Exciting News!

Its been nearly two weeks since my last update, but I have some really exciting news!

Are you leaning close? Like really close? Good.

I have a short story that will be coming out on Wednesday!

It won't be my novel, unfortunately (that is currently slated for a December release), but a short story, written in a darker and more urban setting than I normally visit in my writing. Here are the cover and blurb. It will be available on Amazon, Kobo, Nook and iBooks. The links are down below!

I hope you all enjoy it!

It’s a burden knowing that magic exists…

For as long as she can remember, Phedre has seen a much different world than the rest of us. Sprites and spirits dance around and through us and everybody is surrounded by brightly coloured auras. Despite that touch of magic, she lived a normal life. But when her new step-father breaks the peace in their home, Phedre runs without a plan. Offered an escape that she never expected, she will learn that no gift is without its price and one harsh truth; in this world, some people are burdened with glorious purpose… and others are simply bugs caught in the webs of fate.

Kindle
Kobo 

Man, has it been busy!

     Well, it has been a super busy couple of days since my last update. I have been trying to do at least one October picture each day this year, but I am behind by a couple of days now, four to be exact. On the other hand, most of the pictures are actually working out reasonably well, I think, and I'm definitely getting better at using the medium. I did take some time off today to work with my Copic markers though. I figure they still count since I'm inking the picture first and then using the marker ink to colour it. Though, honestly, I'm not one of those people who is a stickler for the rules here. If you're doing #Inktober and you're doing it digitally, or you're just working on hatching and some of them are in pencil or something, hey, you're drawing, and therefore you're doing it right. Are any of you out there doing it? Let me know.

     I also have two bits of very good news for all of you. The first is that I should have an update for when I'll be releasing a short story digitally! Yes, you heard that right, I will be publishing something very soon, I just want to get it back from my editor and read it over before I reveal the official date of publishing. I am keeping my fingers crossed for October 31st, but either way, keep an eye out for it.

     The other bit of good news is that I have finally finished the first edit of my second novel in the Kitsune-Ken series. I am going over the document once more for punctuation and grammar and then the novel will be sent to my editor as well. It's my hope that I can work on edits for it starting in December/January, and then I can have a release date for it reasonably soon after the first one drops. The third book (as you know if you've been following) was written last November for Nanowrimo and I'm hoping to start looking it over for editing soon too. This November, I will begin work on book four in the series. I will definitely keep all of you updated though. I am starting up a mailing list that I'll use to send out updates. I haven't had a chance to actually set it up yet, but if any of you want to be sure you're on it, please dm me on FB or something with your name and your email address and I'll add you in. I promise I will only be using it to update you with publishing information.

     Anyways, I'm going to jump off here and open my document to do some editing before I head to sleep for the night.

Moving Fast!

     It has been an insanely busy week. Inktober has kept me moving. Still, I've managed to actually keep up so far. It really helps that I drew the first five days in advance. I've since drawn another 2 days worth and will be trying to do another two or three today. Having the drawings in advance really helps me to spend the day, mostly considering colour and not worrying horribly about composition. Here's an example of my favourite three so far.

     One nice thing about having my pictures sketched in advance as well is that it gives me a bit more time to spend my time working on my book. I came down with a cold during the week which means I did less than I wanted to, but that doesn't mean I accomplished nothing. I sent in a short story and my novel to my editor and am sending away a request for a cover (so keep an eye out later this month for a cover reveal). in the next day or so. I have 32 chapters of my novel is done and probably another 12k to 15k left before its completely done. Part of my issue is that I found a full chapter I needed to rewrite, but I needed to move it entirely to fix it, which meant that I've had to rewrite it twice now. I'm pleased to say that it is finally working and I'm really hoping to have the book done by the end of next week and hopefully sent in to my editor as soon as she has time. Then I'll be spending the rest of October, getting ready to sell my artwork and preparing for Nanowrimo.

     This is getting a bit longer than I was hoping though, so I'm going to call it here. Are you going to be doing Nanowrimo this year? And are you taking part in Inktober? How are you doing with it?

Start of Inktober & an Update

     Sorry that I've been gone so long guys. With my head, taking so long to heal, I pretty much dropped the ball on everything this year. Or if not everything, then a lot. I stopped posting online at all for quite a while and slept and healed and worked whenever my head allowed me to. I took the time I needed and forced myself to heal. All of which means that I'm back at it... and that I've had a lot of life changes to go with it.

     First of all, I am no longer working at my day job. They laid me off when they decided that my position was no longer required at the company. And while that is a very life-changing change, it wasn't as out of left field as you might expect. They've been telling us at our company for years that certain positions would be disappearing and they told me nearly a year ago that my position would be one of the ones that are disappearing. That said, its a completely different thing being told "your position will be going away soon" and actually not having to go to work anymore. After I found out, I took some time off from writing to adult, figure out where I was going and what I was doing. My plan is currently to take a few months off and actually start making a business of all the creative art stuff I do. The point of this is to see if I can work from home without a day job effectively and get things done. 

