MultiMind's Blog, page 8

Storygraph Giveaway! Win a copy of The Glassman in Print and eBook before it comes out!

New book means time for giveaways! This one is with The Storygraph, who I have been hosting my bigger giveaways with.

The pic says it all! The giveaway will run from Juneteenth (by the way, happy Juneteenth, everyone) to July 18, worldwide.

What is up for grabs:

5 ebook copies of The Glassman

5 print copies of The Glassman, which will all include:

StickerGuitar PickPage Holder (random designs but all glass clear)

Also, every copy will be signed with a glass pen and writer’s blood fountain pen ink!

Pictured: Stuff You Get With Every Print Copy

Click here to join the giveaway!

Tentative MultiMind Publishing Schedule

Ok, so.

I have what I am going to call a tentative publishing schedule because it is tentative and thus due to change at any given time but I think I have some degree of it down so far.

I tend to plan these in advance because while writing books is quick for me, putting them out isn’t. I want to make sure I’m not pumping out half-rushed drivel and such. Also, I have disorders to contend with and they do take up my time.

The current schedule (should nothing go awry):

Late 2024 – The Harlequin (Novel; Dark Fantasy, Horror)

2025 – No Book. Reason: I’m going to South Korea for three months (at least I plan to), where I plan to just stay in a v smol apt and write Soaring, an alternative world history fantasy sci fi that is probably going to be a series. It most definitely will be multiple books. How many? I honestly don’t know. Why S. Korea? 1) I’ve never been out the country before (because it is expensive and a privilege to do so) 2) Korea is a calmer fit for me than America, especially for the subject I’m writing (the history part) 3) I can speak and understand Korean well enough to just shut myself away in an apartment by myself for 3 months and simply write the entire time (my friends who are Korean nationals and live there have, however, told me they planned to kidnap me and force me to have fun against my own will from time to time. From what I understand, I will be getting dragged to the beach and to random fun places. Especially on my birthday, July 2). I have been working on the research of Soaring since 2014, when I first got the idea while I was working at the Library of Congress. World history has a lot of moving parts. Soaring has a lot, lot of moving parts.

Jun & Aug 2026 – Glass & Dreams duology (double novel; Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, also nicknamed The Omakes). The continuation and blend of the works Dreamer and The Glassman.

May 8, 2027 – Butterfly (novel; Fantasy) Date Reason: Black Fae Day

And that’s it! So far, at least. Mind you, it’s a publishing schedule, not exactly a writing schedule. Every single one of these books (with exception to Soaring) is completely done and already written. They’re all ready to go through the publication process.  

The biggest thing is the S. Korea trip. I simply expect it to be expensive but I have been planning to go for a while. Like, pre-pandemic. I may Kickstarter the trip, I may not, I’m still weighing my options. Yes, there are traveler grants for writers but they’re massively hard to get, quite small financially and very few. It’s not like I’m sitting on a MacArthur Fellow grant like Octavia Butler so I have to figure things out for myself. The not-fun part, in other words.

Much Ado About Narrators, Yet Again

Currently in the market for male narrators to narrate my upcoming book, The Glassman. The current issues I seem to be encountering is an issue that I think may be a unique thing for narrators of color: I keep getting auditions where they drop any demonstrative accent. Almost like they’re thinking “How would a White person do this audition?”

Not entirely their fault, they’re in a really White industry and usually accents are utilized for, let’s be honest, messed up stuff, such as selling stereotypical foods and products (I have encountered so many taco commercial reels when looking for Chicano and Afro-Chicano voice actors, chicken commercial reels for Black voice actors, etc) to portraying “this is the bad guy, the one with the accent of the Other – because somehow their behavior isn’t enough to sell the fact they are a Bad Person”. Because of that, they get to internalize how they’re seen by their industry and the idea that “White is Right” (meaning, “sound like White people as the standard”) and I get to hear a bunch of auditions that sound not the greatest. The vast majority of characters in The Glassman are Chicano/Afro-Chicano. The character samples say which characters need to have a Chicano SoCal accent. But still, I get dropped accents in character acting. It sucks.

Oh! And let’s throw in gender because they’re there, too.  

Not only do I get dropped accents, I also get over gritty/hyper-masculinity, or, as I like to call it, “TV Masculinity”, because it’s really overdone and common on television but not real life. I have gotten auditions where main characters had the same emotive delivery of Captain Kirk, the stilted delivery. I have gotten auditions where my work sounded like all it needed was a DC Comics stamp on the top corner, it was too gritty and over the top.

I’m not going for “gritty, hyper masculine”. I’m going for “realistic masculinity”. Fun fact, not all guys are ‘roided up meat-heads that treats the concept of “emotion” as a purely effeminate trait (except for “rage”, which is an emotion they’re all too happy to have, even to the point of self-destruction). Some guys are soft and kind. Some guys are silly and derpy. Some guys are quirky and daft. I’m not a fan of the concept of There’s Only One Way To Be a Man. I already don’t believe in the gender binary (it’s more of a spectrum than a hard binary to me) so that means when I do male characters, I want them spanning the spectrum of masculinity and more often than not, in the ”realistic” realm. The average guy is not a walking Male Power Fantasy, no matter how much he may (or may not) want to be.

In the directives, I tell the narrator what vocal range I expect the characters to be (low alto, mid-bass, hyper baritone, plain bass, etc) and what I’m getting back are Batmans.

Bro.

I get my work is dark and emotive but I’m not going for Comic Book Movie Masculinity. I’m going for Everyday Guy.

Also, the narrator this time, I am looking for queer narrators. Queer, male, Chicano/Afro-Chicano narrators. Why?

Isaiah.

The narrator will be expected to play all characters in The Glassman but Isaiah’s story line gets expanded in the follow up works Glass & Dreams 1&2. As a result, I want to make sure someone can do queer characters well. Queer actors can play straight characters just fine but I am not interested in getting a straight actor to play queer characters in this rendition. Whoever is doing The Glassman, should all go well, will be asked back for the Glass & Dreams duology to play the reprisal lead roles of the characters in The Glassman. That’s the current game plan.

Finding a narrator is always a headache and a half.

Hopefully I’m near the end of it but gods, is it a headache and a half.

I will say, though, that PGM VO, which stands for “People of the Global Majority Voice Over List”, has been a massive help in finding narrators of color of any sort. I only look for narrators of color (because my works only, if not primarily, feature characters of color – and I’m a Black writer, let’s not forget that) so the PGM VO list is a massive help. I also use AAVADB (African American Voice Actor DataBase) but this time, I needed more than just Black narrators this time so PGM VO is a great companion. Neither list has every Black or PoC narrator evaaaaaaaaaar but they’re pretty expansive with hundreds of selections. They definitely helped in the search process.

