Force & Other Ghosts

Force is still coming out! I've postponed it until next month or the next, but I will probably put it out once the second book is done. I just want extra time to polish it, but I want to stress it is done and it is coming soon! I felt like I had to take some time and be extra patient with it, even if it meant pushing back the date.

On the bright side the new Lilac editions are happening this month and early next month, and I'll have updates about them as more of them come out. I also have a couple other finished and semi-finished projects I'm just being very patient with. I want all of them to have a lot of love and a long journey that ensures their quality. I can't make anything perfect, but I want to be sure it's 'ready' at least, whenever I feel that it is.

Anyway that's all I really have to say, and I wanted it to be up here that I am working on it, and it's still coming out, as are other cool things!

All The Fancy Books

I got my copy of The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich in the mail today and can't wait to start reading it, but I should probably wait until after I finish the third Riverdale book, and maybe a couple of Amanda Hocking books I'm reading/rereading (I'm halfway through my My Blood Approves series reread, and I'm also reading her book Freeks for the first time.) I also bought the Beautiful Creatures graphic novel and The Body Electric by Beth Revis in paperback.

Honestly I think 2020 is going to be a good reading year for me. I've got a lot of reads and rereads slated and I'm super excited about all of it. I even have the final Emily The Strange book coming. I've only read the first three, and I just reread books one and two, and am moving onto three, so I can be prepared to finally, finally read the last book! I really enjoyed rereading the first couple these past few days, for the first time in two or three years.

I want to put out some new music sometimes this year, too. So that's a thing I'm stressing about. I have ideas but no real products to show for them. I'm still tooling around with the vocal mixing on songs on my last album.

Okay actually since I wrote that last paragraph the other day I HAVE made and released some new music, 2 songs; Aries and No More. I'm not even sure if I like them but they certainly do exist and I had a lot of fun making them. I made some more cool shit but Bandlab decided to delete the stronger songs because of course. It was during a storm and the internet was acting up, so I can't fully blame them for the sync issues, but damn, I loved those vocals and they're gone.

Anyway, Aries and No More are here and exist and I like them a lot. I think. Aries is kind of corny, but I had written the lyrics a few nights ago and wanted to try them on a couple of different beats, and then before I knew it I had made 2 tracks and I DID like them enough to put them out. I think I'm improving but I also think my vocal mixing needs a lot of work and my level of skill is obviously not high enough to execute the actual song ideas I usually have. It's fun making music, though, so I can't see myself stopping even though I hate half of what I make.

In other news, I've hit 25k on my current wip!

I can't even say anything about it, just that it's gay romance and it has a psychopath in it. I mean, I can say I like it, and it might have at least one sequel, but aside from that, nah. Nothing. I'm trying to hold it in mind that the most important tool writers can develop is patience and even though things aren't coming along or coming out as fast as I want them to, doesn't mean I'm a failure or things are going wrong or 2020 is off. It's just that books, even shorter ones, take a lot of love and time and work and PATIENCE. I draft fast so it's hard for me to let things sit or let editing drag on even if a book needs it, because I want to release things so badly, but I'm not rushing these stories or myself.

That said, I am going to get back to work, because I am finishing this book this week, and that is that. Once it's drafted I can hop back over to my focus on editing that I just ruined and build that back up. I have so many finished titles to polish up it makes my head spin!

Night of The Dragon (Definitive Edition) & Where Six Souls Meet

So, the first Lilac Xia Jones story, Night of the Dragon, just got a new round of extensive editing and a new cover. The new, definitive edition of the story is out. I'm very happy I was able to go back and edit this, and I'm not going to lie, I edited...a lot. I added about 4k to 5k words of new material and rewrote a lot of the other material.

You can get the new edition here!

I'm much happier with this version of the story. I wrote this when I was about 17 and it probably wasn't ever ready to come out when I published it. I'm about to turn 24 so being able to go back and fix a lot of the stuff I didn't like or didn't have the technical skill to pull off the first time I wrote it was very satisfying.

I also love the stylish new cover, which is definitely more in line with the rest of my catalog:

 

I included the cover for the 5th story, which is coming out sometime mid-February! This week I'm focusing on editing and publishing new editions of volumes 2, 3, & 4, and then I'm going to get to work drafting Where Six Souls Meet, which is the first chapter of the 2nd act of the story. I'm really excited for this phase, and I'm glad to finally have an overarching plan and end-goal in place for this series and these characters. There will be 13 stories total, and then they'll all be bound up in a special omnibus.

I'm devoting the first half of 2020 to my three serials; Lilac Xia Jones, Superhero High, & Dark Territory (which I haven't talked about at all yet, but will have more details on later in the month!) and editing my previous novels (Shadows is already mostly done and on the way, and Blood of Midnight and Divinity are both next!) and the second half of the year to writing sequels for some of my novels, particularly for the Deadheart saga and Divinity.

