R.J. Blain's Blog, page 66

You’re Invited!

On May 16, 2016, I will be hosting a birthday party for myself–and for Shadowed Flame! The party will take place on facebook, and you’re invited! I have gathered a bunch of awesome autographed books for giving away. There will also be giveaways of ebooks and other goodies.

Facebook and all other social media sites are not responsible for anything regarding the giveaways. (Yep. Had to say it to stay on the right side of the terms and conditions of all those sites.)

Shadowed Flame tells the story of Matia, a colorblind woman with the ability to see the shadows of the human soul. Unfortunately, there’s a big difference between knowing the darkness of someone’s spirit and preventing them from acting on their malevolent desires.

Please enjoy this teaser from the beginning of the book!

For the third time since arriving to work two hours ago, Dad tripped over his own feet and smacked into the carpet of our office. The thump of him hitting the floor drowned out my sigh. I debated whether or not to get up and help him or stay at my desk and observe his efforts to restore his dignity. 

If my grandmother had been wise, she would have named him Hannah as a good luck charm against his clumsy nature. Instead, I was saddled with it as my middle name, a ward against harm and a wish to prevent the Evans family curse from falling on me.

In my opinion, I was far from graceful, but I had managed to avoid my father’s clumsy fate. It made sense to me, although those who didn’t know us well marveled at the fact I could walk in a straight line. If they found out I could cartwheel on a balance beam, they’d probably faint from shock.

Then again, few knew what I knew. I wasn’t my father’s daughter, and I doubted I would ever learn whose daughter I was.

“You could have some pity, Matia,” Dad complained, rolling onto his side and propping his chin in the palm of his hand. Blood oozed out of his nose and dripped down to the stubble of his day-old beard.

No matter how many times everyone told me blood was a vibrant hue, a rich crimson, my traitorous eyes told me another story. Blood was just another shade of gray, a charcoal over the paler slate of my dad’s skin. The carpet, like most of Dad’s clothes, came in at a shade somewhere between black, black, and yet another shade of black.

What sort of prizes am I giving away? So glad you asked.

Autographed 2nd Edition hardback of Terry Pratchett’s Men at Arms (UK Edition)
Autographed Trade Edition of A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie Czernada
Autographed Series Set of Diana Pharaoh Francis’s The Path Books (Out of Print.)
Autographed Mass Market Paperback of Paladin of Souls by Lois Bujold McMaster
Autographed Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop
Autographed Malus Domestica by SA Hunt
Autographed The Treemakers by Chrstina L. Rozelle
Autographed Future Tense by LJ Cohen
Autographed Ultraxenopia by Molly Phipps
Autographed The Thorn of Dentonhill by Marshall Ryan Maresca
Autographed Andromeda by Amy Bartelloni
… and more!

To win, you’ll need to hop on Facebook on May 16 and come play with us in the event. There will be fun and games and all sorts of discussions about books. This won’t be your standard giveaway, but that’s all I’m going to say.

Hope to see you there!

Productivity Tracking: When Organization Goes Bad

Last week, I did an experiment, and it was hell.

I’m not the type of person to be accused of being lazy; I’m prolific, but not because I write fast. Time and time again, I have told people I’m only prolific because I put a lot of work and effort into what I do. So, last week, I decided to track my productivity by hour.

What a pain in my ass. Seriously. I’m glad I did it, I even did it for three full days before I got a serious case of the ‘fuck its!’

Organization is important for me. So are to-do lists. I have a really crappy memory for things outside of my novels. My books consume the vast majority of my attention, and the rest dribbles out of my ears. I had a lot to do to prepare to release Pack Justice, so I needed to make sure I was getting everything done in a timely fashion. (I did succeed at this goal, so I was fantastically productive.)

However, this method was brutal on me. I already work hard–probably too hard–and all this method did was stress me out while making me work even harder. (That is not nearly a good of a thing as it sounds. I got a lot done, but… stress.)

But, since I did it, I thought I’d share what it looked like. I had to deal with interruptions all throughout, but this is a fairly good representation of my standard day, except I scatter it in different clumps rather than neat hour-by-hour representations.