Poor Man Copyright – Don’t Bother Doing It, It’s Not Even Real

Let’s get straight to the quick:

If you’re considering to do Poor Man’s Copyright, where you take your work and mail it to yourself and never open it, don’t bother because it doesn’t even work and isn’t even real. (Also, this is for the US writers and our copyright system).

I have a background of working at the Library of Congress Acquisitions Division, which works hand in hand with the Copyright Division, the division right next door. Also, I know people who work in Copyright, who are more than happy to rant about the ins and out of the Copyright system when they are fresh off the phone or computer with yet another moron who tries to tell them How Copyright Works after making initial contact because of, you guessed it, a copyright problem they’re in. It’s informative.

I also have worked and been around the music industry, which is a vast and very fertile land of Hard Lessons in Copyright & Contracts. You learn very fast about Copyright when you’re ten weeks into an exhausting tour and discover that the label won’t pay you a cent for the song you made yet again because they owned it when you signed the dotted line of a contract you could barely understand years ago because you were a young person with a hope and a dream and that’s exactly what they preyed upon (one reason the music industry like young people? Way easier to manipulate, less likely to have access to a lawyer (or even know how to access one), and the more vulnerable, the better). It’s not fun to watch, that’s for sure. And it has happened plenty of times.

In other words, I can talk about this fairly well.

Don’t do the Poor Man Copyright. It doesn’t work for a long string of reasons.

But before we get to all of that, let’s have established this salient fact: When you make something, you automatically own it. You have automatic copyright the second that work becomes part of the real world, be it a poem, story, a drawing, a sculpture, etc etc. By the way, the work has to exist, it can’t be an idea you had floating around in your head. Can’t copyright an idea.

If someone cribbed your work and called it their own, you still can take them to court without a copyright registration but the burden of proof would be on you, not them. That means you would have to prove you indeed made this work and they stole it from you and not the other way around. If you’re the type to date things and/or use digital programs (which have metadata that can be pulled) and you keep lots of notes that built up to the creation of your work, you’re probably going to be fine. If that isn’t you, expect an uphill climb.

A copyright registration puts the burden of proof on the other person. That means they have to prove that the work is theirs and you’re lying. Again, if you have notes on your work and metadata, you don’t have much to worry about. Even if you didn’t, it’s still on them primarily to prove it’s their work.

A Poor Person Copyright (Let’s just make this gender-neutral because poverty and getting screwed over copyright-wise sure is) won’t protect you at all in Copyright court. Partly because when it is with the Copyright office, it’s an official record of what was created by who. Courts can check it, lawyers can check it, everyone who needs to check it for important purposes can check it. It cuts a lot of “he said, she said” very, very short. Poor Person Copyright doesn’t do that because, frankly, no one but the creator knows the work exists. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that does not help the courts, the lawyers (yours included and yours most definitely) and everyone else who could assist your case. It’s not an official record. You could submit it as evidence but a judge is just going to sigh and say this isn’t the same as an official copyright registration and will not be treated as such. They have no proof that you didn’t crib the work and mailed it to yourself and plus, what if you move? The address could be argued as invalid. What about your signature? How do they know you didn’t just steam the envelope seal open, sign it and then put it back in the envelope? What happens if it got lost in the mail? What if you lose it? A post date isn’t the same validity as a Copyright Registration date because that’s when you mailed it, not when you created it. You have to fill out more data on a copyright registration than you think that a Poor Person Copyright simply doesn’t cover. With a Poor Person Copyright, the courts kind of have to go off the honor system to believe you, which is something they plain won’t do. Plus, having a registration at the Copyright office is great for the courts to check if they think the both of you, both you and your copycat, are lying. (Yes, that does happen. Not often but it does.) The Copyright office is a neutral party and an objective place to check the facts, you’re not.

As of the time of this posting, it costs $45 to copyright a single written work (a poem, a story or a novel – you cannot bunch a slew of stand-alone short stories together and have them all copywritten as one. It has to be story by story). It can be done online and I recommend you file it only once the work is done and ready to be published. You don’t have to copyright the work right before you send it to an editor, especially since there are changes that plan to be made (you don’t have to file a new copyright if you make some typo corrections but if you add a new chapter, you need to re-file your work as a brand new work since that’s a big change). Editors are not as likely to yink your work as you may think because, frankly, the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze in real life. Plus, you should be able to trust whoever you work with. Research the person before you work with them, don’t just go off of “they have a good vibe”. If you’re submitting your work to short story markets, you are free to copyright but the chances someone at Lightspeed or Fiyah or Uncanny stealing your work is insanely low because they have their reputations to think about. None of them want to show up on Writer’s Beware for negative reasons. That would be an embarrassment and potential death knell to their publications. Why steal your work when a less-reputable publication could just screw you over with a nasty contract filled with awful terms and conditions, such as Webnovel or other digital writing platforms? That way, they can take your work and force you to make more of it if it becomes profitable while throwing you only pennies – or nothing at all. That is usually what happens. Then it doesn’t matter if you have a copyright registration or not, they’ll exploit you via your copyright/no-copyright status anyways.

Also, as an aside, do not make editors or anyone else sign an NDA to look at your work.

A) It is not that important. If bigger writers don’t do it, neither should you

B ) Unless you have the lawyers and court funding to back it up, it’s a pointless document that signifies someone is new and really ignorant of how things in publishing actually work

C) If your work needs an NDA, it’s a great way to chase off good editors and artists, and attract scammers. You might as well as write “I’m an easy mark, I have no idea what I’m doing” at the top of your document

Just put a copyright on your work when its about to be distributed to the public. After the edits are done, after the work is done, when everything is finished. That’s basically when you need your work to be sent to Copyright, when it is about to be distributed to the general public.

But don’t do a Poor Person Copyright, it’s entirely pointless in the eyes of the court and to anyone who can help defend your work. Just copyright it the standard way. They mail you a registration letter and you put that somewhere safe and treat it like the social security card of your copywritten work. I recommend getting a binder with clear protector sheets so you can store your registration letters and other important documents as they pertain to your creative work as they would be distributed to the public.

Otherwise, be satisfied in the knowledge that you already own your copyright the second you created your work, even if it was a little silly ditty on the back of a restaurant napkin. Your cat is not going to steal your work and become famous and scammers would rather just bait money out of you directly by making you sign terrible slave-contracts and/or goad you into spending money for ridiculous lies such as “getting Hollywood to look at your book” or “buy a massive editorial, cover and promo package”.

Just don’t mail it to yourself. It proves nothing worthwhile.

Soap and Ink

I write with a fountain pen. That means I use fountain pen ink. This means that fountain pen ink gets on my hands and won’t come off.

I have a special inkwell for my pen so that I have minimal ink on my hands but still, some gets on there. I have worn disposable gloves when I work with filling the inkwell and/or swatching new ink and I see how stained my gloved hand gets with dots and blotches of color.

