Hey there!
If you're in the DMV or Baltimore area, come see me and the author MultiMind at the CityLit Festival next Saturday! More details in the sidebar.
Monthly Musings
I'm writing a little bit of this in the past, realizing Weekly Words is now extinct. I haven't written weekly in, what, years? Looking at some of my other blog images, there was a time I was posting weekly on different days years ago. I had Tuesday Tales, Wednesday Words, Friday Freeday. I was doing so much. I'm not even sure people read blogs like this anymore, but this is connected to my Goodreads...I'd be ridiculous to say I can't commit to a monthly post, though, so Monthly Musings sounds good.
I'm currently editing Broken Princess and plan to send to beta readers in the next month or so. There are some other logistics I need to work out, so I'm closer to sure that I won't have a table at my regular cons this year. Dover Comic-Con is less than 3 months away now. Bento Con might be an option, but I'll have to see. I would like the book to be out by the end of the year for sure, though, if not earlier. I wanted it to be out by July, but that can't happen at this point.
I have been doing better at reading, and I'm 100% it's because of the book I was reading, which was Girl of Flesh and Metal by Alicia Ellis, and it was so good, I wrote the review and immediately bought Clash of Flesh and Metal afterwards.
Girl of Flesh and Metal is the first self-published novel to make the American Library Association's LITA Excellence in Children and Young-Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists. #GOALS. The book is phenomenal, and I can't wait to see what happens in the sequel. I haven't been this excited about a series since N.K. Jemisin's The Great Cities series, so that speaks volumes. I wish publishers understood how much Black readers need to see Black main characters in Sci-fi and Fantasy, but they also don't think we read, so there's that.
The video game is coming along nicely. We meet on Fridays, so we'll be meeting in an hour. I hope the momentum keeps going, especially as we get a couple more writers on the team. We'll see how it goes!
I'm still debating on migrating the blog, but I'm also very partial to Blogger, because I've used it for over a decade now. It probably won't happen. I've got so much else to worry about.
Anyway, see you in April! I think I said I was going to do the Quarterly on the 5th Thursday? I'll do it the 5th Friday in May. I can't mess up my labels more than necessary.
Weekly Words - SoulAce Day and Writing Update
HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!
A post on a Monday? Why yes, because I forgot to post Friday, which actually turned out well for today.
Today is SoulAce Day: a day created by Black asexuals to acknowledge and celebrate the creativity of the ignored A in LGBTQIA (because it does NOT stand for ally).
A few of us contributed to an e-zine about Black Asexual Culture, which you can support by downloading and/or donating to those who contributed at the link below.
And now for a quick writing update: I was finally able to write, "To be continued..." in the sequel to Fractured Princess, officially titled Broken Princess! I'm so relieved that I made it. In about a week, I'll start editing and once I'm done, I'll send it to my beta readers. More news to come in the next few months!
Quarterly Goals
Good evening! *in my Dracula voice*
As I'm reading my August Quarterly Goals post, I realize I was supposed to write one on Black Friday! Welp.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! These past few months have been a hellscape, but as the country burns to the ground, let's take some time to breathe, think of some good you can do in your community, and just be good and decent human beings.
My goal for the end of the year was to finish Divided Princess. Bad news, good news time. Bad news: I did not finish the book by the end of the year. The good news is I have ONE CHAPTER LEFT! I absolutely plan on being at least halfway tonight and fully done tomorrow. And honestly, I don't even expect the chapter to be very long, so I might actually be done tonight. I just have to finish this blog post and unpause my Book 2 soundtrack and Mini Cozy Lo-fi Timer.
My other two goals for...I guess the last two quarters was to start editing the audiobook and catching up on my annual reading goal. HA. I'm done setting goals for those right now. I'm lying. I do have an annual goal of reading 18 books this year. Currently reading three, but actively reading one, so as long as I get back into the other two, I can have 3 done by the end of February. The audiobook is on hold for now, especially, because...
So, about that major project I mentioned in October?
I am officially a narrative writer for an upcoming indie game named Prism from the new studio Creative AF Games! I'm SO EXCITED! Writing for a video game has been one of my dreams, and I did not expect it to come true! In fact, I had just donated the book I had on video game writing before I moved, so I had to go buy another copy. lol Please go to my Linktree over in the banner or just from clicking these words and scroll down for all the social links for the game studio! More information to come to sooner we are to releasing the demo.
All right, the next 5th Friday isn't until May, so I will most likely do a 5th Thursday post in April to see if I'm track with my reading goal. Oh! Pending cover art and my beta readers, I might also have a release date available then, so fingers crossed, and see you next month! :)
Early Morning Musings
It is 3:45am, and I just realized that I may only have two or three chapters left before I can stamp a "To Be Continued..." on the end of the second book in my Shattered Chronicles series! This is super exciting for me for a few reasons.