Time
Type
Starting Words
Ending Words
Total Count


11:00 AM
Writing
54843
55692
849


12:00 PM
Writing
55692
56117
425


1:00 PM
Writing
56117
56456
339


2:00 PM
Writing
56456
57076
620


3:00 PM
Writing
57076
57404
328


4:00 PM
Writing
57404
57960
556


5:00 PM
3 CH Proofed





6:00 PM
3 CH Proofed





7:00 PM
4 CH Proofed





8:00 PM
1 CH edited





9:00 PM
Blog Post



















11:00 AM
Writing
57960
58569
609


12:00 PM
Writing
58569
59000
431


1:00 PM
Writing
59000
59391
391


2:00 PM
Writing
59391
59807
416


3:00 PM
Writing
59807
59990
183


4:00 PM
Writing
59990
60358
368


5:00 PM
Writing
60358
61001
643


6:00 PM
Cleaning/Writing
61001
61195
194


7:00 PM
1 CH Edited





8:00 PM
Cleaning/Writing
61195
61574
379


9:00 PM
Writing
61574
61923
349


10:00 PM
Writing
61923
62003
80
















11:00 AM
Writing
62003
62414
411


12:00 PM
3 CH Proofed





1:00 PM
Writing
62414
63223
809


2:00 PM
3 CH Proofed





3:00 PM
Break





4:00 PM
2 CH Proofed





5:00 PM
Writing
63223
63556
333


6:00 PM
3 CH Proofed





7:00 PM
Writing
63556
64145
589


8:00 PM
Writing
64145
64403
258


9:00 PM
Writing
64403
64836
433


10:00 PM
Writing
64836
65414
578


11:00 PM
Writing
65414
65697
283


12:00 AM
2 CH Proofed

 

My average word count is 434 per hour, although I think I’m more comfortable with saying it’s closer to 300 an hour, since I have these random bursts of good hours that skew things; they’re so much more the exception than the rule. I only get so much done because of the number of hours I work, not the speed I work. Realistically, I’m slow.

I’m okay with that. I’m slow, but I’m hard working, and at the end of the day, I do care about results. I push myself really hard because I want to make this career work. Unfortunately, when it comes to writing, the only person who is going to force me to make it work is me.

On deadline crunches, I’ll go back to hourly tracking, because it did force me to stay on the ball. For day-to-day life, however… I’ll stick to my regular to-do lists. Those don’t make me want to stab things.

Pack Justice is Now Available at Amazon!

Happy birthday, Pack Justice! Amazon worked its magic really fast, so Pack Justice is now available for purchase! I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I hope you all enjoy it. There will be an email about the release going out to my subscribers on Wednesday, which will include an exclusive short story.

Sean’s guardian angel is a feline, but his spirit cheetah prefers rival attorney, Andrea Morgan, over him. Trapped in a failing, dangerous marriage and stalked by an accomplice of one of the most dangerous criminals he’s ever prosecuted, Sean’s troubles are just beginning.

A vacation should have offered him a chance to save his relationship with his wife, Idette. Instead, Sean learns he isn’t the only one with a secret, and his discovery of his wife’s true nature should have killed him.

To ensure Sean’s survival, his cheetah strikes a bargain with a wolf. Faced with life-long enslavement to his wife, becoming an instrument of pack justice seems like the far better alternative.

Unfortunately, pack justice is as brutal as it is swift, and should Sean fail to put an end to Idette’s machinations, everything he values will be targeted and destroyed, including his chance to be with the one woman who might be able to help him salvage the ruins of his life.

From Chapter One…

Some men had guardian angels. I, unfortunately, had a cat, and he liked Andrea Morgan far more than he liked me.

My spirit cheetah lounged at Andrea’s feet, and when he noticed my attention on him, he showed me his sharp, pointy teeth. His desire to hunt heated my blood, which cooled as soon as his attention returned to the lawyer he adored.

In a way, I couldn’t blame him. Out of all the female attorneys I had faced in court, she was the one who got under my skin, the one who always managed to piss me off by the end of a trial, and the one who made me lose sleep wondering how I’d finally best her.

I had won the case, but as always when I faced her and proved the victor, it was bittersweet. Normally, there was nothing quite as satisfying as listening to a judge sentence a cop killer to life in prison without chance of parole. The ‘without parole’ part of the judgment caught me by surprise; after Miller v. Alabama, few judges were willing to go so far.

The death sentence was more likely, and California hadn’t executed anyone since 2006.

There would be appeals, and I’d probably have to face Andrea Morgan in court again, which robbed me of my satisfaction and gave me a less-than-healthy dose of anxiety. I forced myself to focus on the good; three women had justice and a chance to get on with their lives. Justice wouldn’t help Officer Andrews, but I thought he’d rest easier with the conviction.

Andrews had been one of the good guys.

Douglass Roberts would lose all future appeals. I’d see to that, even if I had to face Andrea in court again.

All I could do was hope a different defense attorney was assigned the case. Andrea was good—one of the best. But, if my guess was right, the case had been as hard on her as it had been on me. I glanced at the woman out of the corner of my eye.

No one wanted to defend a cop killer and rapist, not in such an open-and-shut case, but she had done her job well. She had fought hard for the man even though he didn’t deserve a single moment of the woman’s time. The way she scowled at her papers made me uneasy. Her blue eyes were dark and clouded, and I wondered if she believed in her client—or if she, like me, despised cop killers and rapists more than other criminals.

I had become an attorney to put men like Douglass Roberts behind bars.

You can buy Pack Justice at Amazon now!

Thanks for reading.

Final Day to Contribute to Indiegogo!

At the time of this posting, there are 16 hours left to contribute to my indiegogo campaign to help offset the costs for print publication of old and new Witch & Wolf novels. With all of your help and support, the campaign has reached the 55% mark, which is a huge deal!

