I'm addicted to Yowamushi Pedal!

I've totally been binge-watching Yowamushi Pedal, aka YowaPedal. I've always been a really big fan of shonen/sports anime, starting from Slam Dunk (baseball) to Eyeshield 21 (American football) so finding an anime that deals with road cycling is a treat for me. I think the reason why I can't give my semi-otaku status is because anime is such an awesome story medium and directors take chances with storylines, something Hollywood seems more and more reluctant to do as the years go by. There's not endless sequels from established shows or pointless remakes (I'm looking at you guys, 21 Jump Street and Red Dawn...man, I could go on for a while) and the originality in anime/manga is food for my idea spawning pool. I binge-read manga/manhwa as well. I got so wrapped in Glass Mask and Slam Dunk that I ended up reading all of the volumes, of which they number in tens of thousands of pages.

Going back to sports shows, though, I'm really drawn to the underdog theme, which is very, very prevalent in shows such as Eyeshield 21 and YowaPedal, also used in some degree with Slam Dunk and Ookiku Furikabutte. Tennis no Oujisama is also another very popular sports anime, but the main character is a tennis prodigy with a cold personality, so maybe that explains why I never got into this particular immensely popular show. I really like the cheerful, slightly apologetic, get bullied a lot, hero, which doesn't happen in Tennis no Oujisama. Well, not that often.

I'm also really into cooking anime/manga, although that's a topic for a different way...

I remembered I was supposed to mention how I did with the Saturday Write-A-Thon...I'm afraid I did not do as well as I could, only clocking in about 4k before I called it quits. My excuse: I'm sick, deal with it. LULZ.

DARK MOON RISING is at about the 10% mark. I think my next release is going to be mid-May with a pseudo-light novel called MY ENEMY, a story about a teenage girl who's been blackmailed into protecting her worst enemy. After MY ENEMY, I foresee being able to release DARK MOON RISING either the last week of May or the first week of June.

I've been doing a lot of art on my rest time in between writing sprints. Here's what I'm working on at the moment:

I've always been someway of a coloring novice so I'm going to work on art for the next couple of months. Usually, I'll pick it up and then put it down after a few days, only to repeat the process a few months down the line. I'd like to just keep drawing without stopping as I'm interested to see if I can improve.

Right, that's it from me. I've got a couple of episodes of YowaPedal to catch up on...

Future Plans

I just want to say this:

I want to write and illustrate my own light novel. Writing is no problem...illustrating is...well, I'm not a terrible artist, but I know I'm a looong way from letting people see my art and buy it, so this is something I'll be working on for the next few years.

Here's a current WIP I'm working on for a friend's OC:

 

Here's my future work plans in order of release of this year (I hope!):

1. Dark Moon Rising (BM 4)

2. Tokyo Baby

While I finish these, I'm currently going research into Korean history, because this year I'd like to write a Korean/Chinese based fantasy romance story about a deposed king who's been cursed into a gumiho and the mudang's daughter who has to help him ascend the throne...or something like that. 

After I finish writing yet un-titled fantasy story, I'm not really sure what happens after that. I'd love to start the 5th Blood Martyr book before the fall, but we'll have to see where I am at the time, as my location certainty is always somewhat precarious...

April Nanowrimo Writing Marathon!

Today is April 12th! My goal is 10k in 6 hours.

Can I do it?

I'll come back tomorrow with the results!

Oh, and happy Saturday!

What I'm Doing at 1 in the Morning

What my screen looks like right now. And yes, it really is 1 in the blooooody morning. My sinus headache has receded to the point where I can look at the computer screen without spazzing out. Currently working on the second chapter of DARK MOON RISING, the cover I shall share soon enough, while listening to a lot of J-pop and some Fireflight. Despite not being Christian, a lot of Christian alternative music is surprisingly conducive towards writing.

I'm feeling a bit better now , so I'm hoping I can lick this cold/flu thingie by this Sunday fully, because I am SO SICK OF BEING SICK. Ick.

I'm so sick

Ugh. I really am so sick. At first, I thought it was allergies.

Nope, totally not. Upright, I can barely breathe. When I lie down, my nose stops working so I have to breathe through my mouth. I woke up with an intense case of dry mouth and chapped lips. NOT FUN. Barely got any sleep too, now that I think about it...

Anyways, I am currently at work on the first chapter of the fourth BM book. As in, I'm about 1.6k into the next book. Once I finish this chapter, I'll be sticking it in the end of WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE and then that book will get punted out on Amazon. I hope this will happen by this weekend, but considering how crappy I feel, I'm not going to cross my fingers.

...or is the other way around?

I've been chugging ginger honey tea like there's no tomorrow, only problem is...there's no more ginger so I need to wait until hubby comes home so he can go out to the store and pick up some more of that delish, spicy root for me.

