An Update Of Sorts. Warning: All over the place.

I know, I know. I use this thing so sporadically, and so much has happened since the last time I updated this thing. So, what was it, the 19th of July? Since then, One Two Three, Salvation came out to two wonderful five star reviews. You can read them here and here. Thanks so much to Cat and Nanee for saying such kind words about my novel. It means a lot to me :)

That brings me to my next bit of news. I signed a contract for the next in the series, Drawing By Heart, and it's set for release on November 23rd. Now, some of you might remember this as one of the three novels I was working on for NaNoWriMo this year, which makes this even more special for me. I love this particular story and it keeps the suspense and mystery going more than I'd expected.

What I really came here to show off, so to speak, is the beautiful new cover I have for Drawing By Heart. It was done by a different cover artist this time, which had me a little bit apprehensive, but it came out beautifully. I wish I'd been able to keep one of the models from the other cover, but the model for Kay is absolutely fucking perfect and I can't wait to show it to you! (image redacted)

Isn't it beautiful?

That being said, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo again this year, as I always do, but I'm going in without a single damn idea as to what I'm going to write. It'll probably hit me a couple days in or something. I hope to see some of you doing the same thing, and look forward to sharing word counts and sprints like we did last year.

One more thing. Mrs Condit reviewed One Two Three, Shatter for her retro reads, and gave it 5 stars as well. You can read that review here and she also nominated me for Author of the Month. I didn't win, I was up against some stiff competition, but she did give a nifty little nominee badge I can display right here:

OKAY, I think this entry is 'all over the place' enough that I should probably end it here before it goes off in a completely different direction. Hopefully I'll start using this more, especially as Drawing By Heart comes out, but I said that about One Two Three, Salvation too, didn't I?

Til next time!
~Joey

Day 25: First Day Of Winning

I've officially won this year, and with not a bad word count, if I do say so myself! This is great, considering before this, I'd been in a complete slump writing-wise. I hadn't written anything all summer because I'd been at home with my parents and hadn't had any sort of inspiration around me-- except about eight thousand words of a WIP zombie-apocalypse story that I plan to revisit sometime soon-- and then in November something just clicked and I haven't been able to stop writing since! It's liberating, it really is.

The biggest issue I'm going to end up having is the fact that I now have so many WIPs and I also have so many finished novels that need a good, thorough second-draft editing, and with so many different ideas for new stories in my head, it's hard to commit myself to doing a hardcore edit of the things I've already written. This is something I've always had a bit of trouble with, though, so I'm not too surprised.

Anyway, that's my winner's bar for this year's NaNo! I'm very excited about it and proud.

The Next Big Thing BlogHop

The Next Big Thing is a series of questions on our work-in-progress, at the end of these questions I shall then give you links to other participants of the Blog Hop, who are due to answer their questions by the 28th November, so don't forget to check them out!

I was tagged by Samantha Kay.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

1. What is the working title of your book? I have three right now. One's Drawing By Heart, then its sequel Fire and Oxygen and finally a suspense thriller called Gallagher's Torment.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? Well, Drawing By Heart and Fire and Oxygen are sequels to One Two Three, Shatter and the sequel to that in consideration right now, One Two Three, Salvation. Gallagher's Torment came out of a need to write something darker, more suspenseful and move away from the whole literary fiction/romance part of life.