There is less than $900 to go, and every penny helps.

The first new release featured in the campaign is Pack Justice. Should the campaign fully fund, in addition to adding another title to the book collection, I will be releasing the novel to contributors a little prior to its official release. (Expect 24-48 hours in advance of the book going on sale.)

Pack Justice is slated for release within the next two weeks!

To make things a little more exciting, one of the other new releases, Shadowed Flame, has a good chance of releasing by May or June. Same deal–if the campaign fully funds, contributors will be getting ARC versions of the book a little in advance of the official release.

The final awesome bit of news is that the new Witch & Wolf spinoff series, Balancing the Scales, will be releasing in the very near future–probably by the end of April! This series follows the story of an FBI agent named Karma, who has dedicated most of her life to rescuing kidnapped kids. She learns there is far more than meets the eye to FBI’s best agents, and she’s been shortlisted to join their ranks. What she doesn’t know will forever change her life and will wake the sleeping beast within.

I’m really excited for this book. It was super fun to write and challenged me in so many ways.

Then there’s Silver Bullet, which will be releasing around the end of the year. My cover artist will be working on that cover in the next few months, and I’m pretty eager to close the doors on the first Witch & Wolf series.

I’ve already begun work a new Witch & Wolf series, which follows the story of Declan, a rogue black ops specialist turned thief. Unlike Balancing the Scales and Nature of the Beast, Declan’s story occurs in the aftermath of Silver Bullet and includes many old faces, including Nicole, Richard, Desmond, and the Anderson twins. Unlike the original Witch & Wolf series, the new series will be from only one perspective, Declan’s.

Balancing the Scales and Nature of the Beast are also single perspective sets.

Anyway, back to the indiegogo campaign!

This is one of the biggest changes to the campaign: In addition to drawing, I also paint, and I have a lot of older paintings kicking around, including the two shown above. I will be distributing paintings into the signed book perk. (I am moving internationally within a few months and do not want to take extra items with me, so I thought this would be a nice inclusion.)

The signed book perk is $150, $170 after shipping.

Considering I typically try to sell one of my paintings for between $30-$60 USD, this is a pretty good bargain. There will be at least one painting per perk. If that wasn’t enough, any original sketches unclaimed from the $50 original coloring page perk will be added to the signed book perk. Add in the bookmark I’ll be drawing for each of the signed book perks, and this is a pretty good deal.

The featured perk is $30, and it includes the coloring book and all 7 of the Witch & Wolf novels in all major e-book formats. So, yes, this is a way for you to get legitimate epub versions of my Witch & Wolf novels.

Thanks for all your support, everyone!

Authors, Cooperation, and Competition.

(c) JordyR (Creative Commons – Flickr)

There are millions upon millions of books in the world and almost as many authors, published and unpublished. There are people like me, who share as much knowledge and information as possible. Others are far more competitive in nature, viewing other authors as enemies to be defeated.

Disclaimer: opinions ahead. I’m not prefacing every single one of my thoughts with a ‘in my opinion.’ Assume it’s there, since this is and opinion piece.

I hesitate to use the phrase ‘all authors’ here. Every last one of us has a different reason for writing. Some want money, some want fame, some want both, some want to tell stories and don’t care about the money, some do it on a dare and end up succeeding at a tough career, and some fall into it. No matter what the reason for writing and publishing books, like it or not, we’re all in it together.

It doesn’t matter if you’re traditionally published. It doesn’t matter if you’re self-published, either. Each and every one of us faces similar challenges. There are variations, of course. Traditionally published authors are facing shrinking advances, fewer contracts, and dying series, sacrifices to the machine that is the publishing industry. Self-published authors have to defy skepticism and doubt from the world. Traditionally published books have gone down in quality while self-published books are going up in quality, and the two are meeting in the middle.

In all honesty, it’s a bit of a blood bath, really. I spent a lot on a traditionally published book last year–almost twenty dollars–only to find it riddled with errors. (There was even html code in one chapter, which made my jaw drop.)

This was a book written by a critically acclaimed bestselling author in the fantasy genre. This was a huge release for the book’s publisher, and it had basic formatting errors in it.

It has gotten to the point a traditional publisher is not a guarantee of quality. The gatekeepers, as the industry calls the big publishers, have abandoned their posts in more ways than one, and it’s a sad thing.

Authors are paying the price for this in more ways than one. While the traditional publishers scramble to survive in a world where it’s getting easier and easier to publish a good-quality book, self-publishers are fighting to improve their reputation.

I’m definitely one of the ones trying to meet–or exceed–traditional publisher book quality. Am I there yet? In my opinion, no. I can do better, and I want to do better.

But, I’ve noticed a lot of posts where people are trying to reignite the feud between self-published and traditional published authors, and this is hurting all of us. We’re giving each other bad reputations.

