Long time no Blog!

Well, it's been a couple weeks. I've noticed that a few of you still regularly check in to see what's going on. Thank you for your continued support.

Thanks to the up and coming publication in Book-it! I've been forced into doing a lot of revisions and editing. This, of course, leaves me with very little time to do much blogging. So, I've decided to cut my posts down to one - maybe two - posts a week, but don't expect whole heaps. I am hard at work on some very exciting projects! Look forward to hearing from me soon!

Fan Art Friday

Sooo... my effort to gain more followers and get more fan art was a total fail. No responses. I'm just going to have to try this again in a few months. No biggie.

But in the meantime, this leaves me with slim to no pics to share with you. I've been super busy doing edits so that for the up and coming printing in the Book-it! magazine. But, I suppose I can come up with something. Let me see... ah! Here is some art I've been admiring lately. Some inspirations for Target Lost, my webisode series leading up to Tailslide. (forgive me if I've shared these before)

Introducing Nannette!

Raide

Jarreth

Maggie

aaaand more Maggie. I seriously love Maggie.

The Busy Week of Busy-ness!

As some of you may have noticed, I didn't blog on Monday or Wednesday. What some of you may not have noticed (and I mean, really, how could you notice unless you've been spying on me?! *gasp*) that I've been editing a lot of Hard Bank Left lately! I've come to several realizations, not the least of which being who the bad guys are/bad guy motivation. (I refer you to this last Friday's blog.)

I've also been thinking a lot about Krys's family relations, and her discontentment at home and I realized - though I really have no idea how - that Krys is the middle child of three. This has put a number of plot twists in my head that I really can't wait to share with you... but you're going to have to wait until the middle of Tailslide to hear about them! Muahahahaha! xD But seriously, it's killing me not telling you right now!

In other news! The first two chapters of HBL will be available for public reading in the up and coming magazine Book-it! from Chapter One. I'm so stoked. I've been working with the editor to get an exclusive look to the story, including but not limited to pictures. It's been really fun and I hope you enjoy the effort. If you don't live in Utah and are looking for a copy of my story in the magazine, you can pre-order your copy of the first issue here, subscriptions are available.

Also! super awesome bonus material alert I am holding a competition for best Steam Punk! If you are into cosplay, are an artist, or you have friends who are, this is for you. 

In Hard Bank Left, Target Lost, and Tailslide there are a ton of fight scenes. In these there are characters the have special physic abilities. The winner of this competition will get the opportunity to be written into one of these three stories as either a good guy or a bad guy with one of these abilities. Here is your chance to be immortalized in fiction!

THE COMPETITION:
To enter into this competition, you must submit a picture or drawing of you or one of your original characters/alter-egos to aletheraia@gmail.com no later than August 15th. The winner will be announced the next day in my usual Fan Art Friday post.

SUBMISSION RULES:

• The character must a specific mental ability. For a list of powers, check out my wiki page. This doesn't have to be demonstrated, just let me know in the email.

• The character must demonstrate that they are in the Shadow Cast world by having one or more of the following objects: 
• has objects that glow cyan
• has an elaborately decorated key
• has a mix of steampunk and cyberpunk tech (ie a musket and a flexi)

•  If a bad guy, the character must demonstrate some sort of military insignia
• If a good guy, the character must stand out as being eccentric in some way (ex. they're crazy, have no sense of style, or are a gypsy)
• optional bonus material (please note that bonus material doesn't count toward your actual score, but it sure makes your character fantastic)
• awesome Nerf  - glowey paint gets double bonuses!
• making jeans look steampunky
• dreadlocks
• eye patches
• kickawesome scars
• bizarre eye color
• curly orange hair

As a final note, keep it clean (we have young and/or impressionable audience members). I look forward to seeing what you have in store!

