December 25, 2018

Writing Q & A #2


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Have another Q & A!

Q: Do you title your chapters, or just have “1″, “2″, “3″ etc.?
A: I almost always title my chapters. I like chapter titles because they can sort of set the theme or mood. Styx's titles often involved puns and word play, while Love & Chaos has each section titled to refer to which of the three duels to the death it features. In my alternate-history/fantasy/mystery WIP (AHFM), not only will each chapter have a title, I think I will also include a relevant, real-world quote under each, similar to what Cornelia Funke did in Inkheart. The novella-in-verse, however, will only be labeled "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", and so for; each chapter, however, will have a slightly different version of the cover picture.

December 14, 2018

Writing Q & A #1


I have just recently moved back to Flagstaff, started working again at the Flagstaff City - Coconino County Public Library, applied for (and will apply) for several jobs, and turned in my last ever essay in my entire life! Needless to say, that's why this post is late!

Anyway, this post is actually one of three "ask" posts I created on Tumblr, but I thought it would be fun to share the answers here. At some point in the future, likely during another busy week, I will get around to the next two Q & A "asks", but for now, enjoy!

December 1, 2018

The Perils of Point of View


In the early stages of writing, there can be a lot of road blocks that prevent writers from getting into their stories. Most people seem to struggle with something like not having a plot figured out, or not having a good opening scene, but for me, the biggest struggle when beginning a new project is pinning down a point of view, or POV. While I advise the aforementioned writers to just wing it or to write later scenes, respectively, there isn’t really a work around for POV. You can’t write a text-based story without a POV.

November 14, 2018

Thoughts on Novels-in-Verse


I'm writing a novel(la)-in-verse, but when I tell people that, many of them wonder what I'm talking about. This isn't too surprising, given that the vast majority of novels-in-verse are written only for children and teens, and are a fairly new phenomenon, but I think they might be a little more common that most people believe.

October 31, 2018

Nano(inVerse)WriMo

It's that time again! Time for NaNoWriMo, when (seemingly) every other writer in existence vows to write 50,000 words of a new novel in one month, but when I say, "You ain't the boss o' me!" and do my own challenge that's way easier and won't completely destroy my desire to create. Forget "NaNoRebel"; I'm a veritable NaNoNe'er-Do-Well!

October 17, 2018

Thoughts on Horror



“Horror” is a difficult genre to pin down, because there are so many things that horrify us. Gore, death, the unknown, stepping on a snail barefoot (10/10 would not recommend). For the longest time, I didn’t think I liked horror until I started reading r/NoSleep, a subreddit wherein people tell fictional scary stories, but everyone—author and readers—pretend they're real, like a strange forum for people who have had terrifying and otherworldly experiences that you might accidentally run across if you were researching the supernatural (there is, by the way, a different subreddit for nonfiction accounts of supernatural encounters). I love the stories on r/NoSleep, and after thinking about it, realized that I also really like Asian horror like Seeds of Anxiety, The Eye, and some episodes of xxxHolic. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of Ringu or The Grudge. I can’t stand most American horror movies, be they monster movies, zombie flicks, or slasher films, but I like do A Quiet Place and most of Shyamalan's work. I theorize that, for me, it’s comes down to the type of horror in question. Thus, I thought I would examine these types and break the horror genre into several subcategories, based on how the horror is achieved.

October 2, 2018

Life Update: Interning Etc.

I'm swamped with schoolwork right now, so rather than write a long blog post, I thought I would do a mini life update with pictures.

September 22, 2018

Writing is an Art Form. Treat It Like One.


Human beings are fascinatingly creative creatures, coming up with a number of different art forms, from theater to dance to music to sculpture and two-dimensional art. Let’s focus on that last category for a moment: art on a flat surface. Here, we find all sorts of mediums, genres, and subject. By medium, I mean drawing (which can be made by pen and ink, oil pastels, or pencils), painting (oil, tempera, acrylic, and even spray paint), collage, photographs, and so forth; if we wanted to go further with medium, we might even include what the art is done on—paper, canvas, or even the walls of a building. By genre, I mean the loose and nebulous ways we categorize a “type” of art as: abstract, impressionistic, purely decorative, murals, comics, and so forth. And as for subject, the sky is the limit, from landscapes, still life, and portraits to superheroes (a favorite subject of comic book art), dreamscapes (which many murals depict), and plants (which decorate any number of household items). Two-dimensional art certainly is amazing in its variety, and we all admit it.