The average soaps do not remove ink stains from hands …

But I found one that does!

Angel Love Creations is a small, Black woman-owned and Black-made bath bomb maker who also makes shower fizzers, lip balms, body scrubs and soaps. Their other products are amazing, I have an entire box of their goods that I’ve bought over time but I want to talk about their soap. Because it is the only soap that removes stubborn fountain pen ink off my hands in a wash.

I was given a small tester cube of the “Naked” soap in my last purchase. I gave it a go one day because no soap was removing stubborn ink from my hands and lo and behold! That one did! It’s nicely fragranced, it is a sweet, oatmeal smell, works fast and leaves hands soft. I strongly recommend this soap if you work with fountain pen ink and you don’t want your hands covered in blotches.

I also told Love Angel Naturals this about their soaps and they appreciated it! If I have any spare time, I’ll let pen stores know also.

Omakesssssssssssss

I have put a modification on future copies of Dreamer and my upcoming debut dark fantasy novel, The Glassman. It’s a single page but here is a glimpse of it:

That’s right! The middle section is now what you will see at the end of all copies, digital and print, of Dreamer and The Glassman. (The audio editions will also eventually have them. Maybe.)

Dreamer and The Glassman have a tie-in duology that, for the longest time, I called “The Omake” – especially when it was one book. At first, I only got the idea for the original Omake and then recently, while hand-editing The Omake while listening to Muse (especially “Take a Bow” and “Supremacy” and double, triple, quadruple so for “Prelude” and “Survival” joined together) and, boom, the second omake, which I called “The Glassman 3” or “GsM 3” for short, just fell outta me. And lo, I accidentally made a series.

Dreamer and The Glassman are legacy stories, meaning they had been in my head for about 20 years and both works were written a long time ago. The omakes were written roughly last year (the first one) and an extremely short while ago (the second one).

What can I say? I’m creative and with very fertile ideas.

What happens? The lovely people of Dreamer and The Glassman get to meet each other because music! And dreams. And, of course, intrigue into abilities. More details will blip up here later. Just know that they exist. And that the duology is called officially: Glass & Dreams, book 1 and 2.

An excerpt of the first omake actually does exist but only on a certain, particular digital copy of The Glassman. It is a special ebook copy I have called “The P.O.D. Edition” because only two people involved with P.O.D. either directly (Sonny, lead vocalist of the band) or indirectly (Selah, longtime friend of mine who I met through being a fan of the band) has it. I have my reasons to as why I did it like that. But it is out there. Both omakes are solid novels, longer than both Dreamer and The Glassman. The omakes are also comparatively lighter dark fantasy works than Dreamer and The Glassman but still, they have their dark moments.

What does this mean for you?

Right now, just awareness.

Both Dreamer and The Glassman are written in a way right now that you can read one book without the other. While Dreamer has an easter egg reference to The Glassman (Hint: Derrick remarks of a particular bassist getting a particular injury), there is no reference at all to Dreamer in The Glassman. That’s on purpose. So, you’re free to read one book or the other. If you want to read both, you can read Dreamer first and The Glassman second if you want to go in my designated order or The Glassman first and Dreamer second if you want to go in chronological order of events.

Right now, at the time of me writing this, The Glassman is not out yet – but! It is apparently available for pre-order on several sites currently and there is still an excerpt on the front page of this site where you can read of the first 30+ pages.

But! To read the dual omakes, you will have to read both Dreamer and The Glassman or you shall be lost af about what is going on at all in the omakes. No way around it.

Now, why are they coming out so far into the future?

Short answer: Money and time.

Long answer: Both omakes are still, at the time of this writing, in some stage of hand-edit, either soon to be on their first round (Omake 2/GsM 3) or their second round (Omake 1). Even my editor hasn’t seen the books. Heck, this may be their first time also learning about them (Hi! You have work coming … eventually.) I want to give myself enough time to let that all happen naturally instead of force it out, where things will definitely go sideways if I go that route. In addition, I plan to go to South Korea* in 2025 for three months so I can write Soaring, a fantasy, alternative history novel series I have been planning since 2014. I may Kickstarter the trip or something but either way, I need time and finance carved out for that. I already have the ink (Kaweco’s Midnight Blue) and the first journals carved out for it – from writing the second Omake, it showed me I may need to stitch more journals than I originally anticipated. Way more. – so that part is mostly taken care of. Not to mention, I tend to plan book releases well in advance. After The Glassman is supposed to be The Harlequin, a horror novel, and Butterfly, a fantasy novel. I have no idea how my time is going to be after S. Korea/Soaring so I want to give myself some gap of time for that. And the audio narration for the omakes is still up in the air. The current gameplan is to ask back both narrators for Dreamer and The Glassman to work together but given all the cultural content packed into both books (for example, I would have to expect both my narrators to handle Spanish, Chinese and Korean languages and countless accents from Chicano to British), I may ask for more narrators in addition. Still up in the air. That’s gonna be hella expensive. And very time-intensive.

Oh, and both omakes are coming out within months of each other, due to the canon timing in the books.

This is what I have so far. I’m sure more details will arise but for now, this is what I have to report.

Oh, and that the omakes will be Queer AF. Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike, I’ll probably be in the running for a Lambda Award lol. Fun fact: some promo copies of The Glassman, just like with Dreamer, have queer editions of their stickers. Why? Read Dreamer and The Glassman and you’ll find out.

*I have my reasons for S. Korea, besides the fact I can speak and understand the language well enough to get around, go to the market and stay in my apartment. I plan to just sit in my apt day after day writing everyday until a book is done, take three to five days off in between books so my hand can recover, and do it all over again until all books are out of me and done. My friends in S. Korea have already stated they planned to kidnap me so to force me to have fun against my own will lol They’re both national natives of the nation and want me to do more than “Just sit in your apartment and write”. From what I understand, there’s already a beach trip slated for me because my birthday falls in one of the months of this trip.

Reveal, To Me: The Inspiration Behind “The Glassman”

I’m writing this because The Glassman is coming out – a work I am super excited for. Like Dreamer and other works, The Glassman has been boppling about in my head for about two decades (what I call “legacy stories” – stories that have been in my head for a really long period of time). And I want to talk about it.

Because it causes me cringe.

I love the story. I also want to talk about what inspired it.

Ok, so. The Glassman was a heavily (probably not heavily enough, I’ll get to that in a sec) de-fan fictionalized story I wrote as a teenager. I didn’t know it was a fan fic even tho it had all the basic rigors of a fan-fic (that’s another tale for another day). Enter: the music/band fandom fan fics!

Now you see where the cringe is coming in? Oh, not quite.

