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! :)
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