Its Never Easy Getting Back in the Saddle

Well, this is coming a bit late... December is always an incredibly tough time for getting writing done. After spending a month writing 50k, I always need a few days off. This year, fortunately, it wasn't really a recovery I needed, but a chance to rejuvenate my flagging creativity. Its one of the side effects of falling into just one creative bubble for me; when I get out if straight recovery of abused muscles isn't needed, some mental recovery is. So, since Nano, I've been obsessively playing around with my tablet, drawing some really gorgeous dahlias. I've also got a quick rough picture done of an ink painting I want to do.

Now onto some awesome news! I just found out that my novel, Hunter's Gambit, has been added to at least one online bookstore in Sweden. While I realize that this is something that I should have realized would happen, seeing it actually do so is really exciting. It's a small thing, but it has absolutely made my day. Its another little way that helps me feel like I've made it. That added to the new review that I have on Goodreads and I feel like I could fly. I've also received one additional star rating, though no physical review for that one.

What does this mean? Well, Goodreads has my book sitting at a very respectable 4.25 stars with three reviews. I am secretly hoping for even more reviews for Christmas.

Speaking of which, how many of you have e-readers or are asking for them for Christmas? What books are on your gift lists this year? And will any of you be giving books (mine or others) to your family this season? Let me know in the comments!

Updates!

This week I have a few small announcements to make, so you're getting a half post, rather than a full one.

The first bit of awesome news is that I am only 100 pages away from having the sequel to Hunter's Gambit, tentatively titled Lord's Curse edited, and while this week has been a setback to editing (darn summer colds), I should have no problem finishing this draft before the end of Camp Nanowrimo in July. From there, I'll need to find an editor and take it through another edit. Unless something odd happens, I am still expecting to have that novel coming out late this year.

The next bit of awesome is that I have another signing set up! On July 6th, I will be at Owl's Nest Books (815A 49th Ave SW, Calgary, AB) from 11am to 2pm! I am super excited to have another signing. The table may even be bigger this time, which will be super exciting. I will let all of you know how that one goes, and of course, I'll have pictures!

For my third update, I am plugging a new book that I finished reading a couple of weeks ago and loved. The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Jones is a book about a woman trying to discover her father's secrets and another woman who is that secret. Based on the true stories of Japanese brides left in Japan after the war, this story left me in tears. The writing is beautiful, the story is compelling and it highlights a little known time in history, one that both countries would prefer to forget. If you haven't already picked this one up, it would make a great addition to your summer/winter reading list.

My last fun bit of news is that I have been doing sketches nearly every day for the last little while. If you'd like to join me, tag me on Instagram and post your own sketches or just enjoy other's people art. If you don't follow there, here are my latest pictures!

These are some pre-sketches where I planned out what I wanted to do for a full artwork for the video game Journey. I haven't gotten started on it yet, but I think it will look gorgeous when its done.

Some days, I get stuck on an image. In this case, the demonic, dead eyes of an Oddish from Gen 1 pokemon was my inspiration.

This fairy turned out wonderfully, except for her hands. She was supposed to be just leaning on a table on her wrists. something about it just didn't work. I may have to revisit the character one day. 

Kitten! Nothing else needs to be said.

This one turned out surprisingly well. The only thing that could have gone better is the outlining. I kind of preferred the sketchy look it had before I outlined it.

A few errors but I like the way she turned out. I may have o revisit the character in a less stiff position later. Also, I can't decide if she's a nobleman's daughter, or simply the daughter of a commoner with a rich suitor. What do you think?

Jessica Jones. Her neck is way too long, her leg is way too thin, and the liner pen didn't work with the Copics and reactivated in multiple places... despite that, I kind of like it. 

I saw a hoodie dress and wanted to draw a character in a similar outfit. I quite like the way it turned out.

I'll was drawing with one of my Youtubers. The prompts were aardvark, lemur, pink, grey and unicorn. Mine turned out way more lemur than aardvark, but I like it. I'm hoping to paint it later. If I do, I'll update it here. 