At the end of the day, we’re writers. Some of us choose to bypass the gatekeepers. Maybe our books aren’t mainstream enough–mine certainly aren’t. I write edgier fiction. I write fiction for people like me, people who enjoy trying to puzzle things together, people who don’t want everything handed to them on a silver platter, people who want to explore a world by walking through it rather than reading through twenty pages of exposition at the beginning of the book.

I’m in a narrow audience, and I know it. I write more mainstream stories, but even my Witch & Wolf novels are not intended to be easy, casual reads. They’re meant to fit somewhere between thriller and mind fuck. I own this. I pay for it in reviews when readers just don’t want that sort of read.

I understand I will likely never be a bestselling author, not because of the quality of my work, but rather the nature of it. I don’t write erotica. My sex fades to black on the page. My stories aren’t for everyone–or even most people.

My successes and failures have absolutely no affect on any other author’s. That’s it. It doesn’t matter who my competition is. Why? Every reader has a different interest. Some will love my books, others will hate them. If I don’t do a good job of connecting with a reader, they will move to a different author. End of story. Another author’s work does not make it any easier or harder to forge a connection with a reader. That’s all on me.

If they don’t resonate with my books and writing, they don’t resonate. If they don’t resonate, they won’t buy my books.

It doesn’t matter if I self-publish, traditionally publish, dance naked under a blooming cherry tree in the spring, or yodel from a mountain top. If my writing doesn’t resonate with a reader, that is no one’s fault except my own.

Authors cooperate with each other all the time, and shockingly, everyone benefits. Some review books. Some host guest posts written by other authors. Some just share a post about a new book release. There are lots of ways authors help each other, even if it’s listening when the going gets tough

Competition is natural; I’m competitive by nature, but I’m not competing with other authors in the fiction world. I am competing with myself. I want to do better than I did last month. Some months I fail. Some months I do better.

I could compete with authors who have more sales than me, but I don’t see the point. It’s hurtful to me and to my intended target. It doesn’t help either one of us out. It doesn’t help sales. It doesn’t help me connect with readers.

I will say what authors screaming at each other does: it hurts us all. When we get up in arms because we don’t like what this person did, we all look bad.

Authors together are far more effective than authors divided. There are bad people out there. There are authors who are just bad people, who just want to make money, and who don’t actually care about books.

Fuck those people.

I’m of the firm belief there is one person an author should be concerned with: their next reader.

In-fighting doesn’t help us connect with readers. Competition can be a great motivator, but it’s a bad thing, too. My performance is relevant to one person: me.

Don’t judge yourself based on what I’ve accomplished. My books aren’t yours. My experiences aren’t yours. My audience probably isn’t yours, neither… and that’s okay.

Sharing knowledge, sharing resources, and sharing experiences helps us all grow. Competition can help us grow, too, but competitive cooperation is where the real money is at. If you’re trying to write a better book, the readers benefit. You benefit. Everyone benefits.

If your competition is also trying to write a better book, the bar moves ever upwards.

Authors showcasing good books can help them float to the top among all the competition… but if you alienate those authors who could help lift you up, all you’re doing is hurting yourself.

Those authors will go on to help someone else, and all you’ve done is lost yourself an opportunity. Being a writer is a lot like crossing a bridge. Other authors are often readers, and if you burn your bridges with them, all you’re doing is burning your audience.

Consider that the next time you take aim at your fellow author, no matter how their books came to the market.

Four Days Left to Contribute to Witch & Wolf Print Editions & Coloring Book campaign!

There are four days left to contribute to my indiegogo campaign to help bring my Witch & Wolf novels back into print–and into print for books releasing this year.

The ebook edition of Pack Justice will be releasing in a few weeks. Karma, a new Witch & Wolf spinoff series, releases within the next month or two. Shadowed Flame will also be releasing in the next few months, and Silver Bullet will be out by the end of the year!

If the campaign fully funds, all contributors receiving a digital perk will also receive a copy of Karma.

The following links should take you directly to the payment page for that perk type. Use THIS link if you want to look over the campaign.

I’ll be adding this as a campaign update after I’m done this post, but, if the original coloring pages aren’t claimed, I will be distributing them among those who are taking the signed books. (Other art may also be included with this perk, at my discretion.) I will also be adding digital copies of all books to the signed and unsigned book perks.



Thanks so much for your support and happy Easter!

$1 USD

Collection of 5 Coloring Pages

Contributors will receive my thanks and a digital copy of five coloring pages drawn and inked by RJ Blain.

$10 USD

Digital Coloring Book

You will receive a complete copy of the digital coloring book. All images are drawn and inked by RJ Blain, the author of the Witch & Wolf series. Minimum of 50 pages of various sizes and difficulty.
Estimated delivery: July 2016

$17 USD

New Novels & Coloring Book

Contributors of this perk will receive ebook copies of Pack Justice, Shadowed Flame, and Silver Bullet as well as a digital copy of the coloring book, drawn and inked by RJ Blain. Novels will be sent to contributors as they are released.

