Hi. I’m alive. I know, I know. You were worried. Let me catch you up.
New Steps
My critique partner and I picked up a third, so I’m officially part of a writing group. This week we met for the first time officially. We swapped pages last week for the others to read. All I can say is these two ladies are pretty talented. They’ll keep me on my toes for sure.
Still plugging away (very slowly) on the Forge and Vine revisions. This story has gotten way more complex than I originally intended it to be, but it will be better for it. I have stopped setting deadlines to finish this. I keep blowing past them. Mostly due to a slump that I have mostly gotten out of now, but also because the story has changed and expanded so much, I just can’t give an accurate guess as to when it will be done.
I have reached Act III in the revision, which I’m super excited about. The draft is sitting right around 99K words, which is right around where I want it to be so… there will be darlings screaming in terror at some point as I still have a scene or two to add.
And… let’s talk about the elephant in the room, namely my abysmal check in frequency. By my reckoning, the last check in I posted was on January 6th. I don’t know what happened. It was like I totally and completely forgot about my website and therefore my blog and check ins for months. Time didn’t just get away from me. It ran away and hid in a dark, dark place.
In the spirit of trying to be a professional and shit, I am restarting my monthly check ins.
That’s the plan anyway…
I have also decided that, to help boost my writing a bit, I’m going to start posting non-fiction articles online. I don’t want to limit myself curiosity, so these articles will basically be about anything that catches my fancy. I figure the short turn around for articles will be a breath of fresh air since I’ve been working on the novel exclusively for over a year. The frequent wins will give me a boost. That’s the hope anyway. Right now, the plan is one article a month. I have not decided where I’m going to post them yet.
Coming up: once I’ve finished Forge and Vine, my next project is to continue fleshing out my new adult urban fantasy trilogy: The Professor’s Apprentice. This whole series came to me fully formed in a dream. I’ve never had that happen before, but it was epic. I woke up and frantically hand wrote about thirty pages all in one sitting that gave a detailed synopsis of the whole thing so I wouldn’t forget. I’m excited about this one.
The Breakdown
I will give you two…
The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden
We follow Millie Galloway as she interviews for a live in housekeeping position for the Winchesters, a picture-perfect family in the heart of wealthy suburbia. The house is beautiful. Nina, the wife, seems lovely. Her gorgeous husband, Andrew, a dream. Even the small attic bedroom that she’ll live in doesn’t deter her from taking the position. But we quickly find out that things are not as they seem.
Now, I don’t normally read thrillers, so when this popped up as the book club read for last month, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But, boy, was I pleasantly surprised. I read the whole thing in two sittings. It was good enough that my book club collectively decided to read the second book in the series for this month. My only real gripe was that the foreshadowing was a little heavy handed in spots, so I was able to predict part of the twist. But even guessing that, I loved how McFadden structured the plot. Very much worth the read.
Heaven Official’s Blessing
This is an anime based on the book series of the same name by Chinese author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. So far there are eight books in this series. I found the anime first and have now read three books in the series.
They follow the afterlife of Xie Lian, a prince of a prosperous kingdom known for his beauty, grace, and strength. He is awarded by ascending to godhood at the age of nineteen. Unfortunately, circumstances cause him to be cast out back to earth. The series takes place 800 years after his mortal life when he ascends for the third time much to the irritation of the rest of the pantheon. He is sent to the mortal realm to solve problems as a way to pay off debt he owes for accidentally destroying a palace upon his third ascension. When Lian is on the road, he meets a young man by the name of San Lang, who turns out to be Hua Cheng, one of the Four Great Calamities known as Crimson Rain Sought Flower and also the boss of the Ghost City. Hua Cheng, or San Lang as he insists Lian call him, is quite taken with Xie Lian and aids Xie Lian in his missions for the Heavenly Emperor.
While it is considered a romance, neither the anime series, nor the books I’m told, ever get explicit. Instead, they focus on the growing relationship and trust between the two. The gentle banter that they engage in throughout is wonderful and gives all the feels. The book series is complex, with a full cast of characters. Now having read some of the books, the anime leaves out a bulk of the lore, which leads you to miss a lot of the nuance within the story, but the beautiful animation makes it more than worth watching. The serious, sometimes devastating history of the heaven officials is revealed piece by piece as truths are uncovered. The overall tone of the series manages to allow for such scenes by balancing it with lighthearted moments, some of which are quite funny without falling into the over-the-top campy gags that some anime have.
I was so excited to find out that Crunchy Roll now has it. I had watched the first season on Netflix, but Crunchy Roll also has the second season!!! I was so excited. I love this series. It is so beautiful. I can’t wait to read the fourth book.
Living Life
I am not going to mince words. Things were a little sucky there for a while. As I mentioned above, time had just gotten away from me the last few months. It is nuts. It’s almost half way through another year. I am still dealing with a back issue that started in September, and on my low days, I was losing hope that it would ever be resolved. As a new normal, that one would really suck. So, I was struggling with that.
Basically, from the beginning of February through a couple weeks ago, I was going through a serious slump in energy, partially due to the back stuff, but also just one of my normal low periods. Day to day stuff was mostly fine, but just getting my butt in the chair to try to be creative was rough on a good day. Binging on fluffy m/m romances, anime, and Doctor Who was the norm for weeks.
Then my parents came and stayed with us for six weeks while their RV roof was being replaced due to a storm. If I haven’t mentioned it before, my parents are retired and RV full time. Hence needing a roof over their heads while their home was being fixed. They even have a YouTube channel called “RV Ashs in April”. Check them out.
It was supposed to be a couple weeks, but problem after problem plagued the body shop and boom… Six weeks of four grown adults and two cats that don’t get along the best (the cats, not the people) stuffed into a small two-bedroom apartment with one bathroom. Mom… Dad… I love you. I enjoy spending time with you, but I think I am safe in saying that we were all ready for your RV to be fixed by the end.
That on top of how I had already been feeling, and I was really struggling there for a while. But things are getting better. I’ve been doing a lot of things to pull myself out of it lately.
It helps that my back is starting to get better… maybe? It hasn’t been as bad anyway. I’ve been spending a lot more time writing and editing. Reading in different genres helps and getting out of house also. Being a little more social. All these things help. Right now, I’m moving in a good direction.
So that’s it… for now. I promise, I will be posting more often. I think I have a good monthly schedule figured out, so I don’t feel overwhelmed or rushed. Starting this month, new check ins will be posted on the third Friday of the month. So as always…
Thanks for checking out the site, and I hope everyone is doing well. If you feel so inclined, please check out my social media.
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