Things You Can't Calculate (Like The Future)

It would be pointless not to admit that I'm not where I expected to be in my life, at this point. I'm about to turn twenty, so I should probably be excited and happy - especially since I'm starting to publish and follow my career goals - but I'm poor, ridden with mental illness, my living situation is less than ideal, my academic life is a mess, and my personal relationships are all in shambles.

And there is no easy fix. It doesn't matter how hard I work, or how much I do, because - and this is something a lot of us refuse to believe - it is possible to do your best, to give something your all, and fail.

And that's okay. It's okay to fail and learn a lesson from it. It's okay to do your best and make the choices you think are right and still end up in an unhappy place.

I think sometimes when people see me mentioning these things, it can come off as complaining or giving up - and to be clear, I would never give up - but in reality I thinks it's just important to be honest about our struggles and the way we've either failed ourselves or been failed by the world, and, because of my situation, there are a lot of times where I can't talk about the ways I've been failed by the world, or it puts my current situation in jeopardy as well. I can talk about how I've failed myself, though.

I can talk about how fucked around in school, or how I haven't been kind enough to myself, or how it's taken me so long to learn certain lessons. I can talk about the fact that I put my trust in the wrong people.

I can talk about the fact that I failed, and continue to fail, to be able to predict the future.

I can't. None of us can.

What can we do? We can keep giving it our best, even when it doesn't seem to be working. We can have faith that just because we can't see to the end of the road doesn't mean it's not where we're meant to go.

There are some things in life you honestly, honestly, can not calculate. If you asked my fifteen year old self about his five year plan, current me is sure as hell not living up to any of it. If you ask current me about my five year plan, I would tell you I've stopped trying to make long-distance plans.

That's a side effect of being poor, but it's also a side effect of being disillusioned. I can't choose my future. I can plan and hope, but I can't guarantee the outcome. Honestly? I don't want to anymore.

At the end of the day, life takes us where it takes us. And of course, our choices influence where we go - our mindsets and our investments and our decisions now shape ourselves and our futures - but they aren't the only things that shape ourselves or our futures. They're just part of the overall equation.

And I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to control the world. I'm going to stop beating myself up for not being able to game a system that's always been stacked against me - one that's stacked against all of us.

I'm going to accept that there are some things you can't calculate and I'm going to be kind to myself, because god knows the world isn't, too often.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye (Blog Updates and a New Book + Double Cover Reveal!)

I updated the tabs at the top of the blog, including the contact page. I added info about my next publication - Rage - and updated the info about Things We Saw At Midnight, Frenzy, and added a page for Souls of Salt & Seawater, which is now out! (You can grab it here, and the price is going down to 99 cents within the next few hours!)

Aside from that, I have new covers to show you! (Who doesn't love a pretty cover?) And some info about the new book!

So, first, the cover for the paperback edition of SOSAS, which will be out in a few weeks:

And the cover & blurb for the new book, Rage!

Something powerful is festering in the shadows. . .

With four months to go until she turns twenty and the beginnings of a promising modeling career forming around her, teenage Harpy Myra Evans should be happy. And she would be. . .if she weren’t in mortal danger.

As an extremely rare breed of paranormal, Myra’s powers are highly coveted. When powerful beings begin to vanish one by one, the Reapers begin to suspect Myra could be the next target—and with deadly nightmares leaving her shaken night after night and the feeling of being watched following her everywhere, time is running out.

Can Myra piece together the clues and find a way to protect herself—or will the monster that haunts her dreams claim her as its own once and for all?

I'm having a lot of fun working on this one. In case you didn't catch it already, the main character is Myra - the love interest from Frenzy - except this is before she and Evelyn met, and it's focused on her and her history and story.

It's got a fun cast of characters and some great banter, plus, I really love hinting at the villain of Shadows. He's so deliciously evil and (to me at least) genuinely frightening.

The book is set in my home city, Saint John, just like Frenzy, and it offers more insight into the Menagerie world. It can definitely be read as a standalone, just like Frenzy can, but if you've already read that, it also serves to create a richer experience with the world.

And the main love interests of both Maelstrom (Ian) and Shadows (Hunter) make an appearance! If you're not interested in reading the other books and you're wondering is this one is for you, here's some basic info/facts:

• It's dark New Adult
• With horror elements
• And no romance
• It's got a racially and sexually diverse cast
• The focus is on the pshyce and decisions of the main character
• But there's plenty of world building & action, too
• No romance - but lots of sex appeal
• Touch of mystery
• The main character is a budding model
• There are kidnappings

So. Yeah. I'm hoping to publish it this Thursday, the 25th, but with Amazon there's always a chance it could take longer and end up coming out on the 26th sometime.

I'm having fun, though. I've been listening to a few songs on repeat as I write it:

I'll post about it once the book goes live, as always, but for now, that's all, folks!

Souls of Salt & Seawater is out! (Book Release & Cover Reveal)

GUYS. SOULS OF SALT AND SEAWATER IS FINALLY PUBLISHED.

I've been working on this project for months and I promised as soon as this book was out, I'd be shouting about it from the rooftops, so this is me doing that.