$20 USD

Coloring Book & 4 E-Books

This perk includes a full copy of the digital coloring book (min 50 images, all drawn and inked by RJ Blain) and a copy of the following e-books in epub, mobi, and PDF formats: Witch & Wolf Books 1-3 (Inquisitor, Winter Wolf, and Blood Diamond) and Beneath a Blood Moon.
Estimated delivery: July 2016




$30 USD



Coloring Book & 7 E-Books

This perk includes a digital copy of the coloring book (drawn and inked by RJ Blain) including a minimum of 50 images and copies of the following books: Witch & Wolf Books 1-4 (Inquisitor, Winter Wolf, Blood Diamond, and Silver Bullet) and 3 Standalone Witch & Wolf Novels (Shadowed Flame, Pack Justice, and Beneath a Blood Moon.) Unreleased Titles (Silver Bullet, Shadowed Flame, and Pack Justice) will be delivered on the book’s release date.

Estimated delivery: December 2016

$50 USD + Shipping

Original Coloring Page

This perk includes one original coloring page (drawn and inked by RJ Blain), a copy of the digital coloring book collection (minimum 50 images drawn and inked by RJ Blain), and e-book copies of the following books: Inquisitor, Winter Wolf, Blood Diamond, Silver Bullet, Beneath a Blood Moon, Pack Justice, and Silver Bullet in e-pub, mobi, and PDF formats. Shipping is $5 for this perk (totaling $55 for this perk level.) Unreleased titles will be fulfilled upon the novel’s release.

Estimated delivery: December 2016

Ships to: Canada, United States

 

$60 USD + Shipping

Unsigned Print Editions

This perk includes an unsigned print copy of the following titles: Witch & Wolf Books 1-3 (omnibus), Silver Bullet, Beneath a Blood Moon, Shadowed Flame, Pack Justice. Books will be shipped as they are made available. $15 for shipping will be added to this perk level for a total of $75. Books are priced at $12 a piece, which is approximately $3 cheaper per book when sold at full price. Retail prices will vary. This perk includes a copy of the digital coloring book. US addresses only.

1 out of 20 claimed

Ships to: Canada, United States

$75 USD + Shipping

Pick Your Page

Contributors of this perk will be given a list of themes they can choose from for a coloring page. These will be included in the main digital coloring book set. The contributor will receive the original page (drawn and inked by RJ Blain.) In addition, the contributor will receive 7 W&W e-books (Inquisitor, Winter Wolf, Blood Diamond, Silver Bullet, Pack Justice, Shadowed Flame, and Beneath a Blood Moon) in epub, mobi, and PDF formats. Unreleased titles will be delivered as available.

0 out of 5 claimed

Estimated delivery: August 2016

Ships to: Canada, United States

$150 USD + Shipping

Signed Print Editions

This perk includes signed copies of Witch & Wolf Books 1-3 (All in one Inquisitor, Winter Wolf, and Blood Diamond), Silver Bullet, Beneath a Blood Moon, Pack Justice, and Shadowed Flame. The contributor will receive a exclusive coloring page in bookmark sized, drawn & inked by RJ Blain, which isn’t available in the digital coloring book. Contributors will also receive a copy of the digital coloring book. Books will be shipped as a complete set. $20 additional for shipping. ($170 total)

2 out of 10 claimed

Ships to: Canada, United States

 

Beneath a Blood Moon – Free March 24-25, 2016

Beneath a Blood Moon is free today and tomorrow (March 24-25, 2016) for those who haven’t had a chance to grab a copy of it yet.

Sara’s life turns upside down when someone leaves her a funerary urn, black roses, and death threats on her doorstep. Fearing her work as a stripper and showgirl has put her in the sights of a demented stalker, she turns to her best friend and fellow dancer for help.

Instead of a safe haven, all Sara finds is betrayal. Hunted by creatures she once believed were stories meant to frighten children, she is given a choice: become one of them, or die.

Forced to share her skin with a voracious carnivore and driven by instincts and desires too strong to resist, Sara must adapt to the changes in her life or be destroyed by them. Finding a mate is her wolf’s top priority.

If she doesn’t want to become another prostitute in a city full of them, Sara must learn to control the beast within. With a hungry wolf to feed and an empty bank account, selling herself to the highest bidder may be the only way she has to prevent becoming a monster driven to eat anything—or anyone—unfortunate enough to cross her path.

Beneath a Blood Moon is an urban fantasy thriller with a side dish of romance. (No explicit sex, but plenty of violence.)

Hint: One of my other books is free today, too!

Side Note: If you sign up for my news letter, you can find out when older titles will be available as a free download. I often will run a promotion when a new book is releasing, especially if it’s later in a series.

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Changes to Mailing List / Newsletter

I don’t talk about things like my newsletter often. It’s a new project, and one I plan on using more in the upcoming months. (I know some of you are already on my newsletter, but I haven’t actually used it yet, I know! I’ve been a very bad girl.)

I typically use my blog as my primary platform. I’ll still be using my blog a lot, but my newsletter is where the real fun will be found.

