I’ve been quiet

I’ve never been good at the social part of social media. It’s a struggle to promote myself any other way than just, churning out works. 2020 was a terrible year for me in this regard. I went from being an office worker to a retail worker to a blue collar worker, and now I’m back in an office. I’ve never been happier to sit at a desk. I’m left with so much more energy and thought to pour into my writing, and I’ve already completed more works in a few months than I did the whole of last year.

My goal here is to break the silence on my blog. People I don’t speak to anymore still have access to it, and I have to get over my fears of being seen again. Marathoning a show on the power of friendship sure can kick your ass into high-gear when it comes to figuring out how best to help yourself. Bonus points when the show is gay as fuck.

I already have my ongoing Tapastic series Children of Different Worlds underway. Here’s what else I’m working on you should be excited about:

• Dice and Discards, a combination prequel, sequel, and companion to my thriller Sand and Silver told from the perspective of Silver’s right hand man, Joe. This novella has already been drafted and is going through my critique partner/alpha reader.
• The Shadows of the Forefathers, the third installment in The White Dragon Saga. The drafting process has been arduous, as I finished up The Amulet of the Phoenix much later than I intended. However, I am in the third act of the story so to speak, and we are getting close to the climax.
• Wolf Tails: The Werewolf Chronicles is being rereleased as a collection of five short fictions, including previously published works ‘A Stormy Earth,’ ‘Dust Devils,’ and ‘White Caps.’ I have beefed them up so they can constitute as erotica, some happy werewolf omegaverse porn with plot. I prefer my erotica to have a plot, so I hope my readers do too.
• The Sisters Three: Red Riding Hood and Other Fairy Tales Retold is a project I started with my soul sister Lindsey Tarkington. She presented the idea of a retelling for Swan Lake to me and I loved it so much, I came up with a retelling of my own. We’ve been exchanging chapters and assisting each other in the process of initial creation, and I have completely the first novella in this collection The King and the Red. I have short stories, follow-ups on characters introduced in said novella, The Midwife and the Winter Kingdom and The Awakening of the Warrior Princess to complete, but this collection is already being reviewed by betas as I finish. The King and the Red is, as my sister lovingly put it, a breathtaking enemies to lovers high fantasy romance. The short stories will be less explicit than The King and the Red, but as with all fairy tales love plays a massive role in them.
• I Thrust My Fist Against the Post: A Horrific Collection of Short Stories and Poetry came to me in my discovery of podcast The Magnus Archives. I have a creative companion, Cecil, who informed me that, based on my experiences in life, I’m becoming ‘quite the little archivist.’ Listeners will understand that that essentially means I’ve been touched by the great powers of fear. All of them, actually. I have many fears, and decided I was going to record them in the form of fiction and poetry. My beloved bestie Sarah Heath will be the illustrator, as she and I concocted a plan to make this into an adult version of those wonderful children’s horror books Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Her art is phenomenal, and to prove it I will post the image for the very first story I wrote here:

Once I’ve completed the full drafts of The Shadows of the Forefathers, Wolf Tails, The Sisters Three, and I Thrust My Fist Against the Post and send them all to my alpha and beta readers, I will begin work on three other first drafts: Meet Me in the Woods, Where Demons Tread, and In the Hall of the Shadow Queen. One is a novel, one is three novellas in one, and the last is a novella. Because I operate within so many universes, I have the idea to craft symbols for each universe to place at the bottom right corner of each book I publish. That is a creative WIP I will gladly share in the future.

I want this creative streak to last. I’ve recently experienced a loss, an animal loss but a loss all the same. Anyone who remembers the days I would post about my animals might remember Scruffy. He died at the age of 18 last week. I’d had him since he was 4, and it was one of the most difficult losses I’ve had to endure. It’s put a lot of things into perspective for me. In the wake of a much emptier house, where a long-bodied black belly-dragon isn’t stalking me down the hall and looking for me every second I’m home, I’ve had to learn to cope. I’m getting there, though. If I can complete the third act of The Shadows of the Forefathers this month, then I will be on track.

As for better news, I’ve completed all my pet enclosure remodels. Now I can focus on just enjoying them, not wishing they had better. I have mice again, as I cannot seem to stay away from rodents. My reptiles are content, as are my ferrets. My horses are in a new pasture, and I’m the assistant trainer for an up-and-coming horse rescue nonprofit. Things are, for all intents and purposes, going well. Now if I can keep chugging along, reading Katee Robert and NK Jemison for genre inspiration, I’ll be golden.