Now, I loved reading them! My favorite, hands down, was “The Linkins”, which was about Linkin Park. (Gonna throw this in here, I religiously avoided any sultry fan fic/lemons. Blech. Dear gods no. If you wrote, for example, Bennoda (Don’t look it up) I avoided your work like death itself). Fun fact, I still have the printed copies I made of “The Linkins” and I still read them from time to time. Why? Because they’re funny and amazing! No, it wasn’t a perfect book nor was it Great Expectations but, hey, it gives my brain good fuzzies. Any writing is great if it really resonates, in a way. It wasn’t perfect but it didn’t need to be. The story was told in script style and I have zero idea who wrote it. It had fantasy, it had sci-fi – I loved “Amphibiman” – it had quirky, it had silliness. It had the familiar faces and personalities of the men of Linkin Park. Everything I wanted.

Linkin Park is a favorite band of mine. But my most favorite band is Payable On Death, P.O.D., for short.

We’re not at cringetown yet. Still on the highway, watching the exit signs and deer go by.

I wrote small P.O.D. fan fics. I still have them, all in hand-written form. I had a small blog on Xanga (the digital old heads are probably feeling their years now) called “P.O.D. Weekly”, where I would post these short stories, a new one every week. Very few read them and of those few, they were most likely all from the P.O.D. fanbase, called The Warriors.

I kind of fell out of posting because one short story a week was (and is!) tough. Plus, of the remaining works never posted, sat The Glassman. I didn’t want to post that one because even as a 15 year old, I could tell it was a dark work. What if P.O.D. themselves ever came across it? So, it sat and sat in my blue spiralbound for years and years, never even typed. I was that terrified of anyone coming across it. Completely honest, one of my biggest fears back then was Sonny Sandoval, lead vocalist of P.O.D., coming across this journal and reading it. It’s still vivid in my head and still gives me the heebie jeebies.

But what’s the likelihood? I’m in Maryland, they’re in California. The journal never was carried anywhere except to school and home. I never even have gone to a rock concert before at this time, let alone a P.O.D. show, and I definitely had enough sense to not bring it and to not ever mention the existence of this book or story to them ever. Ever.

And no, we are not at the Cringe Stop. Still heading to it.

But I loved the story. What inspired The Glassman was the visuals of the band’s music video for The Matrix “Sleeping Awake” and the song itself.

Song still slaps.

Visuals still slaps.

No one will ever convince me different.

That is all.

Another fun fact, this very music vid was the introduction of me to the existence of the band back at Artscape 2002. I was a fan at first sight, let me tell you. Black bassist doing a cool thing. Check. Cool guy with long dreads doing metaphysical things. Check. Awesome sound. Check. At least 75% of the band is visually Not White. Check. The Matrix. Check. Sci-Fi stuff occurring around PoC. Check. I’m easy to please, what can I say?

I learned everything I could about the band – yep, even when I was 15, I was heavy into researching whatever I like. Like, NSA-level – I think I even finagled a school laptop to get around its firewall so I could watch the “Sleeping Awake” music video again and again. And this was when videos were hard to find. No one-stop shop like now for videos, you had to do a little digging. The videos were grainy, but totally worth it. I think it was on a Yahoo article.

I still remember how I got caught after hours by my Physics teacher using the laptop for non-educational purposes. He found me because he was also using a laptop for non-educational purposes (checking travel tickets, perusing NPR, music sites, the like). Since he caught me doing something I had no business doing and I caught him doing something he had no business doing … we both agreed that this moment never happened and as long as neither one of us looked at 18+ stuff, that’s exactly how it’s gonna stay.

So that all (sans getting caught by my Physics teacher during the Moment That Did Not Happen) is what fueled the story The Glassman. In the blue wire spiralbound journal, it was about 30+ handwritten pages.

I also once lost the journal. I was so desperate to find it. Those were some nerve-wracking days I still remember. I also remember how I came in early (pre-7:30, before even most of the teachers showed up) and found it sitting plainly on a table in the Philosophy classroom. I screamed when I saw it, I was so happy! A teacher bumbled into the room because A ) They heard a scream B ) it’s not even 7:30, hardly anyone should be in the building C ) It’s Baltimore and they heard a young person scream and it’s not even 7:30 AM, there’s probably a dead body involved. When they saw that no one was dead and I was overcome with joy, they sleepily said “yep, saw it under a chair and wondered who it belonged to. I figured they would have picked it up if they saw it. Keep better track of your things.”

I have kept the journal close to me ever since.

And it sat, for years and years, untouched. I didn’t end the story, it was pretty dark but I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to post it anywhere – what if P.O.D. saw?

So there the journal sat.

And eventually, I thought, I’m gonna complete The Glassman. I simply loved the plot too much to just let it go. But! Gotta de-fan fictionalize it first. That means make new characters and places wherever I could. Easy for me, I love making characters and ideas, so much fun.

I didn’t want to change the setting, I liked that it was set in Chula Vista. I didn’t mind changing the races a little, Afro-Chicano culture is neat! (No one in P.O.D. is strictly Afro-Latin. The band is basically Chicano and Black but not with that hyper-exact combination).  I just wanted to make enough changes that The Band That Should Not Read This would not, well, read this. Don’t forget, I still have that mental image of a horribly aghast and disturbed Sonny dancing in my head. I tried to make Amos and Mars not related (in real life, Sonny and drummer Wuv are cousins) but then the story fell apart fast so I kept them related. Either way, I re-wrote the story to what it is today. Some parts I made less bloody & dark (I’m a horror writer, gimme a break1) – want to know how bloody/dark some of the parts got? I was able to move a line and behavior to Miserix, quite a few bits to Kinetics and The Harlequin – especially The Harlequin. Yeap. (as of posting, Miserix and The Harlequin aren’t out yet buuuut it will. Eventually. 2024, bare minimum) – and I reworked everything since also I was an adult and thus could construct a better story. I took bits from the band itself but then reworked them to something newer and more mine. Isaiah is a unique one because P.O.D. had two guitarists in their history, so I just took a super cherry-picked pinch from both, poured in a massive sh*t ton of my own artistic creativity (*cough*made Isaiah bi, gave him silver hair, among other things*cough*). I thought Isaiah was a bit boring but then once I queered him up, he now is the lively guitarist character I know and love. I remember not really wanting to write with him much but once I made him bi, all went smoothly. No one in P.O.D. is any part LGBTQIA. They all rock solid zeros on the Kinsey scale, if not negative numbers. If I wanted queerness in alt-rock at that time, I’d have to find Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance (who I did, a lot. I will interpretative dance MCR’s entire discography, singing the entire time.)  and Against Me!, who is still amazing.

I tried to not worry about The Band That Should Not Read This because, again, they’re in California, I’m in Maryland. This work is still 100% handwritten. What is the likelihood that I would even meet them or even spend enough time with them long enough that they would know I existed outside of “another person who forked out money for our concert ticket”?

Turns out, very.

I not only met them.

I became friends with them.

Everyone, we are officially arriving at CringeTown.