That is why, if you were to start critiquing a caricature artist’s drawings for their unrealistic anatomy, you’d sound a bit foolish. If you insisted that a photographer use certain brush strokes in his art, he’d likely wonder if maybe those paint fumes hadn’t gone to your head. If you complained that a landscape painting wasn’t telling an exciting enough story, or that a comic book panel wouldn’t look cute as wallpaper, or that a mural in a children’s library wasn’t provocative enough, you’re likely to get some strange looks (and rightly so). Basically, if you give advice or a critique for one sort of two-dimensional art and act as if it applies to all two-dimensional art, you’re going to sound like a raving lunatic at best and an arrogant snob at worst.

And it’s the same thing with writing advice!

September 4, 2018

Outlining for the Pantser, Plantser, and Panzer

Writerly types will often ask, "Are you a planner or a pantser?" Planners outline and plot out their stories before writing, with a clear end goal. Pantsers, on the other hand, fly by the seat of their pants (hence the name) and write without a plan. Some people consider themselves "plantsers", planning some things while also doing whatever they feel like. Full confession: I first heard "pantser" as "panzer", like the tank, and thought, "Heck yeah! I ride over the writing process and destroy everything in my path! I'm a panzer". I'm not sure that still isn't an accurate description.

August 21, 2018

Where Do We Go From Here?


The Styx Trilogy has finally come to a close, and with it, the color-coding of this website. It was green for Miscast Spells, blue for Outcast Shadows, and purple for Recast Light. Now we enter a nebulous new era of works-in-progress (or WIPs, as they are colloquially known), outlining, drafting, and other writing adventures. Thus, I have adopted a more monochromatic, nuetral color scheme (though the design still nods to Styx, with the brocade and card suits).

That being said, where do we go from here?

August 17, 2018

Recast Light Release!


Recast Light is now available in print at Barnes and Noble and Amazon!




August 3, 2018

Ebook Release!


Recast Light is now available as an ebook at Barnes and Noble and Amazon! Note that the cover is the same as the print version; I will due this for the other two books when IngramSpark has a sale on revisions.

As for the paperback... well, that's faced setback after setback due to a number of technical difficulties (long story short: when I converted the Word document into a PDF, it decided to changed all my page numbers... because that's a thing that can apparently happen... and I didn't notice until the physical proof was shipped to me), so that one is still forthcoming. I will let you all know as soon as it's available.

July 24, 2018

Why “Just Sit Down and Write” Doesn’t Always Work


If you’ve done any prowling around internet circles, you’ve likely heard the bit of writing advice which boils down to (however it is actually phrased) “Just sit down and write”, as if, through sheer willpower, any and all obstacles keeping one’s WIP from being completed can be surmounted by placing fingers to keys and writing. To this advice, I reply in the words of Truman Capote: “That’s not writing, it’s typing”. To be fair, he said this to mock writers like Jack Kerouac and others who, for whatever reason, were not up to his snuff, but I think if we ignore this intention (death of the author, and all that), it’s actually pretty accurate.

July 12, 2018

The Styx Trilogy Book Giveaway!


From today until July 31st, you can enter for a chance to
win the entire Styx Trilogy. Enter on Tumblr or Twitter.

June 27, 2018

Recast Light Sneak Peek


Eustis Wilfrock once said, “Just because things don’t turn out the way you expect doesn’t make it a failure.” Well, things have not been going as I expected this time last year. I fully intended, once upon a time, to have Recast Light out in time for preorders, which obviously didn’t happen, and now it’s looking like it won’t be available by June 30th either. I have only a chapter and a half left to edit, but those chapters are the trickiest. Then comes formatting, which can either be very easy or drenched in technological problems which should not be possible (have I told the story about how Word added an invisible page to my Outcast Shadows document, thus swapping the following even and odd page numbers to the wrong side? Well it did…). Once formatted, I have to send the final cover template to my sister/illustrator (this depends on the final page count for the spine width), then I’ll upload it and order a sample copy to make sure the colors and formatting all look like they’re supposed to, and only then will I okay it for purchase. Thus, Recast Light will be out in July, hopefully sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, here is a sneak peek of things to come. The prologue and first chapter are much too spoilery for people who haven’t read Outcast Shadows, so I took a part of Chapter 3: Black and White and Dead All Over instead. Enjoy!

June 14, 2018

Recast Light Cover Reveal!

At long last, we have a cover, featuring the lovely Alcea, looking like she'll kill you if you step out of line:



And that's all for now. I am busily editing (Two weeks before the release? Don't do this at home, kids!), getting the plot all bright and shiny. Stay tuned!