Trying to be the Next Shakespeare

Everyone who has ever put pen to paper (or imagination to some sort of medium in an effort to create a novel) has at one point or another, thought of themselves as the next William Shakespeare. To which I say "Poppycock!" while also admitting that I am personally guilty of such thoughts. *blushes* Allow for me to break down both why our world today is making it more and more impossible for Shakespeares to be reborn.

So, Shakespear is known for a lot of things, iambic pentameter, moving speeches that ring in our hearts for ages, stories we will never forget, but there are three things that people can unanimously say define Shakespeare: a world class sense of humor, moving dramas, and wordsmithing.

Humor is something that requires great whit, something that many authors have in spades. I have a fantastic friend in the UK that has such a brilliantly dry (and very British) sense of humor that I can read some of her stuff and crack up for hours afterwards just remembering her sharp lines. The problem is that this humor, often times, removes us from the overall drama of a deep and interesting story line. Shakespeare was, in his highly gender biased, highly classist Britain, was able to blend these two things in such a way that it appealed to both sexes and all classes. His humor bled into his dramas. His drama bled into his comedies. This is something that is often lost in modern literature.

On another note, Shakespeare didn't have to worry about these stereotypes. From the dull underclass soldiers in Much Ado About Nothing, to the highly staunch and aristocratic McDuff in That Da** Scottish Play Shakespeare writes highly stereotyped, classist characters. And yet, we love and drool over these plays as some of the highest pieces of literature ever written.

So, why can't we write similar stereotypical characters? In modern terms, you'd have to write a plethora of stories that cross all classes, truly human stories. In our world of multicultural, international extremely diverse relationships, it's becoming increasingly difficult to write something that you feel may apply to all human kind without being called racists. This is particularly true for American writers.

The accusations and cat calls of whitewashing characters, calls for more diversity, are attacking our creative abilities. I write international characters. But I still believe that my characters would best represent their areas by not being hyper stylized, or hyper stereotyped! At the same time, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your character realistically representing a certain culture and that culture fitting certain stereotypes. Some tropes and stereotypes are true and accurate representations, but they do not represent the full depth of a character. We, as authors, must be careful when walking these stereotype lines.

Having addressed these two things, which are often addressed in modern literature and have indeed been conquered by many modern authors - JK Rowling, Steven King, Stephanie Meyers (particularly with The Host, I don't even count Twilight), and Suzanne Collins are just a few of the most popular modern authors that have managed to entwine humor, drama, and transcendentally human stories.

Now! Wordsmithing! In modern culture, it seems that wordsmithing has been transitioned from authors to music artists like Snoop Dog that think that adding -izzle to the end of a word all of a sudden makes the word cooler. But then when authors go to their editors with a new word that they feel fits the description better than any existing word and the editor tells them that the word doesn't work... this is a disservice to creators everywhere.

In Hard Bank Left one of the chapters is titled "Unwillfully Discontent". It is not a hyphenated/compound word. This is a portamento. My friend and editor offered me some better antonyms for "willful": involuntarily, unwillingly, unconsciously, unfeelingly, unintentional, unknowingly, disregarded, forgotten, neglected, unplanned, chance, indeterminate, methodical, wittingly, impartially, unenthusiastically... The list goes on. But the words didn't sit right with me. They didn't convey precisely what I meant with the word. For me, the meaning of "unwillfully" or "unwillful" means, "against what one intends to do, but not without desire to do so." In other words "unwillfully discontent" = "being discontent out of duty to one's personal code rather than being discontent by what one actually feels" or "being discontent out of sheer stubbornness, but wanting to enjoy one's self." I'm sure that any number of the antonyms would have done well, but I was looking for a perfect match - and seeing as how many if not all of the antonyms have predefined cultural and contextual definitions, they wouldn't do. I had to come up with something more specific.