So now, I’m sitting there, with the personal contacts of the band in my phone, just buuuuuuuuuuurning there. My stupefied brain being stupefied and plain stupid. And lo, The Glassman still exists.

My thought: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. I just won’t tell them. Literally bulletproof plan. They’re not really bookworms and I’m not really doing anything with the story. Say nothing. They’ll suspect not a thing. Not a single thing.

Trolololo. This was my mental game plan while I re-worked it, re-wrote it, typed it and then shopped it around.

At 12,000 words and with a straight Isaiah, The Glassman was rejected everywhere. I think just about every single time I sent it off – Fiyah, Giganotosaurus, Fireside, etc, etc – it would be kept for a long time and/or make it to the second round and then a “you did a great job, you have a unique take – but we don’t want it”. It got rejected at 12,000 words, it got rejected at 18,000 words. I always would get some version of “we nearly took it, hence why we held onto it for so long – but we ultimately decided we still didn’t want it”. That really just sucked a lot. Honestly, submitting your works to get rejected over and over again is just … so freakin’ pointless, it feels like at this point. Especially when the hole of acceptance is already so pin-prick small for Black writers. It a great way to genuinely dissuade people out of writing.

While working more on the story, I got first readers/beta readers, who told me they liked the story but felt like it could be longer. The readers wanted to see the men of Lumination Rising to go on tour. They wanted to see more.

I usually tell folks when a story is done, it’s done. If they want a longer story, tough tomatoes!

But then, there I was sitting on P.O.D.’s tour bus one night, watching a movie, watching everyone be silly around me after a show, eventually sitting in the later quiet of the deepening night.

I realized there still was some story left for The Glassman. There’s always having a tour, a must for any musical act.2

And lo, thus came Part 2 of The Glassman: The Tour.

When I did the hand edits for The Glassman, it got bigger and bigger. Eventually, 18,000 became 43,000. More story, less straight guitarist, simply better.

I shopped the novella (well, what I thought was a novella, turns out 43k is a novel) to Fireside. Nearly got accepted but fell short on the final round, as I mentioned prior. But it turned out, with Fireside dropping novella contracts without telling people and the massive blunder they did with having a White voice actor do a racist audio version of a Black author’s essay about Outkast, I basically dodged a bullet there.

The entire experience convinced me – among other experiences I had in trying to get my work picked up by others – that I should just put the book out myself. Everyone else is just going to jack it up, keep rejecting me, screw me over or some combo. It didn’t help that when I would show ppl The Glassman, they would say they loved it. But when I showed publishing people The Glassman, they would say in the end “we love it – but nope”.

Oh, right, The Band Who Should Not Read This. I still just went with the “Say nothing” route. I maaaaaaay have tried to mention a smol, v smol glimmer to Sonny, to, y’know, test the waters. His eyes glassed over and I could hear the sound of distant beach noises wafting out his ears as his mind drifted away so that’s a sorta … sign. I also was a nervous wreck so there’s that. He’s a rockstar, not a bookworm – that would be his kiddo, Pint-size3. (Well, Sonny does like books but he’s not the “I want to live in the library” type. You’re thinking of Gerard Way and everyone else in My Chemical Romance)

And now, we’re here. With The Glassman coming out officially. Finally. September 23, 2023 is the date.

Let me say, I am beyond stoked that The Glassman is coming out and all the work that was put into it. From coming up with the idea as a teen to keeping the story well into adulthood to working on it, adding only when necessary and because I felt so, to getting my editor on it, to having a cover made for it, to planning to getting it narrated by an Afro-Latino voice actor. I have been hyped for The Glassman since I started putting out my work myself.

Actually, fun fact: I’m actually using Wuv’s voice, the drummer of P.O.D., as a guide for who I want for a narrator. I find his voice really comforting.4

I worked really, really hard on the story. I still have all written versions of The Glassman: the version I wrote when I was 15 (and will never make it to the internet unless I’m famous and very dead, strictly for archival reasons), the version I wrote in my adulthood, and everything in between. I’m actually very proud of the story. I’m also proud of the omake that I made between The Glassman and Dreamer that I will talk about later when the time comes.5

How I thought of telling the band – since they are my friends and, welp, it doesn’t really make me sound like a great friend if I go the “hey, I wrote a book about you, published it and didn’t tell you about it!” route. For one, they may find that super sneaky. For two, I have a bunch of friends in the music industry, the last I want is that reputation. I don’t want to spend time with, say, Claudio of Coheed and Cambria and he ends it with, “Wow, you’re funny. Also, don’t write a book about me, kthxbye.”

I had no idea I was going to build friendships with people I heard on the radio and grew up idolizing when I was 15! What? I’m just as surprised and befuddled as you are.

So, telling the band. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. That’s a tricky one.

The thought would weigh on me whenever a new milestone for The Glassman would happen:

Finished the hand-written book – Are you gonna tell them? Nope, it’s just a hand written book.

Typed the hand-written book – Are you gonna tell them? Nope, it’s just a file on my computer.

Submitted it to the first publication – Are you gonna tell them? Nope, it’s probably gonna get rejected a lot

Re-worked the book – Are you gonna tell them? Nope, who knows when it’s coming out

Gave the work to my editor – Are you gonna tell them? Nah, no reason to, it’ll be eons before it shows up. I’ll do it later.

Gave the book a tentative slot date – Are you gonna tell them? That date is really far away. I’ll do it later.

Put the book into book format & e-book format – Are you gonna tell them? Ehhhh, I’ll do it later.

Submitted the book to Copyright – Are you gonna tell them? I probably should … but I’ll wait for the cover mock up to come out. I’ll do it later!

So, yeah. The visual of a mortified Sonny always dances in my head when I think of telling them. I even sometimes used to hyper-ventilate at the thought.

If some of you are thinking, “if it bugs you that much of them knowing, why put out the book?”, you’re not wrong. But I really like the story and want it to be shared. I just have to figure out how to break it to my friends that they were the source material. And since those friends have fame under their names, it doesn’t get easier to tell them – and there’s literally no suggestion I can find on the internet of what to do. Turns out, “telling your favorite music artist you developed a personal friendship with that you wrote a darkly themed book about them and it is soon to come out” is not a very common question on the internet. Not on StackExchange, not on Reddit, not on Quora. Odd.

I wanted to ask my other music friends … but then there’s the whole “hol’ up, you’re writing books about us?” thing that tends to stop the convo.6 It’s one thing when a fan writes a book based on you, there’s always going to be fuzzy-wuzzy facts and stuff. It’s another when you know that person personally. There comes the reasonable worry about how much of that fiction is indeed fiction. For my music friends, I don’t use personal tales as story fodder (I’m not creatively destitute, c’mon. I’m MultiMind, not Perez Hilton). Plus, that’s just, gah, more cringe than I can handle. I didn’t even listen to P.O.D.’s music when I wrote my book, The Glassman. I didn’t want personal memories starting to blip up when I should be focused on writing. Not because they’ll make it into the book but because walking down memory lane is distracting.  So, I have asked other, non-music-industry-adjacent friends … who all have given me unsure shrugs and “Y’know, only this happens to you.”