In each newsletter, I will be doing a digest of my favorite blog posts, my new releases, and a short story or novella. The fiction will be exclusive to the newsletter for a while. It could be a couple of months, could be a year, could be forever. If I get a collection of newsletter fiction I really like, I’ll publish it as an anthology. Otherwise, it’ll remain only in newsletter format. I’m still hashing out how I want to handle delivering the short story/novella.

So, free fiction. If I’m sending you a newsletter, it’ll have a piece of my writing in it for you. Yeah, that’s my gimmick… and honestly, it’s the only thing I could think of to make me actually want to make a newsletter.

I hate marketing. Most of you probably know that. Marketing doesn’t let me do what I love doing most: write. So, when I was trying to figure out what I liked, it boiled down to my love of writing and reading.

My newsletter will reflect that. If the story is short enough for posting directly into the email, I will. Otherwise, it will be a password-protected blog post, with the address and password in the newsletter. I still have details to hash out, but that’s the gist of it.

I may also include dates for when I do free promotions of my novels to the newsletter, so there’s a chance to get free goodies, too.

So, if you want to follow what’s going on with me and get infrequent emails about new releases with a short story, sign up for my newsletter. :3

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The Illusion of Success

Success is a fluid, relative thing. Many Americans are taught that hard work pays off, but time and time again, people who work hard never get that elusive ‘American Dream’ sold to us as children. Some of us keep working hard, determined to beat the odds. Others give up, accepting their lot in life. A lot of us fall somewhere in between. I’m not saying that’s right, wrong, or a mix of the two. It is what it is. Take that as you will.

I’m a prolific writer. When I first started out, my ceiling was maybe 50,000 words a year. Maybe. If the stars aligned, life went perfect, and nothing ever went wrong. Once upon a time, writing was one of those things I did if everything was just right for writing. Yes, I was also one of those people who called myself a writer when I wasn’t writing all that much, too.

It took me more than a million words before I started getting decent at writing. Far more than a million words. It’s a shifting target, being ‘decent’ at anything. Where is the benchmark for being a decent, a good, or even a great writer?

There isn’t one, honestly. At least, I don’t believe there is. There are financially successful authors. There are authors with a rabid fanbase despite their work being less than… literary.

Some people hate these stories. Some people love these stories. There’s no such thing as the perfect author. I have a total love affair with an author who views spelling as optional. Their spelling… quirks… drive me absolutely apeshit batty, but I love their stories. (Yeah, this is a problem for me. A really big problem for me. Yet here I am, reading all of their stuffs because I love their stories.)

Writing and reading are relative.

I’ve talked about how I’ve worked at trying to make novel writing a successful career for myself. I’ve talked about my shelf of shame, projects I’ve never completed, and projects in the works. I’m going to talk about it again. I’m not feeling great today (cold, allergies, and some sort of blah) and going back over where I’ve been often helps remind me about where I want to go.

I prescribe to the work hard to get what you want thing. Success is a moving target. Am I one of those financially awesome authors who can afford to buy a new car every year? No. Will I ever be? Probably not. I don’t even make minimum wage yet. Yet, however, is the keyword.

Once upon a time, my goal for success was $500 a year. Then it became $1,000. Then it became $5,000. Now it’s $10,000. When I hit $10,000 earned in a year, it’ll become $15,000. From there, $20,000, $30,000, and so on.

Yeah, I’m one of those people.

For my first exhibit, I’d like to introduce you to the Shelf of Shame. These are projects I view as so absolutely terrible I won’t show them to anyone. I have gathered them from the graveyard of my writing folder, put them all together in a scrivener, and use them to remind myself how much better of an author I’ve become over the years.

There are one to seven different files under each character name, where I struggled to find a story for these characters, failed, got up, and tried again.

Some of these are original Witch & Wolf projects that were so bad I abandoned them altogether–conceptualized or written before Inquisitor. (Winter Wolf actually predated Inquisitor in horrible, horrible forms several years prior to me writing Inquisitor.)

This picture shows how many words I’ve committed to the graveyard that is my Shelf of Shame. This represents almost a decade of effort, quantified down to 526,555 words of failure.

Failure, like everything else, is often relative to the person failing. These are words I’ll never use, but they serve one very important purpose:

They taught me how to write. They are the evidence I struggled, I learned, and I wanted to write bad enough I kept trying.

That is a success in so many different ways. I’ve named the file my Shelf of Shame, but each one of these stories is a trophy, too. They’re the blood, sweat, and tears earned from making the effort to make myself a writer.

Yes, I’m aware of the camp that abides by the basics of a writer is a person who writes, no matter how infrequent the words. I don’t want to be that sort of writer.

I want to be a writer who has a viable career entertaining others and telling stories people love. I can’t do that if I’m not writing all the time. (Some will disagree on that, too. We can disagree. It’s not like my personal opinion on my own writing habits at all hurts or helps you.)