Year-End Review

          Hello out there! This is your friendly Canadian author. Its been one hell of a harrowing year, so while I don't normally do one, I think I'll use this platform to finally do a year-in-review post. I must admit, I usually have this idea to do one and then forget and never end up posting one. That's because while I love posting these, I am always exhausted after Nanowrimo and I never seem to pick it back up before mid-January. This year, since I wasn't working a full-time job, I had the time and energy to do blog posts and keep working all through December. Which was good because it was amazingly busy. I'll get back to that later though. 

          I'll start in January. I was working away at book 2 in my novel series and had actually begun editing it before I got hurt. For those of you who didn't know, or forgot, I ended up falling head first down an escalator. I was seriously hurt, and for the next four to six months, I pushed myself way too hard. I've never been a good sick patient and always try to get back too soon. I honestly probably could have been up and about and a hell of a lot healthier had I just settled back and healed, but instead, I kept forcing myself ever upward. And I can't say that I'm back to 100% yet. I am healed enough for government work, of course. I do notice that I get headaches when the weather is changing though and that I tend to get depressed more often than I'd like to admit. Fortunately, neither is debilitating, even if I do tend to take it easier than normal when something is acting up. 

          Despite that setback, I started pouring my heart into my art again. I say despite, but it was really closer to because. My head hurt and I couldn't read or look at screens for very long, which was driving me mad while I healed. For two or three months I couldn't write at all, just because trying to write down my thoughts actually hurt and would cause headaches. Fortunately, drawing was easier, perhaps because all I was trying to do was make something pretty. In February, I entered a picture I'd coloured into Rhonda Parrish's cover contest. She had a lot of art she'd had commissioned for her anthologies but wanted one of the picture's coloured for the cover. I was honoured when she chose mine for the front cover of the anthology. So, I had my first very official publishing credit to my name early in the year for cover colouring. 

          September was a time of loss. My husband and I lost our cat, Kuro, to liver problems and within a week of that, I lost my long-time job with the Cooperators. I had worked there for over ten years, but my position was phased out. Honestly, I welcomed the chance to spend a few months dedicating my life to my writing. And while I am looking for a new job already, I haven't found one yet. 

          In October, at the very last moment possible, I published my short story, Fated. Unsurprisingly, it didn't make waves or even many ripples (though I did receive my first review on it just a few days ago and it was a five-star review. Please, if you want to give me the gift that keeps on giving, more reviews are the way to go), but I was honoured to be able to contribute it to Rhonda Parrish's Giftmas project. They did incredibly this year, surpassing their goal of $750 to be donated to the Edmonton Food Bank. In the end, $1,127 was raised, which will really help the food bank get food to the needy this holiday season. 

          Finally, I sent in my first novel to my editor and received it back in early December. Since then, I have been working hard to work on all of the edits and just a few hours ago, I managed to finish them. No, you didn't hear that wrong. The novel is done and as edited as its going to be. I've got a shiny new title and I'll be ordering a cover for it tomorrow, though, with the holidays ongoing, I assume it will be a few days before I have a cover to share with all of you. However, I am going to be working hard behind the scenes to get this novel out to you guys as soon as possible. I will have pre-orders going out as soon as I have an idea of how much the physical novel will end up costing, so if you're interested in getting a signed copy, please subscribe to my page here or keep up with my Facebook page, since I'll be putting the news up there as well. 

        What did you end up doing for New Years? Did you have any successes that you want to share? Please, tell me about them in the comments below!

Business Planning

The worst thing about September is that the cool weather starts coming in and when you're already stressed, you catch bugs every week or so. Last week, I caught a minor one that didn't do much more than kill my concentration. This week, I caught something that has taken me out for two days.

Thus, I'm a bit behind on my numbers. To get back on track, I'm updating my business plan for the next four days.

I have mentioned my business plan, yes? Basically, it's just me writing down what my goals are for the year. I write them in loose strokes, and the closer I get, the more I refine them. This month, my goal is 15,000 words, 1 short story, 8 blog posts and quite a lot of editing, 4 short stories and my novel.