3. What genre does your book fall under? Drawing By Heart is literary fiction/LGBT romance/coming of age, and Gallagher's is mystery/suspense/paranormal with a slight underlying romance.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I have the whole thing cast out in my head, haha. Some are musicians, others are actors. In Drawing By Heart, the main couple are Nick Matthews and Justin Chatwin and there are a literal ton of other cast characters but that could take up this whole thing! In Gallagher's Torment, the cast of characters are Jeremy 13th (Finnish musician), Elisha Cuthbert, Tyler Blackburn, Sierra Kusterbeck, Claire Holt, and James McAvoy.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Drawing By Heart: When he has to make a choice between the past and the present, what will Kay X do to protect the ones he loves?
Fire and Oxygen: When something drastic and terrifying happens to Kay to create conflict on his end, how will he and his boyfriend weather that storm?
Gallagher's Torment: Craig Gallagher's mother was a woman driven insane, but he's terrified going back to the house she nearly killed him in will unlock the same madness inside him.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Probably self-published. I don't have an agent.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Twelve days for Drawing By Heart. Six days to write Gallagher's Torment. I've been working on Fire and Oxygen for four days, and it's only in its infancy.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Oh, I have no idea, honestly. Maybe one of Scarlet Blackwell's novels.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? My muses. The characters themselves. My girlfriend.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? If you're already into Kaleb's world and Kay piqued your interest at the end, you'll want to see him grow up and become a man in his own right. If you like a hot couple, intense chemistry, and a solid love story weaved in with a coming-of-age tale of a young man who grew up in a home different than most people, you'll like Kay's trilogy. Also, if you like paranormal and ghost stories, you should check out Gallagher's Torment.

I don't actually have anyone to tag as of right now, but if you want to do it, you can! That's just how I roll.

Day 15: December? Did I Say December?

So, a couple posts ago, I said I would revisit Kay's third novel in December. It seems to me he was not very happy with the decision he made at the end of the second novel (I will refrain from explaining because I don't want spoilers for someone who might read it in the future) because he's got me writing novel number three, Fire and Oxygen.

For those of you who have been keeping track (just me? okay) this is the third novel I've begun working on this November-- not counting the three ideas that I went through before the month even started-- and I'm almost finished with Gallagher's Torment. This is a good thing, because a couple days ago, I got a job working as a server thirty hours a week so once that starts up and then school on top of it, I'm not gonna have as much time to write.

This series is just going above and beyond anything I expected. Kay's just a character I've connected with in a way that-- shockingly-- supersedes the connection that I've felt with Kaleb. I keep saying it's a family thing, and it probably is. Kay was raised by him, so I'm not surprised they have the same alluring quality to them and this insistent need to have their stories written. After Kay's done, I'm gonna end up writing Kaleb's dad's story. It's alive and growing!

These Xander boys sure have taken me on a hell of a rollercoaster so far. Wonder what else they'll throw at me. Back to writing to find out!

Day 11: One Down, One To Go

So, finally, I finished my first novel, Drawing By Heart. You say, finally? Really? It's been eleven days! I say, yes this is true, but I also got tackled by another plot that was ten times more challenging and interesting to write because it's been so long since I wrote a suspense novel. I wasn't sure I'd be able to go back to Kay's story once I'd started Craig's.

I'm happy to report that I have given Kay's second novel a very tentative ending that I will revisit in December, albeit it's open to a third book in his series, which shouldn't be surprising. He's a very complex little muse, isn't he? I have no idea where he's going to take me next.

In the meantime, I have Gallagher's Torment, in which Craig is slowly losing his mind. It's quite fun to go back to my roots of horror and suspense writing, and I've found that I missed writing that sort of thing immensely. I don't know why I stopped writing them, because I have such a passion for the weird and the macabre. I don't know where I ended up forgoing my instincts for the darkness in favor of trying to write one-dimensional romance stories.

At any rate, I'm glad to be getting back into this groove, and while I feel like this story isn't going to breach even 25k, I can't wait to see where it ends up. Craig is a very interesting character, and the supporting characters are all great too. They're making it difficult to choose who should end up being the victim of the madness. Oh well, I'll let Craig choose once he slips from reality.

So I ask before I go back to noveling: Has anyone else ever gone back to a genre after staying away from it for so long only to feel like you're being welcomed home?