When editors are involved, and you have Grammar Nazis around every corner all of whom see it as their duty to correct what they think are nonsense words like "acclimatize" *cough* my dad *cough* then the English language is not allowed to evolve. Sure, you have sites like Urban Dictionary that do post popular nonsense words, or words that are so obtusely mispronounced that they are considered a new word. But most true blue editors and hard core Grammar Nazis will use such sites as proof that new words cannot and should not be invented. And yet, there are so many options of what words can and should become.  Editors should not put limits on author's creative license because they (the editors) believe that there is a better word. Sometimes the author isn't just pulling crap our of thin air, sometimes they have actually weighed all the options and decided that their word is more tasteful and better fits what scope of language they are going for.

If anyone is interested in the English language, it's origins, and where it's headed, I strongly recommend one of my new favorite books: The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way by Bill Bryson.

Decission Making and 276th drafts

If you've taken even the most basic writing class you will note that probably the most tedious part of writing is the extensive drafting process a.k.a. The Rewrite. It's  unpleasant, it's messy, and, most importantly, it's diheartening. I cannot tell you how many rewrites have left me wallowing in a pit of self-loathing because either A) "How could anyone hate this first draft? It's perfect, and yet I must rewrite!" or B) "How could I have been such an idiot?! I swear I did not write this crap." *sets about completely rewriting the story and creating an entirely new first draft which must be edited again*...

Does anyone else feel my woes?

With self-loathing pit A, I'm usually so deep in a pit of "woe is me" that I seriously can't see what's wrong with my writing unless someone else points out what is good with it. Take for example the situation that The Next Big Writer has set up where in order to post anything you must earn as certain amount of points by reading and reviewing other people's works. Normally this leads to constructive criticism, bolstered confidences, and new writing buddies that you can do fun projects with. However, in many a case, it also leads to a newbie getting bombed by other newbies with no social skills who turn around and tell them that their piece has a million spelling errors, that their sentence fluency sucks, and that they have a poor vocabulary, and wind up saying nothing about the story in general. The major problem with this should be obvious: if you don't tell someone what's good about their writing first, they will be less likely to accept your criticism. (Seriously you newbie reviewers, read How to Win Friends and Influence People; it should be required reading for being a member of the human race.) In short, sometimes we need a little outside help to get the ball rolling with edits.

But then there's self-loathing pig B... This may be best demonstrated by a little story about a little story I've been perpetually rewriting since I was - oh, we shall say - 10. It's gone by a number of different names over the years, but recently the entire conglomerated world that I've created has been known as Legend of the Fallen Moon.  When I was 10, this was my little outlet for my D&D obsession as well as a number of other imaginative things I had floating in my head due to an overactive imagination and a love of fantasy books. As you might imagine, it took my 10-year-old mind about two years to put these imaginings into more than a few scribblings in the back of an old notebook. And, at the ripe old age of 12, I was absolutely convinced that I was the best writer in the world. I'm thinking of putting some of my 12-year-old scribblings on my website as motivation to aspiring writers that they won't always stink...

This fantasy story has evolved over the last decade and a half until it reached its current state which mainly consists of a map, a list of races, and an extensive planetary history. Given the state of things, it would be better suited for development into an MMO RPG than a series of novels, but we shall have to see what my mind is up to after I'm done with the Shadow Cast Chronicles. I may very well write a book based off the story line of an MMO I develop out of my notes. Let me know in the comments below what you think after checking out the wiki!
I guess what I'm trying to say with that story is that your edits don't always turn out to be exactly what you intended them to be. Sometimes they fizzle, sometimes they soar.

Luckily, with the Shadow Cast Chronicles, I've had a bit more success in staying focused, though it might not always seem that way. When I first started writing the Chronicles, I was writing first person from multiple perspectives and it was really confusing. This pre-first draft went into my "original concepts" folder never to be seen or heard from again.... No, seriously. I only use that draft for some basic references of what I had originally thought would happen. It serves to keep my thoughts straight, but does little else.