As I mentioned I'm a bit behind on my writing, 2,301 words worth, as of this morning. I have finished my short story of the month, a little vignette for my husband called Nala's Tale, a story about one of his characters slaves in our Pathfinder (evil) game. So, I have just over 4k to do, in four days. Even sick, I can try to do 1,000 a day. The whole reason for leaving my current daily word count at 500 is so that if I fall a bit behind, I can still play catch up, after all.

On the blogging front, I have only completed five blog posts, if you count this one, which is a bit short of the eight I wanted. On the other hand, I should get one more this month and that will bring it up to six. Still lower than I'd like, so I'll have to try harder for next month.

The last thing on my business plan is editing. Normally, I try to separate out editing months and writing months, but I decided to put the two together this month and see how it worked out. The first thing on my list was editing my novel. I'm not done it, but since only one person has gotten back to me with comments so far, I'm taking that off my list and will move it into October. The other editing I wanted to get done was four short stories, I have looked over 2 of them and am halfway through editing one. Both of the other ones I looked at need a nearly complete rewrite, which may become a task for next month, but I should be able to finish the one story I'm halfway done before the end of the month.

So, what have I learned? Well, mostly that I need to either up my word count, or lower my editing amount, while I figure out how to increase my speed. Part of that speed will come as I do it more often. Part of that will be higher when my tendinitis isn't acting up and I don't have any sick days. However, I prefer to leave room in my plan for life to butt its nose in and mess everything up. It saves me from some of the guilt of not meeting goals since at least some of it(like my novel not being edited) was really beyond my control.

Do you have monthly goals? How do you keep track of them?

When do what you must is all you can do...

          I'm sorry I missed my Sunday post... Another bout of flu is going around the city and this one is kicking my ass. I got everything; cough, trouble breathing, sore throat, fatigue, excessively runny nose, lag(ie-my head is stuffed with cotton). I will say that from Friday till Tuesday I did not get a full nights sleep; waking up multiple times each night to blow your nose or change position because you can't breath is a bitch.

          Anyway, it means that I've only gotten an extra 1000 words or so finished, bringing my total up to 57,221 words. I did try to write... the results were laughable enough that I just decided to concentrate on getting better. My doctor has said that I can try going back to work tomorrow, so hopefully tomorrow or Friday I'll be able to get started again. 

          I did realize I had a few extra scenes to write so the sick time hasn't been a total waste. And three months to write a book while working full time is entirely reasonable, so I'm still very proud of myself. 

          One thing sick time as been good for is reading. I've now read 37 books this year with another two on the go and a few books in my to-be read pile. In particular, I've found an urban fantasy series that I have to share with you. It's called the Fated Blades series by Steve Bein. 

          The first novel, Daughter of the Sword, is about a female detective in Tokyo working in the narcotics department. Her new boss, a misogynist, assigns her to a case from another department when they ask for help; an attempted theft. The sword in question is undoubtedly worth quite a bit of money, but its most important quality is that the sword has become imbued with kami(spirit). When she finds a link between the attempted theft and her current case(a massive shipment of cocaine being brought into Tokyo by an unknown dealer), its up to her to solve both cases before time runs out.

          If you're at all interested in Japanese culture, history or just want to read an urban fantasy that isn't your typical werewolves/vampire fare this is it. A solid four star read. Here are some links to pick it up on Kindle or Kobo, if you're interested. (Before you ask, nope, I'm not getting any money from this, I just really enjoyed the book. I mean, just look at that cover!)

What I've Been Up To (Part Three)

          This is the one where I talk about what I've been reading! Yeah, I know, this is the part that tends to leave people feeling like they do nothing with their lives, but the honest truth is that I love reading and thus, I tend to read a lot. I joined Goodread's 2016 Reading Challenge this year and set myself a goal of a 100 books for the year. It's a little less precise than saying 2 books a week, on average, since I know that sometimes I'm insane for reading and sometimes I don't even want to consider picking up a book.

