onto book two.

Because, damn, book 2. Things are going to go a little insane.

I don't think I realized when I started writing these how action-driven the series was going to be, overall, and I'm having fun coordinating fight scenes and stuff. Every time I try to write a romance I inevitably end up throwing in battle scenes, because I can't help myself.

I just have to ask myself, if my book doesn't have elaborate fight scenes then am I doing my inner six year-old, who lived on Dark Angel and Kill Bill and Pirates of the Caribbean, any justice at all?

Nope. So, more swords.

It seems like a pretty simple solution to all my problems.

One thing I really love about Divinity and the Seraph Chronicles in general is I'm letting myself play around with pov and verb-tense. I know that's not something everyone loves, but I feel like when it's done right it's actually fairly enjoyable.

Right now there is an epilogue I'm thinking of taking out, even though I like it quite a lot - I feel like it fucks with the momentum of the book.

Since I'm too lazy to search for a good, non-spoiler-y quote right now, I'll leave you with a bit of the music I've been listening to while writing this bad boy;

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/

Too Much and Too Little

While going over SOSAS another time I've been listening to The Walk, by Imogen Heap, on repeat. I've also been stuffing my face with barbecue chips.

But I thought I would take a break from that to post a quote from the book really quickly:

You can buy the book here, or just wait until it's out in paperback. The new edition will have a map of the world in it. If I can figure out how to format that.

Or, you can request a free review copy by sending me an email, which I talked about in my last post. The gist of it is this: you like free books, I like honest reviews. And giving out free books.

So shoot me an email at ApolloBlake@mail.com for a free ebook if you're interested. Now, back to work!

Opulence Is My Middle Name

Okay, that's a lie. In fact, I'm kinda poor. My version of opulence would be being able to pay someone else to do cover designs and still having enough leftover to buy veggie burgers and a new pair of headphones. It would be being able to buy a new laptop, since that one that died on me last week is clearly done with life.

Alas, I can't really afford anything on that list, so I'll keep going DIY on covers (no big deal, since I'm also a graphic designer, but I like other people's art more than my own - who doesn't) and using broken headphones that I have to twist right in order to get them to work. That's how I roll.

I think a lot of people have this misconception that I have all of my shit together, or that, because I'm an author, I must be rich. The thing is, and if you're an author, especially an indie one, you will know this - we don't make much.

I mean, there are exceptions, obviously. There are indie authors out here who are killing it.

Then, there are the rest of us. The market is overflowing, and there are only so many readers. Even I'm skeptical of self-published books, sometimes. Probably the only indie authors who I don't really hesitate before reading one of their books is Nenia Campbell and Heather Crews. Wart Hill is really good, too.

And Leah Raeder/Elliot Wake, but he isn't self-pubbing anymore. Which is good, considering those books need to reach the widest audience possible. I need someone to share the pain with, since those books destroyed me.

My point is, it's scary taking a chance on a new author, especially an indie. It's why I run so many free promotions.

But we all know the only thing we can do is keep working at it, because the alternative is not doing anything at all, and that's a decidedly ugly alternative. But I can't lie and say I didn't come into this as a newbie without any dreams of blowing up and becoming some fancy bestseller. Isn't that what we all dream of?

Well, that, and becoming a top secret agent and/or contract killer for a government agency shrouded in mystery. Unless that one is just me?

Anyway, I just got home from a friend's place, and published Rage and the Rage/Frenzy collection the other day, so today is mostly writing and marketing stuff, and I figured I'd share the music that's getting me through it with you guys: