Hello!!!

Hello, faithful people of the blog! So, it's been a few weeks. I had some serious changes happen, as you can tell from the new URL link. But wait! There's more!

So, in addition to the new website address, there's been other new and interesting developments in my world. For one, I know this is going to sound incredibly trivial, but it's a big deal to me: I got a couch. HAHA Finally, a real couch, for the first time in years. It's a darker beige colour, and it's long enough I can stretch out on it with my dog if I want and be comfortable. Pretty pleased.

Also, I got a small coffee table for my living room. Again, must be trivial-sounding for some, but with a small apartment, I don't have a lot of room to work with, and my place needed some SERIOUS upgrades after everything that had taken place a couple months ago.

The Fur Kids

My pets are all getting on well, and even though we haven't had any consistent spring weather (I mean, really, are we just not doing spring this year, or what?), we've had some decent days when I've been able to air out my apartment and let some sunshine in, in abundance, which has tremendously helped the atmosphere around here!

Easter was a nice, peaceful holiday, I got to go to Easter Vigil Mass and then Easter Sunday Mass the next day. I loved every second of it! Fr Coleman gave me a book after Mass on Easter called 'Christian Prayer,' it's Catholic prayers, for every day of the week. I'm honoured he'd give me such a wonderful gift!

I've been working on 'Literary Feast 2018 Reading Challenge,' where each month has a new 'theme' of a book to read. I'm still working on last month's book. o.O But, with things having me so busy with Camp NaNoWriMo this month, I'm pretty worn out by the time I can settle in for the night with my book. Right now, I'm reading 'War of the Worlds' by HG Wells. It's pretty good, and even though it's only 109 pages long, I've barely scratched the surface. Next on the agenda is 'Bear and the Dragon' by Tom Clancy.

Had a pretty decent visit with my niece a few weeks ago. Hoping to see her again soon.

Sworn back off soda again. Hoping to see how long this time I can go. Last year, I went 9 months, and that's the longest it's ever been for me. I have a cuppa in the morning, then water throughout the day, MAYBE some tea, and a hot chocolate (or tea) at night before bed.

Earlier today, I saw a fellow author (or as I call my fellow authors, colleague of the pen) post something on Facebook about, 'If you don't share stuff on your author page about your book, how do we know it matters to you?' and this person is right. So, I need to start doing that. I have some dates set up for releases and I may be a glutton for punishment, but if I'm careful, I can do this.

The first book release planned is for Halloween. The stats are:

So, This B*tch!

Finished writing by 30 June (last day of JuNoWriMo)

Send off manuscript that evening to my editor

Set up the pre-order for 2 August

Release date – Halloween

Cover Art finalized by 30 June

Edits completed and manuscript sent back to me by 15 September

Manuscript finalized by 10 October and submitted to KDP (holy shit) to be published and people can download (or order paperback) their copies.

The Faceless Ones (Book One of The Beforetime, A Consequences of Technology Novel)

Finished writing by Thanksgiving Day

Manuscript sent to editor that evening

Set up the pre-order for 24 October

Release date – 22 January 19

Cover Art finalized by 9 October (my birthday!)

Edits completed and manuscript sent back to me by 26 December (Boxing Day! Woohoo!)

Manuscript finalized by 7 January (Jessyka's birthday!!) and submitted to KDP (Wut?!) to be published and people can download (or order paperback) their copies.

Hoping that this isn't an exercise of my ambition is bigger than my motivation here, but hopefully things will stay on this positive direction and I can get everything I'm wanting to do, done. So, Camp NaNoWriMo this month, my goal was set for 30k. I am happy to announce that I crushed that goal, and passed it by over three thousand words. GO ME.

Also, I landed a job doing freelance transcription, in addition to the other gigs I do to keep busy. I'm pretty pleased about that. My goal is to set my word counts for 50k each month hereafter for the rest of this year so I can get 'B*tch' and 'Faceless' written and off to being published. I've already got a few people interested in 'B*tch.' haha I figured that'd happen, considering the title. I mean, we've all got those types of stories, right, that start out that way? Well, this one is based on things that happened to me in recent history, so here's hoping it's got a decent success rate that I'm hoping it will. Muahahahaha

The inpiration for 'Faceless' came to me in a dream a little over a year ago, and while no, it's not quite what I'm normally drawn to write (as in, I've never written anything like this before), I read this type of stuff ALL THE TIME, so why not, right? It's going to be a doozy, but I'm down for a good challenge.

Right now, I'm sitting here writing to you all, giving you a small glimpse into my crazy, busy world as of late. Writing's only the fraction of it. There's been other things, the refresh on my apartment, the new job… It's just been random and erratic and I've enjoyed a lot of it. As with all things, there's always the not-so-good to keep that balance to appreciate what's good. I've had some things befall my personal life that drew me away from my blog, and that's going to change. I've figured out a couple days a week to write and keep things fresh and consistently updated.

Now, let's just hope that I can get this thing off the ground more and more, right? Till next time, stay excellent!