But I did it. I sent Sonny a long email (unfortunately, I am one chatty Cathy, especially to him. Please feel sorry for him.) the day before my birthday. I didn’t even say it was going to be my birthday the next day, I just blabbed how I felt and sent a digital copy of The Glassman – all the while telling him that he doesn’t have to read the work whatsoever. I also told him of all related works, such as the up-coming and finished omake(ssssss, there’s two lololololool)7. And that, again, he does not have to read them.

Not to mention, I am also obscenely Weird AF around him and about him. The book could get turned into a film and I’ll prolly say “There’s gonna be a movie based on the book. You don’t have to see it – but I would love for you to work on it as coordinator and I already have you and yours slated for premiere red-carpet tickets. But you don’t have to look at it whatsoever or do anything with anything at all. I also have a little Glassman sweater for your cat and dog”. I’m still working on my brain, everyone. Again, feel bad for him, lol. 

Pictured: My Personality

Turns out, he was quite fine with it. 15+ years of worry, concern and doubt, completely lifted. And it feels strange. Good strange but strange all the same. I also am glad I did it via text because I was a panicky mess the entire time. If I tried to do it in person, he probably would have thought I was trying to tell him that someone was dying through my hyper-ventilating and pacing. At least in text, I can read what I say and there’s no worried Manic Gerard Way laughter accompanying my words (that Sonny can hear).

Which is what I would have said if I wrote the email like a pro. He basically replied to me, “Is everything ok? I just got this” days later because he had zero idea what the hell I was going on about. Full on Lassie “What happened? Did little Timmy fall down the well?” level confused. He was very kind. I clarified the best my dumb brain could do, and then he went, “It’s fiction, it’s fine”.

How Sonny probably felt when he read my email

I saw him in person when P.O.D. was on tour. I always go to their local shows (because, favorite band and all that) but also to gauge his face upon subject of the book and hand him over a copy of Dreamer. He was cheerful. He hadn’t read The Glassman yet because he preferred physical books (easier on the eyes) but he was fine with the existence of the book. Everyone else in P.O.D. is happy for me (because I hella glossed over the subject of The Glassman and mainly went “Focus on pretty and current book I haz here” (I brought Dreamer)). This is, as of current, a good thing.

Thus, the band now knows about the book. I did indeed entertain the thought (a lot) of keeping my mouth shut to them about the book forever but the universe runs on irony and, I don’t know, perhaps Head from Korn would have suggested to Sonny, “Hey, man, there’s a book out you probably should read. It’s got, like, a dude in a band from Chula Vista who can control glass and stuff. Isn’t that where you’re from?” All Sonny would have to do is glance at the “About the Author” and see “Baltimore”, “cat”, “technology” and know exactly who wrote it. And then I probably would have a brand new text message or email that would make my 15 year old self die in abject horror. Even if it was a cheery selfie of him holding up the book and captioning it with “Look at what I got”. I appreciate his (possibly blind but very much appreciated) supportiveness ;_;

Hey, might as well get in front of the horse and grab it by the reins the best I can instead of getting dragged by it.

Oh, and The Glassman might have gotten rejected by everyone in traditional publishing but it got a MSAC creativity grant that paid me a lot more than a royalty check from any and everywhere I submitted it to ever could. I put that grant money to the cover of my book and the audio version as well as some promotions.

For my other musical buddies – there are no books about you guys (*cough*ThatIamwillingtocurrentlyadmitontheinternetabout*cough*) and I love you muches.

For everyone else – please get ready to pre-order my sci-fi/fantasy roman à clef Galax– oh wait, that’s an eons ways away! Sorry! Mix-ups!

For everyone else – please pre-order The Glassman! Coming out September 23, 2023! Read a sample from the Glassman here

or click the cover to pre-order

1Unless you’re from P.O.D., then please give me mercy ;_; I am of feeble emotion and you know it. Mercy pls.

2If you are in P.O.D., I totally wasn’t taking mental notes of everyone. Totes. I appreciate you all. :3

3 The kid’s name is not actual “Pint-size”, just my mental name for him. He’s sweet and youngest of three, who I basically mentally nickname as “Pint-size”, “mid-Pint”, and “big Pint”.

4 If from P.O.D. or the P.O.D. camp (or a general person) asking “Why not just ask Wuv to narrate since you know him and he literally has a character based off of him and you’re also using his voice as a sound compass?” … Bruh, it already took me a decade and a half to just let the band know the work exists. Nah. Also, Wuv isn’t a voice actor. If it were a plain non-fic work, sure, I would consider but in fiction there are character voices and inflection. And given some of the scenes – especially in the omake(ssss) following behind The Glassman – it’s a super sayan hell no. I’d never live it down, the cringe, the Cringe!

5 If you are from P.O.D., no need to read the omake(ssss). Nothing serious, just y’know. There are, uh,… did you know the internet has cat videos? They’re pretty cool. If you know anyone in P.O.D. personally – or Korn – don’t read it. (If in Korn, Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Nothing happens. 200+ pages of blank. Did you also know the internet has cat videos?)

6 If the book sells well: “I want a cut of the royalties!” If the book doesn’t sell well: “How dare you!”

7 Muse made more music that slapped, combined with Flyleaf, who has plenty of music that slaps, and another omake fell out of me. Oopsie-kadoopsie, I suppose

Lined Up – Reviews and the Frustration of it all

My upcoming book, The Glassman, is in front of reviewers – or will be shortly – both big and small. Pro reviewers mainly but a few smaller ones here and there.

It is quite the struggle.

1) First strike against me, I feel, is the fact that I’m indie. It does have a reputation of having terrible books (terrible covers, terrible editing, terrible storytelling, etc) so pretty much no one wants to touch your work because of that exact thing. If you’re not backed by a Big 5 (4? 3?), you’re pretty sunk. I have even pitched to BIPoC non-pro reviewers (book influencers) and I think only one or two bit. The rest did not, I contacted 100 total. For pro-reviewers, I feel like I have to sneak in my book among the traditionals. I feel like The Glassman can compete with those books but still, the second they know it’s indie, it’s out.

Hey, I tried hard to be traditionally published. What did they expect me to do, just not have my works come out and then they whinge about how there’s such limited diversity and won’t someone (that’s not them) make a change – oh, wait, that’s most likely the gameplan all along. The bottlenecking of BIPoC authors in traditional publishing and publishing in general isn’t by mistake, it’s by design. There’s no way, statistically speaking, that the vast majority of us Can’t Write.

At least The Glassman has made it into Locus’ Forthcoming edition so that’s a good thing, I hope.