I'm taking part of Camp Nanowrimo, using DARK MOON RISING as my project for the month-long writing festival. Since DARK MOON RISING is a 80k+ novel, I calculate I'm going to have to write about 3k a day...which seems do-able...but I know better than to say I'm definitely going to do it. Still, I'd like to and it doesn't hurt to have a goal :)

Right. I think that's all for me now. I'd love to be able to finish this chapter today...only about 1k more to go...let's go!

I hate spring...among other things...

Not really. Actually, I love spring. Mostly, because I'm not such a big fan of winter and being cold. Now, if i was living somewhere sub-tropical where the medium temperature was always somewhere above 70 degrees F, I'd think differently but...

I'm not sure what's wrong with me. I'm sick, that much is certain. I'm really congested, my nose keeps running and I can't even blow my nose anymore because A: I've rubbed it raw blowing it tons of times. China! You need Kleenex Lotion or something and B: Nothing really comes out anyways.

Is it a cold? Is it allergies? What the heck is wrong with me? Either way, my sinuses are killing me since I've been forcefully blowing my nose and Loratadine won't help me. Nothing will help me. EEK.

ANYWAYS.

WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE will be out within the next week. I actually pulled it from publication, mostly because it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and I wanted to include the first chapter of the next book, tentatively titled DARK MOON RISING (not that tentative...I've already got the cover art for it...) to kind of soften the blow. I've got to be honest though...Tanith really has her work cut out for her. A multitude of things happen in this particular book that really tests her relationship with Jamison and...I really shouldn't say anymore. Suffice to say, Tanith really needs the ally who appears on her doorstep in the last few paragraphs of the last chapter.

DARK MOON RISING, for all the plotting and outlining I'm trying to do, is looking like it will be a full length novel, somewhere around the length of 80-90k, which is a bit of a relief for me. I like the short 45-50k lengths of the previous books, but I feel like I can really get indepth and dirty with a story with a lot more leeway with word count.

In other news...

As you know, I live in China. There's a lot of things I find interesting about this country and a lot of things I just can't stand. One of them is the censorship that blocks Facebook and Twitter. I mentioned those two because they seem like the biggest blocked websites that foreigners/expats here complain about. Me, I couldn't really care much.

China also blocks Wordpress, Blogger, and Google. Which I use every day, all the time, every time. THIS DRIVES ME BONKERS. Thankfully, I've found a semi-reliable workaround that involves hooking up a VPN to my Android tablet (because, for some reason, my computer DOES NOT LIKE our VPN service and keeps kicking me off) as well as a bluetooth keyboard and using different apps that enable me to access my files, and MOST OF ALL, update this blog.

I blame the lack of updates on the whole China thing. Hopefully, this workaround will enable me to be a little more punctual with posts and whatnot. We shall see.

In other, other news...

Looks like we'll be in China for another few years. OH JOY. At the very least, two more years. Then, who knows where? Best guess would be back to Korea...and then who really knows where. A good guess would be Japan and then possibly Taiwan after that. The joys of being wed to a linguist...oooh boy.

Okay, I think that' s it for now. I'd like to release WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE by the 10th, as well as an omnibus edition of HER WICKED KISS, WAITING FOR DARKNESS, BITE, and WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE possibly in a few weeks, modestly priced at 5.99, which is a great value, considering the cost for the individual books to be around ten dollars...plus, there's more to read!

Today, got lots to do. Lots to read, write, plot, fun fun fun.

I also need to watch Lethal Weapon. More on this tomorrow.

Wolves and Brimstone!

 

The Arcadian Council have left Centennial City and Tanith Quinn can finally rest.

But not for long. Not when she's got a deal with a demon she must undo before her best friend, a powerful human witch called Jamison Bell, finds out she's given him to one of the most powerful fallen angels in the realm of Hell.

Finding the demon summoner is easy enough. But everything goes downhill when she knocks on Akira Sakamoto's front door.

Pulled into a battle not of her doing, Tanith finds herself on the run from a ruthless werewolf alpha who seeks to use her to get to Akira and turn the world into his personal playground.

She used to hunt werewolves. Now they're hunting her.

Shifters don't forgive and they don't forget.

As Tanith is about to find out.

Dead or, well, dead-er.

COMING TO AMAZON MARCH 31, 2014!

New Book!

Right. So, I didn't post yesterday.

Well, technically, it's only 12:06AM so yesterday was only 6 minutes ago.

Today, I'm starting a new book in a completely different genre. It's a gritty contemporary romance which is a genre I've always wanted to write but what with writing the Blood Martyr and Centennial series, I never really got to write anything else but urban fantasy. Now that I've finished writing the third book of BM, I'm taking a short, short break, a few weeks no more, and taking time to write this contemporary romance I don't have a title for yet. I will be publishing this book under a pseudonym  as a bit of an experiment, so pen name is going to be super sekrit for the time being, at least until the book is over 6 months into being published.