The really hard work has come with Hard Bank Left. HBL has been the most time consuming project I've ever worked on. And what's worse! I didn't even have the plot straight when I was writing it! I wrote down the beginning and the end and that was pretty much it for about two years. Then, about a year ago, I sat down, put together a play list on youtube of music and videos that I figured would fit HBL pretty well. After that, I compiled a plethora of inspirational pictures. This got me in the right spirit. After that, I set down a goal for myself: one chapter a week, and I started writing.

That was pretty much it for the first draft. It didn't have to be pretty, it just had to get done. And, as soon as it did, I felt as though there was a huge weight lifted off my chest. I felt that now that I had the story and all the characters down on paper, I could really begin to flush out the story, the characters, and all the details with a fine toothed comb.

...I am finding that fine toothed combs usually find unpleasant snarls - particularly in the "cliche" and "plot device" categories. Needless to say, it's still a work in progress.

Something I've discovered that has really helped in this tedious process is turning your novel into a short story. This... really hurts. Really, REALLY hurts. You have to cut out all the pretty words and fancy fight scenes and elaborate entangled character relationships, and condense the entire story into about 10,000 words. This, for me, has really helped strengthen the core of my story. It's helped build a back bone on which I can fit all my fancy filigree and crazy plot twists.

After this, after all the maiming of my convoluted story, I had a friend instruct me to do what her hubby made her do with her comic: reduce the story to one sentence. With HBL, this was difficult. I had so many things going on, even in short story form, that it took me until very recently to narrow it down. For me, HBL can be simplified to this:

Hard Bank Left is about overcoming and becoming.

It was a phrase that I'd heard since childhood which has had such a profound affect on my life. I didn't even realize that it had seeped its way into my story. Keeping that sentence in the forefront of my mind, I can rewrite the second draft to more clearly reflect the intended message of the novel. This way (hopefully) by draft three, I'll mostly have to worry about nitty gritty things, instead of having my editor point out that my story has no core. (Frankly, nitty gritty things, while tedious, are possibly the easiest things to correct when editing.) 

Cyberpunk and Why it's Not *Exactly* What I Write

Alright, so due to my previous post about steampunk, and the vid at the end featuring the future of glass, I've had some people ask questions about my world and why I classify it "steampunk" and not "cyberpunk" and, while I have to say that this is an excellent question, I also have to say that based on the highly adaptive definition of both terms, it's really up to me to define where my world fits.

Take for example, Final Fantasy XIII  - heck, the majority of the FF series! - most would consider them some kind of fantasypunk or mythpunk. This is where things start getting really confusing and annoying for me. People seem to overdefine... well... everything! My friend considers this ^^^ cyberpunk. I could agree, but then I'm not an expert on subcultures and therefore couldn't classify it one way or the other.

Most true punks like to simplify cyberpunk into one term (much like steampunk) "high tech, low class". We see this a lot in the crazy cyberpunk 80s movies that have recently been making comebacks: Bladerunner, Demolition Man, Total Recall, Tron, RoboCop and all the rest. There are also modern movies that are clearly cyberpunk like Surrogates  and Babylon A.D. But then you have the more modern movies that some people are pretty skiddish to call cyberpunk, but clearly fit into the definition. These movies of course include Minority Report, Paycheck, and Avatar.

Where do you draw the line between cyberpunk and straight up sci-fi? Where do you draw the line between cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic? In my case, where do you draw the line between steampunk and cyberpunk? For me these fall under the same category as questions like "where do you draw the line between sci-fi and fantasy?". The answer is that you can't clearly draw a line, which is why book stores put them all in the same jumbled up section under the label of "Sci-fi/Fantasy" and call it a day. In my opinion, it's up to the authors to decide, not the reader.