1. When I first concepted Fractured Princess, f.k.a The Crystal Bearer, f.k.a Save the Queen, I had planned on it being a standalone book. I did not expect more ideas to flow after that first version of the "All Will Be Well" chapter.
2. Now, after a self-publish, a failed stint with a vanity publisher, and an updated self-publish, I am seeing the end of this journey that started from a weird dream I had over 21 years ago.
3. I already know what each part of the third book entails, almost from A to Z, so it will be a much quicker turnaround after Book 2 is published!
4. I'm pretty sure I'm going to beat George R.R. Martin in finishing a fantasy series, and A Game of Thrones was published in 1996. It's not a race, but I'm thrilled for myself.
Anyway, I will have an official update during the January Quarterly Goals post. I hope everyone is enjoying any and all holidays you celebrate. I just realized our menorah is in storage, so I'm sad about that. Maybe I can find it Monday after work (the storage place is closer to my job than my house by like 30 miles) and celebrate the last day of Chanukah.
See you in 2026!
Monthly Review
HAPPY OCTOBER! Time for a monthly review.
© Creative Commons Zero (CC0)
This is actually going to be short.
The past three months have been a whirlwind. I have a lot going on even in just this last month. Also, I realized sometime this past week that I had written a big continuity error into the story and had to go back and fix it before I could go forward. Splendid. On the bright side, I thought I needed to finish the book by today, but then I read my last Quarterly Goals post and realized I said "end of the year for sure," so, yay, no pressure.
I started a major project this month. I'm so excited about it! More information to come soon! I also start playtesting today. That should be something fun for me to focus on.
I also started working on managing my some of my personal issues this past week. We'll see how everything turns out. I just know going forward, I'm choosing my peace!
Reading wise, I'm almost finished the audiobook Firefly: Big Damn Hero, and I love that world so much. Just wish Joss Whedon hadn't turned out to be awful. But anyway, I'm also reading The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Mel Robbin's The Let Them Theory. I'm not going to catch up on my goal, but at least, I'm getting back into reading.
I hope you've had a good month. Happy Halloween!
New Story Added!
Hi there!
Just a quick and random post to let you all know that there is a new story on my Short Stories & Poems page! It's an audio script called "The Hunter," and in the spirit of Halloween, I hope you enjoy (muahaha).
Also, here's a direct link to it. :) "The Hunter"
New Website Design!
October is here already, my God.
This is just a quick update, as I have finally made a website that looks like more than a few words on a banner background, so hit the Home button above to check it out!
Monthly Review + Writing Update + Quarterly Goals
I was actually working today, so I forgot to post around Noon. Back-timing this.
I had a great time at Bento Con last Saturday. I had a really cool conversation about thermodynamics, which I'm really going to look into when I finally get to the sci-fi anthology I've wanted to write. The one thing I love about a local convention like this is the diversity of the people that come to my table. I had older men stop by, one of whom said, "Let me go get my wife, she'd love this," other writers, and teens and 20-somethings, who are the target audience for my book. I took 24 books with me and not only sold 12, but I had my first sale of my illustration cards! That alone excited me, because some man told me to have illustrations on sale when he stopped by at Blue Hen Comic Con the year before last, and when I had them last year, no one was interested. Perhaps by next year, when I have two books to sell, some fans of Book 1 will want the illustrations!
That said: I made it to Part 3 in the sequel! I was so excited to finally get these pivotal scenes I've had in my head for the past few years in the order that they belong. I feel like this part is going to be a little shorter. The first book had 46 chapters. As I'm typing this, I realize I haven't been updating the chapter list to the second book, so...
*Five minutes later*
...I have 30 chapters at the moment, and I'm into the third chapter now. I don't want to drag it out if I don't have to. Maybe ten chapters? We'll see.
On that note, my goal from last quarter was to edit the audiobook and finish this book. I haven't even touched the audiobook. I keep thinking about it, though. I imagined I would have more time while I was on my medical leave of absence, but for the first three of my six weeks, I slept, so as evident in the last section of this post, I didn't write enough to finish the book. I'm getting there, though, and I'll take it. End of the year for sure. I just realized the quarters are off, too. There are five Fridays in October and November, so I'll be posting a goals update on Black Friday. I hope to hear from the cover artist by then, because I would like to have both of the second and third book covers completed before I publish Book 2.
I also stopped reading the short story compilation I was reading. I don't know who taught them how to make an anthology, but they didn't tell them not to include half of a novel. I'm not even joking. It was one half of a novel! That held up my reading goals for sure. So, I jumped into a new book that I actually might do a Weekly Words for next week. It's been a long time since I've done one. We'll see.
So anyway, goals for the next quarter are:
- finish Book 2.
- At least START editing the audiobook.
- Catch up on my annual reading goal.
Wish me luck!
See You at Bento Con!
Hey hey!