Thus, there is that, I’m indie.

2) Then there’s the fact that my works are not White at all by any measure. I don’t waste my ink or my time trying to appeal to whiteness (I spend too much money on fountain pen ink for that dribble and bull. I’d be better off just winging my most expensive bottles against a random brick wall), I don’t bother with focusing on White readers – if any of them are going “Hey! That’s unfair! I want to be catered to!” a) actually, I’m unworking unfairness, you’re not that worried about focusing on diverse anything, that’s the actual unfair part b) go back to reading J.K. Rowlings and H.P. Lovecraft, they’re most likely your one and only speed for extremely obvious reasons – and I don’t focus on White readers because they’re frankly not important to me. They literally do not have representation problems, with the only exception of the fact that they have far too much of it while everyone else has so little and of that little are a bunch of nasty, inaccurate stereotypes.

I’m Black, I want to see Black people in fantastical elements. Not on drugs, not doing crime, not being the walking vessels of White Fear and chaos, there’s literally two billion of us on the planet and the best I’m “supposed” to see is a hood-trapped addict that listens to bad hip hop? That’s just completely stupid and super wrong and obscenely outdated. I like vintage but anything Jim Crow and revisioned blackface needs to stay in the past. Get out of the 17th century of race identity politics, it isn’t that interesting and every “genius” in that era was a literal monster of a human being. Putting a 21st century spin on it isn’t going to make it better at all. It’s still trash. I try to not have my works reflect that. There’s way more to the Black identity than extremely awful stereotypes invented and systemically solidified by people who hate us.

My ideal reader is some Black kid. If they’re not Black, they’re literally anything but White. The White reader is one I don’t care about much at all because why? Besides, White writers don’t care much about BIPoC readers or see them as totally invisible, ditto with White readers with BIPoC writers (and of the ones that do, a good chunk of them act as if they should get an award for doing the literal bare minimum, which implies that they aren’t reading diversely for the love of literature. It’s still a White-is-Supreme, Whiteness-Rules-The-World control thing.) It’s no secret that there’s a race problem in publishing but also in which books get reviewed. The Glassman, for example, is a book that is full of Black people, Afro-Chicanx people, Chicanx people but does not touch on: Racism, Police Brutality, Immigration, etc. It’s insanely possible to have an all-BIPoC work that doesn’t read like a bunch of Fox News and MSNBC talking points with fantastical elements thrown in.

Thus, there is that, my work doesn’t reflect Whiteness and does not want to.

3) Then there’s the fact that I’m not White. I have noticed that there are a lot of BIPoC books that are written by White people. Three I can think of are Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (never read it but I have threatened to rip it up in sheer frustration in a library because I asked for Black fantasy and this was what I got. I wanted Black fantasy by Black people, I’m tired of White people’s poor imaginations of the Black Fantastic. They can’t write it well 9 times out of 10. He’s in the 9 good and solid. They tried to give me Octavia Butler, I’m sick of “Racism as Fantastical Element” also. I demanded the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings of Black fantasy and they said it didn’t exist, which didn’t alleviate my teenage self), Cold Fire by Tamora Pierce (I own this book. I thought it was good but frankly, it sucks. She’s ok in writing Black characters but a Black person would have done it better), and Snowy Day by Jack Erza Keats (great book but it was disheartening to learn that the book was written by a White person – why did publishers think Black writers couldn’t pen the same? We’re also capable of thinking about our experiences that have nothing to do with prejudice and everything to do with enjoying a snowy day.)

There are a lot of what I call “sock-puppet books” – books that look diverse but are not written by the historically marginalized, particularly White folks – that fill the shelves, get publishing deals, etc, etc. There’s a reason trad publishers are willing to take on a book about Black people written by White folks (“Stowe books”, they can also be called, because Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom Cabin) but have to practically be cajoled into accepting Black books written by Black people – that are non-stereotypical and doesn’t focus on race issues. One reason is because if a White person is writing it, they know the BIPoC in the book will be exactly how they expect. The Black ones will be loud, harsh and murdered by cops or gangs, the Latin ones will be drug peddlers and English-adverse dangers that jump over the border “illegally” and with enough ease to worry both White conservatives and liberals, the Asian ones will be math robots that strain to be White but still manage to be the Other effortlessly, the indigenous ones will be full of drugs, misery and alcohol and stoke feelings of “Why won’t the injuns let us help them out their misery that they somehow put themselves in because we had nothing to do about that, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?” in White readers. Contrite crap like that. Sold loads of copies back when the idea of owning people as property was somehow considered okay (because the society then, which affects society now, was built by myopic, self-absorbed sociopaths that genuinely considered themselves good people and not walking terrors in need of a bullet) but gets complained about ad nauseam by readers of now. Especially BIPoC readers. But trad publishing still wants to keep publishing as White as possible.

Plus, It’s outrageous how little support BIPoC writers get, even the ones that eventually become household names. It’s outrageous how easy it is to not get published traditionally because your authentic viewpoint doesn’t match their racism and therefore they think you are wrong when really it is them. It’s total trash. But let some random White person come in with Anansi Boys: The Antsy Times, traditional publishing would hop on that fast. It’s just a bunch of phony sock puppet characters that hasn’t changed for centuries. And neither has traditional publishing.

Thus, there is that, I’m not White but who usually gets featured and reviewed (especially well-reviewed) is.

It shouldn’t be the case that it could be because I’m indie, I’m Black and that my stories are also that keeps me potentially shut out. Looking at Publisher Weekly’s track record, Library Journal’s track record and others, the math looks very much like I won’t get a look. In all fairness, I’m not much of a review person. If I see a book that is interesting, I look at the blurb, I check for any trigger warnings – I have trauma disorders so I’m in the crowd of people that need them – via Storygraph, Book Trigger Warning and [other book trigger warning site], and then I try to find an excerpt of it to read somewhere, usually on Evil Corp- I mean, Amazon. If I like it, I buy it on Google Books to put on my Pocketbook e-Reader. I usually don’t care about reviews because anyone can say anything nice about a potentially bad book. But they are a good way to spread word about a work. It is really difficult to slide up to bookstores and libraries one by one – and it gets frustrating when a bookstore shuts down after doing all that work – but at least having a work in a publication of some sort does some heavy lifting in reaching eyes of bookstores, libraries and readers. But seeking entry into these journals can also be for naught based on the reasoning above.

These are my current frustrations, especially since I do put a lot of work into making things as seamless as possible. I don’t want my works to come off looking stereotypically bad-cover-bad-format-bad-book indie. I’m doing all that I can except for pretending to be from a Big 5 (4? 3?).

Moar Ink

I said that only got two new inks in my last post about my new ink journal.

I lied!

I got more – and I also became very done with ink procurement because my brain said so.