For me, I feel as though I am clearly in the realm of steampunk even though any hard core hyper-classifier would consider me to technically be an atompunk because of the era it takes place in. (You can find the list of sub-genres here.) I mean, the difference between atom punk and steampunk are simply explained with these pictures:

 steampunk

 atompunk

Then again, if you look very closely at my world, it could be clearly argued that I write a retro form of cyberpunk that isn't really classified as steampunk at all! In fact, with CeLeSTe being an AI that pretty much runs the ship along the same lines as Cortana from Halo, and with all the talk of advanced biology, reprograming brains, pockets of space-time, and glass interfaces, it begins to sound very cyberpunk. To all of these arguments I say "Shut your pie hole and go write your own story" and I wish to inform you that while atom punk is pretty darn cool, it wasn't the esthetic I was going for.

For those of you still confused by all my uses of the term "punk" and the argument in general, I have to say I'm right there with you. Here's the long and short of it. Cyberpunk has evolved over the years to include a number of different sub-genres including but not limited to!: Steampunk, Teslapunk, Dieselpunk, Decopunk, Atompunk, Biopunk, Nanopunk, Stonepunk, Nowpunk, Splatterpunk, Elfpunk, Mythpunk, and now including Rococopunk (yeah... look it up - it's pretty much along the lines of the latest version of The Three Musketeers). These are all technically subcategories of Cyberpunk, namely they are featuring some sort of "high _____" (whether it be biotech, magic, or steam) and definitely includes "low class".

Notice that all these sub-punks have one thing in common. Yeah, you guessed it. "Punk". These genres are for the rebels, the crazies, the teens, and the working class. This is the major thing that sets any of these genres apart from historical fiction or literary fiction or straight up sci-fi/fantasy (which is a point of great contention among fans and creators in these fields).

So, if you're looking for a straight up clean cut definition of what the difference between a steampunk and a cyberpunk is, you aren't going to really find one other than "they obviously take place in different time periods".

That said, I want to hear your takes on what sets these sub-punks apart or what you would classify The Shadow Cast Chronicles as in the comments below!


PS

You will also find in each of these sub-punks there is a heavy focus on fashion and gadgets. Seriously! Look them up! The first thing that pops up in each search is "____-punk Fashion".

Steampunk and other such things

 Steampunk: what you may not know

For just about anyone that is interested in anything Turn of the Century, you may or may not be familiar with the term "steam punk". For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, here's a little video that may answer some questions:

Okay, now that this one singular interpretation of the word "steampunk" I am here to clear up a few things! While each different author or creator in the steampunk genre have their own view on what the definition of "steampunk" is, we can all agree on one thing: retro-futurism. 

I know some of you are looking at this word and wondering what on Earth that could possibly mean. Let me clear it up for you - or elsewise confuse you just a little bit more. retro-futurism can mean either of two things (and often both at the same time). The first thing retro-futurism refers to is this "what would the future look like if it were designed by the great Turn of the Century thinkers?" Namely, the future as Edison, Tesla, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs saw it.  The second, and possibly more controversial view of retro-futurism, is a future built of reflections on the Turn of the Century. 

"Purists" who consider themselves "true steam punks" tend to lean more toward the first definition. These steampunks focus more on the "steam" than the "punk" part of their cultural name, and, in fact, will even go so far as to get on people's cases about whether dieselpunk isn't an entirely different sub-culture than steampunk, even though they exist in the same era, and a diesel engine works the exact same as a steam engine, just with a different fuel. These people are the ones that seem to simply relive the late 19th century with large fancy machinery. This is best reflected in the film Steamboy - which, if you've ever watched it, is pretty self-explanitory on this front.

The other group tend to put more emphasis on the word "punk" than the word "steam", not really caring about sub-sub-cultures. These are the overly creative ones that create an alternite reality where steam age devices still function and airships still roam the sky. The most prevelant in this group seem to be in the music field. Abney Park, for instance , even go so far as to create an entire back story for their band which explains their sudden transition into the steampunk culture.

These two groups, however, intermingle frequently and, in spite of many contentions on the subject of all things concerning steam and punks, they still manage to have a good time. 