Enter when I decided I really, truly wanted to be an author. I made a new scrivener project for my RJ Blain books, and I’ve gathered all the drafts, all the effort that went into the books, and I put them all in one place.

Since The Eye of God, I have written 1,372,275 words of fiction. Some are discarded rough drafts/revision editions. Most are my actual books. This excludes the words written by hand, too. That probably adds an additional 400-500,000 words–probably more, actually.

I do a lot of my drafting straight to computer nowadays, although I use pen and paper for basic outlining. Part of me doesn’t like that change. I still handwrite certain projects for the love of handwriting, but most of my work is done on my laptop.

Blatant self-promotion time: You can check out my books by hopping over to amazon here. If you want to get your paws on my art or preorder copies of a bunch of unreleased titles, check out my indiegogo. (It ends April 1, 2016, and features coloring books, signed and unsigned print editions, and digital books of upcoming titles.)

If the campaign funds, I’m tossing in KARMA to anyone getting a digital perk, which is basically all perks. KARMA is the first book of a new W&W series. Yeah, that’s right. I’m working on a new W&W series. Two, actually. PACK JUSTICE got out of control and became a book one, too.

(Yes, Silver Bullet is coming, and yes, it is a part of the indiegogo.)

Since it’s been a while since I’ve showcased covers for upcoming titles, here’s a sneak peek of what’s in the works:

PACK JUSTICE will be the next release, with KARMA and SHADOWED FLAME on its heels shortly after. New Me is up to a lot of shenanigans, too. Yeah, that’s a link. Yeah, you can click it. New Me writes sci-fi / fantasy dystopian that’s, frankly, completely ridiculous and bizarre. She gets really fancy covers, too. Yeah, those covers below. I love writing these books because I get to escape from the real world for a while and enter one where I’m totally allowed to be batshit crazy.

I’m hoping to have The Chameleon and the Hound out in the next few months, but we’ll see.

The Dawn of Dae cover tends to get people riled up because it shares pose similarities to a Divergent’s movie poster. It cracks me up, because A: I don’t watch tv or movies, and I legally purchased the license for the art. (You can’t copyright a pose, for starters.) B: I needed a young female model with an older looking man overlooking a cityscape for the book.

You have no idea how hard it is to find a young woman with an older man in a city scape.

Anyway, That’s New Me, and she writes really crazy but fun shit.

New Me has a long way to go, but she’s worked up 194,385 words of fiction excluding the progress I’ve made on The Chameleon and the Hound.

So, how is my situation the illusion of success? In so many ways, I’ve far surpassed my hopes for my writing career. I’m a member of the SFWA. I’ve connected with some stellar fans. I get to write each and every day.

But, I’m not where I want to be yet. I want to be financially successful. I want to have a fanbase who loves my books so much they’re chomping at the bit to get more books. I want to be a better writer.

Since I’ve started writing, I have written 2,093,215 words of fiction, and I still feel like I’m at the very beginning of my adventure. I have published ten full-length novels. (One being a compilation of five volumes.

Speaking of which, SA Hunt did a cover for the Tales of the Winter Wolf books, and I really like it! He’s got a very different style compared to many other cover artists, and he was really easy to work with plus very affordable, so if you need an artist and you have budget constraints, send him a message. He might be able to help you out.

I like how this cover stands out compared to the new cover work I’m having done for the more traditional Witch & Wolf novels. It sets the scene for werewolf stories, has an interesting vibe, and is eye-catching. These covers are really new, so hopefully they’ll work well.

I like them, and at the end of the day, I’m happy with that.

Anyway, back to my original train of thought. With over 2 million words of fiction behind me, I want to say I’m chasing my personal dream as hard as I can. Am I successful?

Many people would say no. I don’t have financial stability. I don’t have a huge fanbase. I don’t have a lot of things, but I do have one thing that puts me far ahead of the game.

I’m happy with what I’m doing. It’s hard work, but I wouldn’t exchange it for guaranteed wealth, and that means a lot.

Here’s to the next 2 million words.

Book Review Rampage

I’ve done a lot of talking about the books I have written but very little about the books I’ve read lately. So, here’s a book review rampage. Each review will be my basic thoughts on the book, whether or not I liked it, and so on. This post covers a lot of books, so sit down, grab a drink, and come rampage with me as i talk books, books, books, and even more books.

If there was any doubt about the nature of this post…

Gloves are off, bitches! Let’s fucking talk about books.

Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews

4*. Really liked this one. It was a fucking hoot. It’s about an innkeeper, Dina, who runs a magical inn with a single guest. When all the shit happens at her front door, Dina must choose between an innkeepers neutrality or watching her neighbors get what-the-flying-fuck eaten by fucking alien monsters. This is a damned good romp of a science fiction and fantasy hybrid novel, and I had fun with it.

Only reason it didn’t get 5* was because it took me longer than I liked to really get behind Dina. Sean, the werewolf with a marking problem, was the character who kept me reading for the first while. Enjoyed the book a lot.

Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews

ELEVENTY BILLION STARS. I liked Clean Sweep, but Sweep in Peace was so much better. There was just nothing I disliked about this book. It was like this book was written with my interests and taste in mind. I just loved it. I unreasonably loved this book. It built on everything in Clean Sweep and made it so much better. Everything fit together so well for me in this book, and I couldn’t put it down, and I love when a book does that to me.

Yeah. I’m totally biased. So fucking what?

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

No one ever is surprised this is in the book review rampage, right? If you’re surprised, well… you shouldn’t be. This is definitely my favorite Mercy Thompson novel, and if there wasn’t another Mercy novel, I could probably live with this being the last one. Fooorrtttunnnaatteellllyyyyy, I really doubt this is the last fucking one. Hope not. There’s still loose ends, and I’d like them to be not loose ends any more!

If you like Mercy, just get this book already. That said, there were a few spots where I could tell the book had been rushed to get done on time, but I loved it despite its flaws!

Metric Fuckton of Shelly Laurenston Books

I’m not even sure how to begin reviewing all these books. I guess I’ll do it by series, mostly in order. This is going to take a while!

The Pride Series

The Mane Event actually includes two stories. The main shifters are lions in this one, and they’re fun. These are paranormal romances, and they definitely include content for fucking adults. Literally.

Hey, I have a diverse set of reading interests, okay? If you don’t like sex in your fucking books, don’t read these fucking books, there is a lot of fucking in them. Deal with it. The Mane Event was my second introduction to Shelly Laurenston, and I enjoyed it enough I’ve read the entire series.

Beast Behaving Badly and Bite Me are probably my two favorite books of the series, although The Mane Squeeze and Bear Meets Girl are close contenders. There are nine books in the Pride Series. Despite the name of the series, this series includes a wide variety of shifters from fucking honey badgers (Bite Me) to hybrids. The series includes a lot of hybrids. Werewolves are common fodder, although there are loads of cats and bears and other animals.

The Magnus Pack

If you’re looking for wolves, Magnus Pack has them–and tigers, too. The third book in the set, Here, Kitty, Kitty, was actually my first encounter with Shelly Laurenston, and I found the book both hilarious and sexy. Good combination.

Now, for my one major complaint with almost all of these books–kindle formatting was terrible. There were no breaks between scenes, which made reading a bit frustrating at times. That said, I still enjoyed these books a lot.

Let’s talk about some books I hate for a few minutes. I’ve ranted about these on New Me’s blog, but I thought you’d fucking appreciate my intense level of hatred for these bloody books. Refuse piles. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and my opinion of these books is rather shitty.

A Billionaire Ex (Novel) (BBW Billionaire Romance) by Alexia Austen

This book was riddled with errors, and ultimately, I returned it for a refund. My goddamned fucking refund virginity was stolen by this fucking piece of shit novel. I hate that I returned a book for refund because it was just that fucking goddamned terrible. ARRRGGHHHHHH.

We hates it, precious.

Billionaire Romance: Swept Off Her Feet (Bad Boy Romance, Alpha Male Romance, Pregnancy Romance) by Kathleen Hope

The following message is why I stopped reading this book… before I even started reading it.

Before You Get Started Reading

>> CLICK HERE<<

I have a VERY important message that you MUST READ!

I promise you its not spam and I’m not trying to sell you anything!

>> CLICK HERE NOW<<

And yes, it included the grammar error in the notice.

From the ‘Piss Off Mother Fucker’ Department: I am a reader. I owe no author any fucking goddamned thing, thank you. I don’t have to read anything your write. I read because I want to, and the instant you dare fucking tell me I must read your fucking message, you have condemned yourself to a cesspool topped in rotten zombie bits.

Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on.

 

From the “I gave up on these books” department…

 

Here’s a selection of titles I just couldn’t get into. Either the writing was subpar, the characters didn’t work for well with me, or the books just sucked. Sometimes I just couldn’t get into them.

Zane by Liv Bennett
Pleasure by Lucia Jordan: I just didn’t like it all that much. Nothing necessarily wrong with it. Cliffhanger, and not even a good one.
Dazzled by Silver by Lacey Silks
That Night with my Boss by H & J.S. Cooper
Wall Street by Leia Castle: Cliffhanger prologue, incomplete story.
Bought and Paid for: The Billionaire’s Girlfriend by Lara Hunter: Just couldn’t get into this one.
My Billionaire Boss Made Me His Dog by Taylor James: This is the sort of book that gives contemporary romance and erotica a bad name.
Collide – The secret Life of Trystan Scott (#1) by H.M. Ward: This book bored the fucking hell out of me and now I’m surely going to heaven.
Searching for Moore by Julie Richman: I enjoy romances that fit certain themes, and the guy lead is scum. He has a wife and family, and he throws them away for a fling from high school over twenty years ago. I really dislike plot devices like this.

Expect more Book Review Rampages from me. With random cursing, because twatwaffling douchecanoes.