Shortly after procuring Monarcha’s Cielo Cruel and Birmingham’s Tesla Coil, I got Colorverse’s a Cnc (Cancer zodiac) ink and three samples of golden non-shimmer inks so I can slate them for a future work title The Golden Boys, which I wanted to write in a golden ink but not a shimmer ink because I still worry about clogs even though it only really happened once.

The new (and – for now – final) inks:

Colorverse – aCnc (Cancer Zodiac)

Monteverde – Lion

Diamine – Honey Blast

Colorverse – Dan Hwang

These inks are light. Dan Hwang is a see-through ink, meaning I can see through it in my pen, which I always wanted. I also am glad I got samples instead of bottles this time because 1) bottles are pricy 2) the bottles of Monteverde’s Lion and Diamine’s Honey Blast were not pretty (I saw the 30ml bottles, bleh) 3) I do not see myself writing payloads of work in these colors, just one standalone book. In other words, I don’t need a big bottle of ink, one 3ml vial can fully charge my pen and I can write 60 journal pages on one full vial. I have 180 pages divided across 3 60-pg signatures (a signature is a bundle of folded paper) so 3 vials of 3ml ink should be enough to exhaust for the book without leaving me with a payload of ink behind for me to stare at and go “Now, what the heck am I going to do with all this?” Colorverse’s Cancer/aCnc is a very light ink, it’s basically Colorverse’s take on Ferris Wheel Press’ Dusk in Bloom. I probably could not tell the two inks apart if they were on the same page unless I staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaared at it for a while.

I mainly wanted to get a Colorverse bottle because their bottles are cute, they look like little, round birds. They are also hueg af, they’re almost in direct competition with Ferris Wheel Press’s orb bottles. Now I have a Colorverse bottle. The itch has been scratched and I am fine.

Tho! I am asking one of my friends in S. Korea to fence me a sample of Colorverse’s Butterfly Nebula. I don’t want the whole 65ml bottle, I already have two bottles of shimmer ink on hand, just a sample because I don’t use shimmer very much. (Currently, shimmer inks are relegated to me staring at them in adoration, signing books and very, very short stories if inspired to do so) Samples are great for things like this.

Also, I am glad I have an ultrasonic cleaner because Tesla Coil is a really stubborn ink to clean out if I’m using a super light ink behind it – I tested with Dan Hwang, there was Tesla Coil still in the pen hidden somewhere. I just used a drop of soap on the nib part in the water while it sat in the ultrasonic and that cleaned the Tesla Coil right out. I had no idea I ran out of pen flush, though. I thought I still had some laying around.

I think it is safe to say, I have more than enough ink to last me a while. Even if I give vials of it to friends (which I do, I like sending out fountain pen ink to writers of color I know who have fountain pens, especially if they are super new to having a fountain pen and learn that ink is almost never included with a new pen), I have payloads of ink left. Only certain inks of mine are slated for particular works but the rest are free range, whatever-is-in-my-spirit inks.

New Ink Journal!

I designed, printed and handstitched a new ink journal because one didn’t exist for the paper I use to write my novels and stories, Southworth.

Fun fact about the covers: they were supposed to go on a journal I stitched for Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance … but I lost them. Thus, he got different covers, gothic purple with little bats. I like these covers I made, they’re very bloody looking and have music all over it. Very Victorian and demented looking to me, I like it.

These are the inks I currently own. The newest additions are Monarcha’s Cielo Cruel (Cruel Sky) and Birmingham Ink’s Tesla Coil.

Also, my starting handwriting is craptacular because I am learning how to write with a glass pen. It really is great for ink swatching! It improves over time.

I use a tweezer to make the line and a cotton swab to fill in the box and make the dot. For me, the purpose of this journal is to help me create an effective one-stop-shop visual library of inks I own so I can pick one quickly for an upcoming work at a glance. The handbound journal can hold up to 60 swatches. I show all my ink pages on my instagram (@MultiMindPublishing) but here’s what I have:

Monarcha – Cielo Cruel

Ferris Wheel Press – Jelly Bean Blue

Ferris Wheel Press – Dusk in Bloom

Diamine – Midnight Hour

Dominant Industry – Periwinkle Blue

Diamine – Writer’s Blood

Kaweco – Midnight Blue

Kiwi Inks – Custom Ink

Ferris Wheel Press – Lady Rose

Ferris Wheel Press – Stroke of Midnight

Birmingham Pen Ink – Tesla Coil

Some inks are missing from the last journal and time I wrote about this. I gave those inks away, usually because I didn’t like the color but it would suit someone else better. I somewhat am missing my Colorverse’s Sirus (CMa) Star ink, though.

I may seem to own a lot of ink but I write a lot so it balances out. I’ve written about my ink in the past, where I also talk about how much I write. I personally think my works are getting longer, handwritten, because I write with a fountain pen for the simple fact that I have an extraordinarily abundant amount of ink. I don’t have to count my pens like I did with the Bic Atlantis and measure a story based on how many disposable pens I had. When my TWSBI fountain pen runs out, I just fill it up again in less than a minute and keep writing. I literally almost cannot run out of ink completely in the middle of a novel. If I maxed out a bottle – something I have yet to do – I would just pick up a different bottle of ink and keep writing. I’m not at all unfamiliar with having a work have two inks in it, something I do if I’m super eager to try several inks but don’t want to wait to produce several works.

This means I can create a steady stream of work. Plus, seeing an air gap in my bottles makes me happy because it shows me how much I wrote. I like the fact I am depleting my bottles via writing so much. My current game plan is to not re-buy bottles of exhausted ink. Some, I simply can’t because they aren’t sold anymore, such as the vast majority of my Ferris Wheel Press inks. Others because I plain don’t want to. I rather have one of each ink instead of a steady pile of bottles of the same exact color. Besides, by the time that bottle is fully depleted, the brand will have most likely made new colors that I will ooh and ahh over and eventually buy so it works out.

As I usually say at this point, I’ll eventually make a “Inks I Have Written Works In” page because I think it would be neat. Thing to do.

I haven’t bought as much ink this year in comparison to last year. That’s a good thing. Ink can be pricy when bought en masse. I already have a payload of inks for if I need to make a few novels so if no new colors or bottles really catch my eye, that’s fine. I know I do want to eventually:

Get more Colorverse, particularly Butterfly Nebula, CMa star and my zodiac, CancerGet a scented ink (in all honesty, only two brands really does scented, Herbin and DeAtramentis)Get a “see-through” ink, an ink that I can see through in my pen (but still shows up well on paper)Get a non-shimmer golden ink, for my work The Golden Boys

But for the most part, I’m mostly past my ink-buying kick. I casually check ink sites like Ferris Wheel Press and Jet Pens but for the most part, I’m a bit done because I’m fairly satisfied with the colors I have gotten. I would eventually like to venture more outside of blue but that’s for then, not now.