The book will be free in the Kindle store on the 19th and 20th! If you want a copy sooner than that, though, you can buy the book here:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BWN5VZW

I'm diving into work on other projects now, but I hope you all enjoy SOSAS, and I'll have a paperback info post up in a week or so! Thanks for all the support guys!

(*If you're a book blogger/reviewer and would like a copy, feel free to email me - JinxKing@null.net, and I'll shoot you an epub!)

Dropping the Blogging Ball and Stealing It Back

I dropped the ball as far as blogging is concerned this month. It really just has to do with mental health, which is always a struggle.

I wish I could say that it was because I was hard at work (and I am) or because I was kidnapped by a handsome foreign prince who now wishes to marry me (I'm still waiting) but in reality it's just because I struggle with my self-identity and caring for myself and sometimes I need to take a step back from the internet and social media and even work, in order to, y'know, not have a breakdown or die.

For a while - a while being the last eleven or twelve days - I've been really struggling to keep myself afloat, and working through a lot of difficult things. I'm feeling better now, and a lot has happened in that time that I can't wait to talk about.

This post is not about any of that, though. This post is just about the fact that I'm back. And that I got lots of work done, even though I wasn't here talking about it.

And that work I got done? It means that. . .Souls of Salt and Seawater is coming out in two days! Yup, I'll be publishing sometime tomorrow morning, so it will be out either late tomorrow night or, more likely, early tomorrow morning. KDP is random like that.

But I can't wait to share this book with you, and it's new cover, and the stories within it. I'm so happy to finally be at this point, and now that SOSAS is coming out I'll be able to work on my full-length novels!

Maelstrom and Shadows will be here before you know it. Keep an eye out for the cover reveal for SOSAS tomorrow!

Two Days.

Blizzards and Bills (also, Frenzy is Free!)

I haven't been blogging much lately. Why?

I have bills to pay and books to write and school to cope with. I had a meeting today, but it got cancelled, so I spent the day outlining a new project. I want to keep going with that for tonight, though I gotta get some editing done on Sosas later.

The thing is, between the books and school and learning French and trying to lose weight and deal with mental illness and maintain friendships and do marketing stuff, there's not much time for blogging.

I sent some free copies of Frenzy out for review, and it's also free on kindle right now! You can get it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B81HGQ0

Anyway, I'll be posting more once some of this workload is done and out, but for now it could be sporadic. (For now being the month - I'm attempting to blog ever day during March!)

What Am I Doing?

What am I doing? It's four am and I've suddenly become interested in True Blood again (I rewatched the first two seasons and saw the third for the first time this summer) and now I'm finally sitting down to devour the fourth season BECAUSE IT'S A PROBLEM OKAY? I honestly couldn't stop now if I wanted to. And boy, do I want to - because this show is keeping me away from my damn homework.

I have six assignments to do today, so once my parents leave for work I'm going to be spending hours sitting here finishing those up and then be able to hand them in tomorrow. I have to go back to school this week, and I don't know which one I'll even be going to or what I'm gonna be taking, so naturally it's fucking me up and I'm trying not to think about it.

Which hasn't been working out well for me so far, clearly. I need to finish them, but I keep procrastinating because, you know, that's who I am.

I also want to get in a workout today, which is going to be fucking painful, I already know. I did a nice one the other day, but now I'm sore all over. Fun, right? I know people say it's good to exercise, but I kind of feel like I died a bit.

What I need is to be able to focus on writing and publishing and building a career for myself, but I also desperately need this diploma, and to be healthy, and to, you know, face life. Which has been hard, since I'm also trying to balance the whole mental illness thing, and I'm not taking medication anymore because of the side effects. The upside is that I'm not going to randomly have a stroke or develop type two diabetes - the downside is, hey, I have to deal with all of this shit on my own now!

I don't like to talk too much about my mental illness, because I feel like sometimes in the past I've overshared and it hasn't been productive or healthy for me, but the basics of it is I have anxiety and depression, and minor paranoia.

I'm managing it, to be clear, but it's hard. And sometimes I do fail. And I know that that will happen; illness isn't easy, and sometimes it wins. But I like to win. And I do not like to feel helpless, which is how I do.

Right now I'm taking it day by day, focusing on self-improvement and trying to be kind to myself, and to be fair I think it's gotten a lot easier as I grow stronger and learn to take care of myself, but there are still days when I can't fight off invasive thoughts or work my way around it, and I go into a depressive episode or a state of mania and things get bad.

The reason I'm even bringing it up now is because I haven't really blogged since the beginning of the month, which makes me feel bad, because I like to keep this page updated and I honestly love blogging. But I went into a depressive episode that lasted a few days, and at the end of it I just knew I had to make some serious life changes and extract myself from certain situations that weren't healthy for me at this point.

So I did that, and it's been getting better, and things are getting back on track. I'm letting myself unwind with True Blood right now, but later today things pick up again.

The best thing I can do is pick myself up and do my best. So. Homework. Exercise. Healthy eating habits. Those are things I'm going to embrace today. And be productive.

School is going to be hectic, but Souls of Salt and Seawater will be out by the end of February or the beginning of March. I turn twenty on March twenty-second, so I want to be well-into edits on Shadows by the that time.