I'm also devoted to writing a second Liesmith book this year if the stars align! I have a lot of ideas for it and I'm gearing up for it but I still have a lot of mental anxiety about it, because I'm stubborn and weird like that.

I actually had a lot of fun editing the first story this last week, even though I drank way too much coffee and beer. It doesn't count if it's after Christmas but before the New Year, though ;)

Anyway, you can check out Night of The Dragon here or add Where Six Souls Meet to your Goodreads shelves here!

I hope you all have a happy new year!

I Dream of Zombies

I just woke up from a dream where me, a random girl I've never seen irl but somehow know was named Cassandra, and Willow and Xander from Buffy, all survived the zombie apocalypse together. I've only dreamed about the zombie apocalypse once before a couple months ago, and it wasn't as vivid and insane as this. We stole an old riverboat that was like a little tin can, all the others could fit in it but while we sped up the river I sat on top and kept a lookout. The world was already in ruins and it felt like much more time had passed than a few weeks since the world ended, but dreams are weird and messy like that. So anyway.

Cassandra's insane aunt who blamed me for her husband's death tried to kill me, and Cassandra killed her and saved me after I lured her to a swamp where my friends were waiting. There was an 'intelligent' zombie who could control others who was after us, on some Game of Thrones shit, but more terrifying than the Night King's icy bitch-ass.

All I know is that I have got to find a way to write this shit as a book. Or stop dreaming of horrifying end-of-the-world scenarios.

Superhero High Book 1: FORCE (Announcement, Cover Reveal & Release Date!)

So, in my last post I promised you all that I wouldn't blog again until I had some cool stuff to announce and share. And now I do! My next title, FORCE (Superhero High Book 1) is coming out on January 10th 2020!

Force is actually a novella, not a full book. It's the first in a series of five titles following the students of Southaven High, a school for teens with powers, who in this world are listed as C-Class Citizens in the new American social caste system.

I had a ton of fun writing this one!

I would describe this series as, like, Smallville meets Degrassi? I've never actually seen an episode of Degrassi, but I know it's about teens at a high school and there are a ton of different generations or classes or whatever. Each novella follows a different student at the school, although they're all part of the main roster of characters who will each play a big role as they go on. I mean, not all of them, some of them just die, but I can't talk about that, because spoilers...

If that sounds interesting to you, here's the cover and blurb!

Two years ago a meteor shower rained alien particles known as Gemblood over most of the planet Earth, resulting in those humans with no immunity developing…abnormalities.

In the United States of America, where individuals with powers are listed as C-Class citizens, teenagers with abnormalities are sent to special schools, where they can hone their talents without hurting any A-Class citizens, AKA normals.

Welcome to superhero high…

Kacey Print only wants to disappear. After unleashing the powers she spent two years trying to hide, she ended up killing nine of her classmates in a tragic accident. Now the only reason she hasn’t been carted off to a maximum security prison for freaks like her is because of the timely intervention of one Dr. Christian Howell, the principal of Southaven High School, a black hole they toss people like her into to keep everybody else safe. He’s given her a second chance, even though she doesn’t deserve it, but straight-edge punk girl Kacey is going to have to fight for redemption if it’s what she truly wants, because all of a sudden, the school is under attack by a giant tentacled monster and a group of mysterious faceless men.

Welcome to your first day at Southaven! The only rule of orientation is ‘Don’t Die!’

I will update this post and make another announcement with all the links once it's available for pre-order in a week or two, and I'll also be posting the first chapter as a tease, so be on the lookout! I'm already working on book 2, TORCH, for a February release and I can't wait to share it!

I'm Living in Some Type of Television

*Title from the song Show Me Yours by Trisha Paytas.

So all I've done for the past two days is work on this new story I don't want to talk about, and play Fortnite. I'm now officially trash. To be fair I also walked to our mailbox today but the only thing inside was a death threat/parking ticket reminder.

It was really nice outside, even though it was cold as hell. I wore combat boots instead of sneakers so I wasn't slipping on all the ice for once.

It's weirdly beautiful and, I guess, 'fresh' outside when it's winter and there's snow everywhere but it's still sunny. All the white snow and golden light combines and makes things look like some kind of a fantasy world.

Anyway, my walk was nice, but I'm sore all over. I'm probably ruining my back by sitting in all the weird positions I sit in. I made a blanket nest on the floor in a corner of my room and I've been retreating there more often than I want to admit even though I know it's really fudging up my back and shoulders, especially my neck. Oh well, though, it's comfy and I have no decent chairs and even if I did, I'd want to sit on the floor anyway because I'm a weirdo.

The truth is both my bed and my house in general are twisted and bent to hell. The entire world is warped.

I have no money to get a new bed, but even if I did I'd probably spend it on books...

So I have to deal with my back problems and I mostly do it by spraying my entire body with a muscle relaxant that has peppermint in it but honestly just smells like root beer. Like to a degree that it's weird. I think it's about time I give my body a break from the constant assault of coffee and weed I put it under, so I'm cutting those out for a couple days, hopefully, even though I already cut back on smoking. The truth is it helped with quiet a few things, so I guess that's a sign I should keep cutting back.