For further explaination on the steampunk culture, or if you're interested in getting more involved in the steampunk genre, I'd recommend the following two websites:
 http://www.steampunk.com/what-is-steampunk/
 http://steampunk.wikia.com/wiki/Steampunk_Wiki

The World of the Shadow Cast

 Now, in spite of all this bickering between the purist steam punks and the jazzy fun-loving steam punks, there's a class that seems to pretty much get shunned by steampunks with a shrug of "well, I don't think that really counts." This narrow-minded view of steampunkery leaves a good number of stories and creative works that might be considered steampunk outside the realm of steampunkery. Take, for example, my world.

The Shadow Cast Chronicles, as you may know, takes place "less steam, more punk" retro-futuristic/alternate-reality society. For those of you still thinking that the stemapunk genre is what happens when goths discover the color brown, you might be a little surprised by the brilliant colors and flavorful characters in my stories. You may even think that my world would be better classified under the catagory "cyberpunk", but that's where I'd like to tell you that you're, sadly, mistaken. (Cyberpunk is a topic for another time, so don't even get me started.)  Allow me to share with you some fantastic little peaks at things you might find in my world:

 

 In conclusion, I suppose what I'm trying to say is: if you're looking for a simple definition of steampunk, you're looking in the wrong place.

What happened to Wednesday????

Last week it was Thursday, this week it's Wednesday. What is going on with my chronomiter? I mean, I know I did stuff yesterday, but the fact that it was Wednesday never crossed my mind... Actually, I though yesterday was Tuesday, so maybe it was Tuesday that I lost... Well, whatever it is, someone is stealing random days of the week and it's beginning to ware on me!

That said, I'm working on getting out next webisode out. Jarreth is being a pain in the butt... again. Seriously, you should have seen him a year ago. The kid had the attention span of an upside down sparrow surrounded by shiny things. At least he's mellowed out a bit. But getting back in the grove of writing him is taking a bit of doing. Wish me luck with reigning him in!

Update!

The Tailslide webisodes officially have a title: Target Lost. Follow Cadence (Hard Bank Left)'s brother Jarreth as he is recruited by a mysterious man and his alluring daughter. This secretive duo spirit Jarreth away on a fantastical adventure the likes of which he's always daydreamed. Unfortunately, he is unfamiliar with the cliche "be careful what you wish for" and is therefore completely taken by surprise when he discovers that this crew isn't always what they seem!

Update

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've written on my blog. Okay, more than a while. Let's just say that life has gotten ahead of me for the last little while. There are a lot of big things coming, but I can only tell you about a few.

For those of you that don't know, Pocketful of Pain is being published as a collection of novellas. Part one, Adrianna, is available for purchase through Amazon as well as online at Chapter One - a book store I'm working very closely with. ;)

As for what's NEW new, I've finally got my butt in gear and started the writing process with Tailslide. And, just because I'm evil and keniving and love spoiling my followers -  or torturing them, it really all depends on how you see it -  I'm letting you have a sneak peak at chapter one of Tailslide. Seeing as how I'm not done editing Hard Bank Left, you're just going to suffer and writhe with all your horrid questions! Muahahaha! xD

I'M STARTING SOMETHING NEW!

From now on, every Friday is going to be Fan Art Friday. So, for those of my friends and colleagues that want to do some fan art, feel free to email it to me. And I will select the best ones and post them here! I'll even throw in a few of my pieces for your enjoyment. I can't guarantee that mine will be very good - I'm still getting the hang of my tablet.

See you all on Wednesday!
-A.M.

The Epiphony

So, I was having lightning strike my brain sometime this morning whilst on the toilet. This seems to happen quite a lot, thoughts happening to me while I’m in the bathroom. I know, you can probably understand having good ideas in the shower, after all, some people sing in the shower, others talk to themselves. But, there is nothing funnier that washing your face, lathering up all the soap and all that good jazz and then all of a sudden SPLASH! The water strikes your face and a brilliant idea is born! My genius, however, seems only to work while I was take my morning dump.