          However, oddly enough, the Goodreads challenge counts the Manga I read, which gives me a bit of a boost, since normally I don't count them towards my books read each year (though I count the graphic novels, which could simply mean I was making life much more complicated than I had to) 

          Anyway, the picture below is of some of the books I've read thus far according to Goodreads. For a more complete list, check out the right side of the panel where there should be an infograph of my novels read so far this year. It's missing my manga, but if you're interested I have a shelf under my account titled "Graphic Novels read in 2016" that you can check out.

          As you can see, I've read a few different genres here. Steampunk, paranormal romance, science fiction, light novels (science fiction), humour and fantasy. I usually stick much closer to the realm of paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but for the beginning of the year, its a good start.

          The Martian is the book here that I would most recommend. 5 stars, must read, all of that, even if science fiction isn't usually your thing. I would totally suggest listening to it; the audio book is fantastically done.

          The Colour of Magic is a hilarious book, a fantastical comedy of epic proportions. Despite it being so awesome, I find these sorts of reads a bit too out there for me, so I only read one or two every year like this. Not in my usual taste but Pratchett was one of the best! I would totally suggest it, if comedy is your thing.

          Tart Magica is a manga based of of Puella Magi Madoka Magicka that plays around with the idea that Joanne of Arc was a magical girl. While the idea is interesting, this first volume misses the tone of the anime that I've come to adore so much. I probably won't be reading any more of it. The characterization is slim and the main character feels too stupid to be believed.

          Mystic is a fun fantasy coming of age novel about a young girl, who has the potential to learn magic. When she is offered a chance to become an apprentice rather than the noble girl in her village she is told she will have no home to return to if she leaves. Despite this threat, she leaves to begin her training hoping to beat out the other applicants to the position. This was well-written, a quick read, and fun to boot. Not the most in-depth book I've seen, but the promise was fulfilled but it is definitely worth a spot on your reading list if you like coming of age fantasy novels.

          Storm Born is an erotic paranormal romance. Despite being very pleased with the authors Succubus series, the writing of this book felt stilted, the twists were obvious from a mile away and we walked into more than few info dumps. It also suffered from the reverse harem trope, except that everyone except the two main love interests either propositioned her straight out or threatened rape. It's saving grace was a hunk of kitsune as one of the love interests. I won't be reading any more of it, but if it interests you, go for it. I'm known to be a bit harsher on my paranormal erotic novels than others.

          Sword Art Online: Phantom Bullet is the forth book in the SAO light novel series and honestly, it was my lease favourite part of the anime. The writing feels a bit stilted (though I think that is due to being translated from Japanese, than any fault of the writers) and I occasionally want to yell at Sian, the new girl for these two books. Worth reading if you're into the series, but if you aren't you might want to skip it. I fully admit that I felt like I had to power through this one.

          Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle is the third book in the translation of the Girl Genius comics to novels. As a steampunk, its long, awesome, hilarious and unbelievable. This is a series worth reading to. As with a few others of these, if you can, go and listen to the audio book. Totally worth it. If you like wild steampunk rides of fancy where everyone and their neighbour is an evil genius (even the good guys) find these novels and read them! Check out the comic while you're at it. These guys are talented all around!

          How to Seduce a Naked Werewolf and How to Run with a Naked Werewolf are fun paranormal romances with a little bit of erotica thrown in. Though both are decent reads, the plots are not as well put together as I had wished for and some of it seemed to happen, literally, "because plot". Also, I came into this series from reading a few of Molly Harpers other paranormal romances. I must say, while I like her voice, all of her heroines are way too similar. They all react the same way for the most part and I don't feel as much was done as could have been to differentiate between them. In the books defence, I listened to this series and the others audio books and I believe they were read by the same person, which could be why they feel too similar. A problem with the same reader emphasizing the same things for each heroine, rather than a problem with the words themselves. Still, a decent read and I enjoyed them, if not quite as much as her other series. I would suggest the Jane Jameson series by this author rather than the Naked Werewolf series as a better introduction to the world as well.

          What have you read this year? Do you have any suggestions for good books for me to read? In particular, I'll be looking for more science-fiction than I usually prefer, since I can still listen to it while writing without compromising my writing style. Let me know in the comments below!