So. New Book. Starting Today. Woo!

I'm also looking forward to my stay-cation starting on Wednesday, coming back on Friday at one of the best hotels in Hangzhou. Hubby will be doing lots of swimming, hot-tubbing while I establish a home base at the lobby bar and get some writing done. Apparently, the weather is supposed to be pretty warm on Thursday, somewhere in the low 70s, so we'll also be doing a fair bit of exploring around West Lake.

Okay. Must write that new book. Now.

Starting noooaaahhhh!!!!

Wolves and Brimstone. Complete!

Okay, so I didn't post yesterday, mea culpha, mea culpa.

Mostly, I was just passed out on the couch, watching episodes of Bones and playing insane amounts of Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Why?

Well, I'm finished the first draft of WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE on very early Saturday morning, around 1AM, and then spent the next day mostly recovering from the influx of writing I'd done on Friday so I could finally get the first draft finished.

I'll be starting edits tomorrow and then send it over to the my CPs and betas. I'm very hopeful of a February 10th release date, although at this point, I'm wondering if I'm not rushing the edits a bit.

With that said, I started working on Book 4, yet untitled, yesterday, working up basic scenarios, questions that need to be addressed, possible conflicts, blah blah blah.

Book 3 ends on a fairly bleak note, so I'd like to introduce a bit of levity in the next book, but it's all got to fit. If levity doesn't fit, then it won't be in the next book. But, if I can share a small spoiler, she does gain a rather formidable ally at the end of Book 3, so she's not totally out of luck.

At this point, I'm seriously feeling sorry for Tanith. The events from Book 1 have just kind of snowballed into Book 2, and then snowballed into Book 3, which in turn creates this massive avalanche that just kind of spills over everyone in Book 4. Suffice to say, the books in the Blood Martyr are meant to be read in the proper order.

Well, that's enough from me today. Got a few covers to work on and work on outlining the next BM book.

Work of a writer. Never complete.

Posting everyday?

I can haz posting every day?

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to try to post a little something every day, if only to keep this blog presence active. To be honest, I'm pretty terrible with keeping updates going so this is something I'd like to work on this year.

So...here goes the updates for January 24th, 2013!

*drum roll*

Or not, hah.

WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE is in the final couple thousand words of completion. The first draft anyways. I'm working on the denouement right now and I think I can get this finished by the end of the weekend. Which is just as well since I'm going on a stay-vacation early next week to the main attraction in my city, West Lake. I originally planned on going to Shanghai for a few days, go see the Bund, eat some good food, but with a needy and somewhat neurotic cat at home, I can't leave her alone for too long. =) It's so hard being popular, lol.

WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE had an original release date of February 14, but I think it's going to get moved up, a wonderful change to my usual habit, which is release books grossly pass their original release date.

That said, WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE will be coming out on the 10th, possibly even sooner, depending on how soon I can run through edits and get input from my CPs.

And with that, that said, I need to get back to work.

See you folks tomorrow!

New Cover : Wolves and Brimstone

 WOLVES AND BRIMSTONE coming to you February 14 on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and other major ebook retailers!

2014 has come!

So. 2014. Wow. Year of the Horse, apparently. If you believe in that sort of thing. Here in China, the whole Zodiac thing seems quite popular, but I think a lot of people are a mixture of so-called signs. You can say you're a Sagittarius, but what the heck is a Sagittarius? Or Gemini? Anyone who blames their personality defects on their Zodiac, like a pompous prick who says he's a Leo and can't help being a glory hog and general narcissistic a-hole, needs a serious slap on the back of the head.

Horoscopes. Bah, humbug.

For someone who writes urban fantasies and general strangeness, I can be strangely, sarcastically...damn, forgot the word. Logical? Analytical? Eh, whatever, you get the drift. Wait. I think I got it. Pragmatic. Yeah. That's it. Pragmatic.

Anyways, regarding things on the writing front, I've had to switch my release schedule around a bit. I'm about halfway through the third Blood Martyr book, tentatively titled BRIMSTONE AND WOLVES, and I've got to warn you right now, it kind of ends in a cliffhanger. Well, the main issue in this particular book gets resolved, but in the last few lines, I am setting up for the fourth book, title, plot, idea yet unknown. Also, it ties into the events of HER WICKED KISS, so...you might want to read HER WICKED KISS for more information. <-- that was practically a spoiler, btw.

BRIMSTONE AND WOLVES's release has been moved up to the beginning of February. No cover art as of yet, since I'm not entirely sure what kind of mood I want to go for. The other books have been kind of face-oriented and this time I think I want to go focus on the setting a little more.