As I said before, this seems to happen quite often. It’s like my brain starts spinning as soon as the pressure is on. So, while most people are playing bored games, reading the morning news on their phones, or just plain thinking, “why won’t this darn thing just vacate the premises” (but with certainly more colorful internal monologue) my crazy messed up mind was busy thinking, “how the heck to I write chapter 10 or Pocketful of Pain if I didn’t end in a cliffhanger.” This instant, of course, was when lightning struck my brain. And yes, it hurt.

This stroke of clever thinking was actually a culmination of a number of things, but the main bulk of it came from an internal monologue I was having on my Friday drive down to Provo where I was going to look for a book store location for my usual ego (who is decidedly not Scottish), Erika Bates. You’ll find that I do this a lot, have internal monologues. My husband says that this is most of the reason why I’m a good writer. See, while he’s busy thinking, ‘Oh that’s a pretty house,’ or ‘I hate the quality of this road,’ my mind is busy thinking, ‘Isn’t it odd that that beautiful house is right next to that old Mexican Fish Restaurant. I’d never want to live there because my days would be like: “She walked upstairs, dropping her book bag at the foot of her rusted out bed frame. The floorboards groaned in complaint as she plopped down on the ancient mattress. It had been another long school day, exceptionally long, the kind of long where one doesn’t want to come home to the smell of overcooked, over-spiced fish from the Mexican restaurant next door. In fact, what she really wanted was just a little piece, a little quiet, and distinctly not-the-smell-of-fish. Yes, that’s what she wanted.” And so on.’ I really could go on like that for some time and often do, but I won’t bore you, seeing as how you’re probably wondering - at this point - what all of this has to do with having an apostr-epiphony whilst sitting upon the crapper. Don’t worry, I’m getting to it.

ANYWHO! I was having one of these internal monologues whilst driving to Provo from our little crummy apartment in Orem on the first of February when a sudden feeling overwhelmed me. The day felt surprisingly new. My monologue went a little something like this: “Today feels strangely new. Like the kind of new one feels on the first day of spring, or the first day of school, or the first time you go on a road trip by yourself, or the first time you kiss a boy, or like on the day before your wedding.” Again, I could go on for some time and it really did, but that’s the basis of it.

It was this internal monologue that came to mind this morning during my little toilet episode. And, just as that last little bit of inconvenience was being wiped from my embarrassingly large, white behind, this monologue went a little something like this: “It all feels new, like the first day of spring, like the day before your wedding, or the day I was sent off on a train to Paris to train with the…………..

“Wait a minute… I’ve never been on a train to Paris… That wasn’t my monologue. WHAT THE HECK IS ADRIANNA DOING IN MY HEAD??!”

It was then that the largest, and perhaps the most frustrating thing for most of my readers (not to name names but, Drea Hatch), struck me like that brilliant bolt of lightning.

It took me till this evening when I was in the car with my husband giving him a lecture not unlike this rant I’m currently on, side comments and everything. Actually, it was probably more irritating for him to listen to than it is for you to read simply based on the fact that when my monologue is spoken aloud it is often auto-corrected with incorrect dates, improper words and, more often than not, nonexistent words I made up just for the heck of it. Given this, one must infer that my husband is one of the most patient men in the world and that he will probably be better suited to teaching my little boy about patience than I will ever be… seeing as how the majority of the time when I’m rambling like a mad woman making up nonsense words and auto-correcting my incorrect dates like some sort of emotionally troubled computer program, I prefer not to be interrupted. This little fact, me not liking to be interrupted, is all the more infuriating when one realizes just how ADD my husband is and just how often he interrupts me to point out the most unusual things that usually get me going on an entirely different rant. It’s usually several minutes later (hours to a man with ADD) that I realize I’m off topic and must come back to the original rant at which time my husband has completely forgotten exactly what it is I was talking about in the first place. Do you see my predicament?