If you live in Delaware or happen to be in Delaware or the Philly area, come down to Newark for Bento Con tomorrow! It's an intimate comic/anime convention that began last year, and I'll be there for the second year in a row! It will be at the Aetna Banquet Hall on Ogletown Road from 10am to 3pm, and not only is admission only $5, but kids are free!! So come on out!
Quarterly Goals
I can't believe June is on Sunday.
First things first, I did not finish the book before the quarter ended. I'm not even sure I was doing much writing those first couple of months, and if I did, I just had more writing to do than I realized. I am fortunately coming up on the end of the second part of the book with just one or two chapters before it closes out. I even streamed myself writing last Friday, Saturday, and Monday. I think I hit about 2500 words that weekend. If I keep it up, I'm almost sure I will complete the book by this next quarter.
I also did not touch the audiobook yet. My laptop was also away some of last quarter getting repaired. I think I mentioned the major crash it had. That was stressful. I'll have a lot of downtime in July, so that might be the time for me to get it done.
I also expect to get more reading done! I made the mistake of starting another short story anthology, but this one has a novella in it, and I'm struggling. I'll get through it little by little for sure. I plan to finish a book I started on my birthday cruise last year. I took it from the library, so of course I had to put it back before we made it back home.
Today is also the 2nd anniversary of the second edition of Fractured Princess! I made a photo-tok of the past two years, and I'm proud of myself for actually getting out there and selling what feels like the same book over and over. This has been a super long journey, but I see the end of this series coming, and I'm excited to get it completed and put my attention into new stories! And if I'm lucky, I'll successfully get my book into Ingramspark. I keep having book cover trouble, so I'll be happy to be able to say it's processed when I get that straightened out.
So, my goals for this quarter are the same as last quarter (edit the audiobook and finish Book 2), but I'm fine with that!
Wednesday Words? No, Just Weekly Words!
So, I wanted to do a cute graphic where I use the old Wednesday Words image but cross it out and then have the Weekly Words image, but Blogger isn't that advanced, and I'm too lazy to create another cheap image. Ah well.
But also, I looked at my March post, and I said that hopefully it wouldn't be another 2 months before I posted again...It's been exactly 2 months since I last posted. I'm so sorry. If nothing else, I have to post at the end of the month, because there's finally another 5th Friday, and I have to see if I completed my goals.
One major goal is that I want to have the first draft of "Divided" Princess completed by the end of the month, which will also be the 2nd anniversary of Fractured Princess, 2nd Indie Edition. When I do finish, I'll also announce the official book title, which I've mentioned previously; don't ask me when, because it's been so long. Hopefully, I can also get some time to finally sit down and listen to the audiobook clips to edit. It's been way too long since I finished. I've got to get it done.
On the reader side of things, I've been lamenting that I'm not reading as many books as I used to, and then I remembered that I am actively reading EIGHT web comics, one of which I'm catching up on, so I'm actually reading every day. But I did start reading a compilation of Black science fiction short stories from W.E.B. Du Bois to modern-day authors, and my, are they haunting. I swear one was the inspiration for the game Inside. I'm taking my time on those...as I continue to buy e-books on Bookbub like the book addict I am.
Anyway, that's all for now. I just wanted to do a quick update, and it's a full blog. haha Oh, lastly, I logged back into my Goodreads to do a few updates, and if you're still following me/seeing this post there, thank you so much!
See you on the 30th!
Weekly Words: My Laptop Has Returned!
I'm sure you're wondering, "Where did it go?" About a month ago, my laptop had an update. After it was done, I was on it for a little bit, walked away as one does, and it went to sleep and would not wake back up. I could only access the BIOS! It was quite stressful. Fortunately, I had a few days left of my free support, so I shipped it to HP, and they reimaged the whole thing. Extra fortunately, all my stories, WIPs, and audio files from recording are in the cloud, so I only have to worry about re-downloading my Discord and gaming apps. If that wasn't a sign to finish this audiobook, I don't know what would be!
I've been doing a lot of writing, to the point that I'm almost finished the second part of the book. This really excites me, because I've had the first chapter of the third part written for MONTHS now. Once I get there, I hope I can get the last part completed fast. Figuring this book out was a chore, especially after I never expected to write a sequel! I'm getting antsy to work on my other projects.
I finished Mo Dao Zu Shi the novel. I hope to start the manhua this year, but I'm going to read some other books first. I might even do a classic Weekly Words next week. I started a new book, but I'm currently in the introduction, so I really have to force myself to read it right now. I also have to start editing a dissertation for someone and have a book club book for my church music ministry, so it might take longer to read a book for fun.
Anyhow, that's what I have going on right now. It shouldn't take me another two months before I post again, but at this point, you all know me. Unless you're a new reader from Bluesky or Tumblr. Then, hello! I'm inconsistent. Sorry in advance.
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