What To Write?

No clue what to write today. I'll probably settle on starting my Evernight Falling Miniseries (Dru, Vincent, and Lucia as superheroes anyone?) but I have so many on the go it isn't even funny. I could start Iceblood or finish my novella Afterglow, but I'm not really feeling them.

So yeah, it's probably gonna be superheroes.

I really need to publish something that will make some money and I'm not sure if superheroes will do the trick, especially since these are both novellas and my novellas haven't sold as well as my other books. We'll try, though!

I feel bad always talking about money like it's my sole goal, but I am human, and I do need to eat, and if I'm being honest I barely have the funds to do that right now. If things could get a little easier financially, I don't think writing would be as hard as it is all the time - some of the pressure on my shoulders would be removed. Often when I sit down to write it's not just me thinking, "You love this and it's your dream." It's actually me thinking, "You love this and it's your dream, and also, you can't even afford instant coffee mix right now. You have to do this. Do you want to be poor forever?"

Which is kind of not getting me in the writing mood. However, this superhero tale (Hush) should be easy to write, since it's in my main genre (gay kidnap romance) and although it's a lot different, it does have similarities to Divinity, so I may do a few things here I wanted to do in that book but never had time to.

(Not to mention I am probably gonna add like 20 or 30 words to that before republishing it, when I get the chance :)

In the meantime here's an excerpt from Hush:

“Let me go!” I hiss.

“Nah,” he replies, a smile etched on his face. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m about to bite you!”

“Do it, cutie. I’m into that stuff.”

I scream and start wriggling again, trying to fight him off. His arms are like two cement beams wrapped around my shoulders.


“Calm down,” he whispers in my ear, voice brushed with influence. I go still, eyes widening at the sound of his deep hum. I can feel the haze descend over my brain, but I don’t try to fight it—nothing in my is willing to try. I relish his control.

Everything You Need to Know

So. I'm changing my name. From here on out I'll be going by Kai Bishop. I really didn't feel like Jinx suited me for a long time, but I was waiting for it to click or settle into place, and it never did.

I think one of the reasons I felt so detached from it is because most people would give me odd looks or outright laugh me off when I told them my name was Jinx, which was annoying. I can see where it might be hard to take that name seriously, though, especially after knowing me under my birth name. A lot of people in my personal life refused to call me Jinx, too, which was annoying - not necessarily because I wanted them to call me Jinx, just that I definitely didn't want them to call me by my birth name, either.

Kai is a nickname I had for years long before the idea of changing my name at all was a gleam in my eye, so a few close friends already call me that on instinct. I feel like it suits me better. It feels right, it sits on my shoulders well, and it rolls off the tongue. Plus it's a lot more common than Jinx, and a lot less campy.

As for Bishop, I wanted to stick with the same initials as my birth name to placate my parents, but my actual birth surname is really clunky and also hard for me to pronounce clearly because of this annoying mini-lisp I have. Bishop is a lot easier for me to pronounce and also sounds nice, so there you have it.

I'm updating my social media accounts and the content of my ebooks to reflect the change and this is what I'll be going by from now on :) and that's everything you need to know about that

Airships & Ice Plains

Tonight I get to start writing the new edition of Iceblood! Wait, another one? Kinda.

The last 'new edition' of Iceblood I put out was actually just Iceblood as a standalone. It was the same edition of the story published in Souls of Salt & Seawater, just available as a solo.

This is an expanded version with new scenes and chapters, more romance, more fighting, and...airships!

Obviously, I'm a little excited.

The reason I'm writing this is because while I originally intended for the sequel, Anarchy, to be about new characters in a new situation, when I sat down to write it, nothing would come out. It just wasn't a story I was interested in writing. I wanted to continue Atka's.

So now that this is an actual series - as in both books are about Atka and are from her pov, and you have to read them both for the complete experience, some things about the first book need to change.

First of all I'm publishing the new edition under my Cosmo Knox pen name, which should be enough to tell you it's gonna be a bit more mature - more killing, more steamy romance scenes, et-cet... But also, I wanted it to resemble more of a complete fulfilling story than just 'two street criminals rob a mansion together' - and this version is going to deliver that by raising the stakes and widening the scope of the story.

I love fantasy, and I put a lot of work into this world, so I figure I should use it.

I'm also going to be publishing Beacon sometime in the next two days, and I'll post links when it goes up! Until then I updated the series tab for that at the top of the blog, and added a tiny blurb for book two, Shine!

Beacon Cover Reveal

I've been up for way too long, but I finally finished editing Beacon! I just compiled the ebook and I'm gonna read through it and check for any errors I missed in the line edits/formatting, but that's just to be safe - the book is done.

Which means I get to post the cover!

I'll be publishing it sometime this afternoon, so I'll post here & on social media when it goes live, but until then, here's the pretty new cover!

Lilac Xia Jones is a beacon. Supernatural beings are drawn to her like moths to a burning flame, and the only thing she can do is hold on for the ride and hope she survives. As extraordinary adventures bleed into her everyday norm, dark forces begin to gather at the edges of her consciousness. Malevolent covens, demon boys, spirits, and vengeful goddesses have all converged on Lilac’s life—but none of them can prepare her for what’s to come...

How The Moonlight Burns

It's 4am and I only just finished editing the third Lilac series, which means I basically want to cry. I still have to edit the final one before I go to sleep, and even after that I want to draft a couple chapters of something else. I'm taking a quick break before I dive into it, but I am going to edit it tonight, just so I can share the cover, 'cause that's how I roll.

I also have nothing else to do with my time or energy so it makes sense to just write until I drop. I spent most of today sleeping. My aunt and her boyfriend came over for a while and I had no energy to deal with people so I just stayed in bed, though I had to get up and open a window because they were smoking and the house reeked.

So now I'm up. Writing. Being productive.

I need to put out more titles because the few I have out aren't selling well, which means I have to keep trying new things. I think it's mainly because:

A) I don't do much marketing (I honestly don't have the energy for it and interacting with people makes me really anxious so it takes a lot of build-up to force myself to do it, even with people I like)

B) The books I have out are mostly ya, and ya readers don't really take as many chances on new or unpopular writers, especially indie ones

C) I don't have /that/ many books out.

It's important to me to be prolific - I want to be consistently putting out new releases, and I haven't been doing that because life and mental illness and a million other problems, barriers, and admittedly, a few excuses.

Tonight once I finish editing Beacon I'm probably going to start on a new edition of Iceblood, which will be longer and have expanded scenes and passages. Instead of writing the original idea I had for Anarchy, which just wasn't working out, I'm going to make it a direct sequel to Iceblood, continuing with Atka's pov and story as opposed to exploring a new character.

So that's where I'm at! I'm sorry this blog is a bit of a boring 'here's what I'm working on' piece, but I haven't done much in the past few days. I did walk around the woods and take photos and selfies, since it's finally spring and the snow has melted for the most part, but other than that...not much.

But if all goes according to plan, I may be posting a cover reveal before the night is out! :)

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.

Forget My Name At Midnight

(*Title from the lyrics to Night Mime by Melanie Martinez)

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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