I was on one of these rants this afternoon, going off on exactly everything I’ve just elaborated on in a great deal more detail and with a worse vocabulary when the thought occurred to me again, this time in the form of a well-placed insight from my husband. The thought was this: “Well, if you ended the chapter like it was final, why don’t you just start the next chapter like it’s the next book?”

And so! I am left with one singularly logical thing. The Pocketful of Pain series will be published in 6 novelas, reading much like a mini-series plays out on TV. So, as soon as I finish editing the last 9 chapters of Pocketful of Pain, it will be available for print and purchase.

Enjoy!

Sorry Guys

It's been a busy, crazy week - what with adjusting to my hubby working from home now... and stealing the compy... so I can't write! *sigh* Wish I had the PoP up. I wish I could have written it. It's a really good one and I hate ripping you off. I'll see what I can do about getting 10 and 11 up this week!

New Year - New Draft

Alright. So, yes, I've deleted all (and I do mean ALL) my HBL content. And guess what, there's nothing you can do about it!!! XD muahahaha. No, seriously, it's not coming back. I have two months (ish) before this book is publish ready. So here come the edits!

I will put the first 5 chapters up for viewing as they get edited, but that's it, that's all! That and it's not going here. That's right, I'm getting a website put up sometime this month (hopefully).

Aaand on that note I'm getting my Kickstarter going again. Sorry for having to cancel it last time. I was getting flack and no support. I even got one sorry, no-account, crap hole, plonker saying that the project was a complete waist of time and he wouldn't even give it the light of day. Stupid bloody git. 

OKAY! now that I'm done ranting I can move on to the really exciting news! (as if all this wasn't exciting enough) From her on out, every Tuesday night there will be a new chapter of Pocketful of Pain - that's right, that means tonight. I've had many requests concerning that book, so I'm making it my next project! It'll be so much easier now that my mind has settled and I've gotten a lot of random completely unrelated stories off my chest. *sigh* I'll have to put them as bonus content on my website once it's up for your fun and enjoyment.

But yes. Pocketful of Pain. Tuesday nights. Enjoyment.

Aaaaaand one more thing. I've been working on the cover for my book. Let's see if you notice the difference.

Alrighty then!

So, I haven't gotten more than a page into chapter 7 of Pocketful of Pain. Rest assured it should be done by tomorrow evening, but at the moment it's not exactly publish worthy. And so, I have decided to publish chapter 14 a few hours early in compensation. Anyway, you'll love chapter 7, thus far it's coming along nicely. You're just going to have to wait one more day. muahahahaha!

-Thea

Update!

Well, recently, I've been finding that it's getting easier and easier to write these chapters. It's like the words just flow out. And if I though the characters were writing themselves before, then I didn't know what I was saying, because at the moment Krys is an emotional wreck and she won't tell me - that's right, me... the writer! - why.

Mind you, I also feel like the last few chapters - though I have all the events there - have been lacking somewhat. So, comments, questions, concerns, etc, would be much appreciated. I just feel like Krys and JelDhen have both been a little vague since the whole 'Krys catching on fire' thing. Ideas on how to improve would be nice. Mind you, all of a sudden, in chapter 10, Krys and JelDhen are being a lot less cryptic. But still, this is a first draft and there are many, many, MANY kinks to be worked out.

Also, I have finally reached chapter 10! Woohoo! However, this also means that I shall be taking a break from posting my chapters until I can get a buffer going. I know, sad daze, but hey! There are still 10 chapters to read for those of you who haven't read yet. And, you can rest assured that I will have more chapters up soon. I mean, I already have the beginnings of the next 6 chapters written. Now! Just to finish them!

Chapter 10 will be up on Saturday at or before 12:30 am! Looking forward to the feedback!

-Thea