     Which leads to my second interesting update. I will be publishing very soon, this month or the next. It will be a single short story, out hopefully before the end of October, but it may end up being a little bit later than that (my editor just bought a house and isn't taking commissions for the next couple of weeks). I am going to be looking into covers for it and I will let you know as soon as I have an update for the date. My first novel will be coming out, hopefully before mid-December. I am nearly done with my first pass on the second novel in the series and will hopefully be under my editor's eye sometime in November-December. I have also written a dieselpunk novella that will be coming out sometime in the new year after I've had a chance to edit it. The important thing to remember in all of this is that I will be publishing soon. Keep an eye here, and I will let you know when I am finally releasing everything! If you'd like a more direct way to get noticed, please send me an email at inkedfoxpress@gmail.com saying so and include the email address you'd like to be notified at. I promise I'll only be using the email to send out updates when I'm actually publishing something. 

     And finally the start of my title... #Inktober is finally here! For those that don't remember, I kinda took part of #Inktober last year. The idea is to try to use only ink to make works of art for the entire month of October. Last year, I didn't manage to get it finished every day, but I did manage to get 18 or so drawings up, most of which were done with Copic markers. While Copics are still my favourite medium, I have also branched out to watercolour and most recently India Ink. Here is my first offering this year. 

     I think that's it since this update is already way longer than I wanted. If you think I've missed on mentioning something, please let me know in the comments below and maybe I can do a full post on some of them in the next month or so. 

And Yet, I Persist

          Its been a few days so I figured it was time for another blog post. I actually do have some news in this one. Mostly that I am healing and the end is finally starting to come in site.

          I am still having headaches if I try to work a full day or work up at my old speed, and that is not for my writing/editing of my novel, just my normal work. I'm starting to find that if I'm not taking proper care of myself (plenty of sleep, plenty of water, food that isn't just junk) then the headaches can become omnipresent. On the other hand, most of the times, that omnipresent doesn't hurt badly, its just a constant, an almost unnoticable drag on anything I try to do, but enough, and one that will solidly get worse and worse until, I've rested myself enough. If I stress too hard over something, same thing. For my physical wounds, most of the under-skin bruising is finallly gone and I have noticed that if my face gets cold enough (standing outside in temperatures lower than -10C or blustering winds) makes my face hurt along certain places. I assume those are the places where I fractured my skull, though I have no proof of that, since they didn't show me the x-rays and I wasn't really up to asking at the time.

          I have been able to write creatively, but anything more than 10 or 15 minutes and I start feeling it. Despite that, I am back to editing. I have finished nearly two chapters in the last week (slow going, but as I said, creative writing/editing still hurts) and have started writing chapter four, which is one of the ones that needs to be done from the ground up. I also figured out some character motivation and a plot issues that I knew were wrong, but couldn't figure out why. I should be sending my first novel in soon for its final edit and some cover work, so everything is getting better on that front as well.

          Still, while I'm happy to be writing, a lot of my focus is still on my art, since in general, art doesn't hurt my brain at all. I'll have a few new pictures to show off soon and hopefully I'll have some good news on that front later.

          I think that is where I'm going to leave it today. A nice update, to keep you informed and to keep my mind working. What have you been up to and what personal victories have you acheived? Let me know in the comments below.

Little Update

And look, another blog post! I'm still healing, but I am getting better, I was able to work my day job every day this past week. Though I had a headache two or three days, they were light and easily controlled by a little bit of Tylenol. I am still having trouble editing, but I did work through a story snag that was giving me grief. I also haven't been drawing a lot; catching the flu will do that to you.

And I think that is where I'll end this today. A little more everyday is my current goal though, expect me to start posting more regular updates and more interesting content in the upcoming weeks and months.

Back

     Or at least I should be now.

     In November, I finished the rough draft of book three of my Kitsune-Ken series and I finished editing the first book. That first book is officially ready to go to my editor and after that, I can work specifically on publishing it. I also started editing book two of that series. I've gone through it and worked out new chapters I need to write as well as general story edits and what order they go in. Unfortunately, I had to put the editing on hold. 

     In January, I ended up injuring myself pretty badly when I took a nasty fall down an escalator. I'm healing, but as I've found out, concussions heal slowly... Hopefully, I'll be back to editing soon, but please, be patient with me in the meantime. 

     Since I have been unable to write lately, I have been working on a lot of art. I may eventually open up an Etsy store for my designs, but that will be later if I decide to go ahead with it.

This, for example, was an adorable fox I coloured just using two Copic markers

     If you want to see what I've been working on, I now have an Instagram account as well as my Facebook page. Follow me at @foxy_writer and let me know what you've been up to in the meantime.