I'm one of those people who doesn't like to do what's good for me, though, and even when I finally relent and do it, I end up kicking and screaming the whole way.

In fact, it's probably why I'm writing this blog right now instead of writing my next book. To be fair, I only have a couple more chapters to write, because it's not actually a book, it's a novella, and I am in love with it, but I'm at the final fight scene and I always kind of hate the action scenes because as cool as they can be, I'm more interested in characters just talking and having feelings about each other, and it's also a scene where some reveals need to happen to most of the characters present, and a lot of different moving pieces are involved, and I'm not sure entirely if I'm wrapping it all up right. But it doesn't really matter, right? The first entry in a series doesn't even need to wrap much up, it mostly just needs to get you excited for the next one, and I think it will.

I actually wrote the first 10k words of this project all in one night, and I really had a lot of fun with it up to now, but I think I need to reread it all from the start and do some editing to re-familiarize myself with it before I hop back in and write the end.

I know 'they' say you shouldn't edit as you write, 'they' being the unseen council of art gods whose opinions get spread around the internet as fact, or the cold hard rules of writing, but I'm gonna go ahead and break that rules.

I've been hanging out playing video games and listening to the new Trisha Paytas EP all day. I was really hoping I'd get my new books in the mail, since some are supposed to come this week, but I don't think they'll get here until tomorrow some time, and I'm annoyed about it. I want those books! I've got the entire My Blood Approves series coming, both Hollows books, and Gumiho 1 (Wicked Fox) and I bought a box-set of the Splintered trilogy so I can have nice new paperbacks that actually match, because I haven't read book three and I hate that the copies of the first two I have don't match, one is paperback and the other is hardcover, and I prefer paperback, which I've been told I'm weird for by hardcover lovers, who are what we in the business of being awesome call haters. <__<

I'm already reading a ton of books including The Red Scrolls of Magic and Margaret Sthol's Black Widow book Forever Red (I also need its sequel, gah) because I want to get excited for Black Widow's solo movie. The trailer they just put out looks awesome.

I'm also considering rereading The Hunger Games because Fortnite really reminds me of it, lol. I haven't read those books in two or three years now, and I watched the trailers for their movies earlier and got really nostalgic.

Remember when we were all like a hundred years younger and The Hunger Games was first blowing up, and the first movie had just come out in theaters?

Damn, we are old.

That said Suzanne Collins is coming to save western society with another book in that world, so hey, maybe the Gods who run the simulation haven't abandoned us yet at all!

Anyway I will leave you with the promise of new links and new covers for new titles next time I post! I'm not letting myself write another blog until I write my damn novella! I'm probably going to go back on what I said about quitting coffee, aren't I? I know I am.

- XOXO, your local insane indie author who is definitely NOT Gossip Girl, I swear

I'm Not Shy But I Refuse to Speak Because I Don't Trust You to Understand Me

Title from My Name Is Dark by Grimes.

I'm probably not going to win NaNoWriMo this year; I only have like 3000 words left to go, but I'm probably not going to hit it because I'm in a bad place psychologically and probably won't write that much before 12, if I write today at all. I slept all day and played a little Kingdom Hearts 3 and that's it. And if that's it, that's fine, at least I was lazing off instead of getting into more trouble. I really don't trust myself to do much else today.

Basically I've been listening to Grimes and enjoying moping around hating myself and life and feeling all defeatist about everything.

Obviously I should have loftier goals, but we all have Those Days TM.

I picked up a copy of Awakener by Alisha Howard on Kindle because it's free on Amazon.ca right now, and I bought all the paperbacks for the My Blood Approves series by Amanda Hocking. I'm finally going to own one of my favorite self-published series in physical copy! It's hard to invest in indie books, and I say this as an indie author, because they're so damn expensive for print-on-demand books, and it sucks, but it is what it is. I'd love to buy the Hollows series too, and in fact, I'm hopping over there to do that now, because I just talked myself into it, it's only two books, and God knows when I'll have the money again. It came up to like 95 bucks for the MBA books, they're like 17 bucks each. Hmmm, maybe I will wait to buy the Hollows. I talked myself into it and then out of it again, lol. Money is scary, especially when you have very little.

I honestly think I'm supposed to help my cousin move in a couple days and watch all my packages come while I'm out and get stolen. I'll have to build a contraption or box or something for the mailmen to put them in that doesn't draw as much attention.

I'm honestly reeling from what a weird November it's been. It's crazy that this month is over because it felt like it went on and on and on forever. I'm kind of in denial that it's winter again, but at least it's mild so far. Thanks for that, global warming. You ruin the things that ruin everything else, but you also kill polar bears, so you can still go fuck yourself.

Yup, I'm gonna go NOT-write and wish aliens would abduct and murder me already. I know at least ONE galactic overlord has to have internet access, I know y'all see this; what's taking so long?