Day 9: The Case Of The Switching Muses

All right, so I hit my 50k goal, as I said in my last blog post. The novel I've been writing is sitting at 62.5k right now. I decided to take a quick break from Kay's story, one that he's been pushing me to write since I started NaNoWriMo and I started on a mystery that's straddling the line between YA and horror, depending on the kinds of supernatural things come out of the woodwork. Here's the summary:

Craig Gallagher's mother is an urban legend for the antics that she displayed right before she was committed when he was young, and the story's about his journey to coming to terms with the trauma in his past. This includes going back to the dilapidated house that he'd grown up in on Halloween and facing the demons of the past. He has no idea what awaits him and what other horrors and traumas he might encounter inside the house when the door gets locked behind him and a few friends on Halloween night.

The thing is, since I started this story a day ago, I haven't been able to go back to Kay's story at all. I've got about 4k in on it so far. I thought I'd be able to balance them, but my muses are so demanding that one eclipses the other. What happened to my ability to write a few stories at once? Am I just getting old and now I can only work on one at a time?

This is a legitimate problem. I suppose I have time to finish Kay's story since I literally just submitted the first part of his story to my publisher and I won't get a response back for a few weeks, but I really wanted to get it finished. Oh well, muses are finicky like that.

At least this story's different, and that's exciting.

NaNo Day 7: Where Are You Now?

So, NaNoWriMo authors, we've been at this for seven days. Exactly one week. Where are you supposed to be? I think the word count is somewhere in the 11k range-- just checked, it's supposed to be 11,666-- but not me. Oh, no, of course not. I have persistent muses and too much time on my hands. So, you ask, where am I right now? What is my word count on the seventh day of November, when most are just hitting the 10k mark?

I just passed 58,000 words. You know why? Because my muses are slave drivers, that's why. Today, I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from writing-- if they let me, that is-- and spend some time doing other things.

I will say that this writing has been causing slight problems. I've been ignoring people I love and care about in favor of writing, and that's part of the reason I've been going slower than normal these past few days. My partner's doing this too, but she has school and homework, so her word count isn't as high as mine. I'm sure her writing is better than mine, though. She's such a talented author, and I hope one day people will be able to read her work as they can read mine: published.

I digress. Today is a day of rest, especially considering I've already written about 2k words today. I'm going to try and step away from the little-- okay, big-- world I've created and live in the real world for a while.

Wish me luck!

The Effects of Sprints

So this year for National Novel Writing Month, I am way over my word count especially for this just being the third day, and that mostly has to do with all the sprints I've been doing over at the Facebook NaNoWriMo page. I can't stress enough how amazing those are to just let go of any lingering trace of your inner editor and just let the words come to you. There's time for editing later and as both my editors will tell you, there have been a lot of editing needed on both of my published NaNo novels because I did just this. Admittedly, I should have done a better job editing myself the first time around, but they were great sports about it.

I've also met a bunch of great people over there. I'm not usually the most social guy, and in fact I'm a bit of a hermit and that sort of hurts my sales because I'm not the type to put myself out there, but this month I've been more involved with the word sprints and the discussions over there than I ever have been before. It shows in my word count, too, considering I'm almost halfway to 50k and it's only the third day. Sprinting is a brilliant thing if you're hung up on editing yourself or you just think you're not cut out for this. Just shut your editor off and write for fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes. However long the sprint is, you just write. It's an amazingly liberating experience.

This story has taken me on a rollercoaster and I'm not quite sure where it's going to end, but this set of characters does that to me. Kay and his friends have always told me to expect the unexpected-- hell, this story had me merging an entire other world from one of my other novels with this one to expand the amount of characters exponentially-- and that's what I love more than anything about it. I'm excited to introduce this other cast of characters, and that's my next step.

I look forward to what else they pull out of their hats for me to write. Now, I'm back to writing. Happy noveling!

The beginning of NaNoWriMo

So today is the first day of NaNoWriMo and I decided to change what novel I'm working on, and put Tempestuous Heart on the back-burner with about six other different novel ideas. I decided to write the third installment of the Xander Series since I just sent the publisher the second one for submission a few days ago. It doesn't have a title yet, but it will, I'm sure, by the end of this month.

This is the widget I have selected to put on here, so people know my progress and can tell if I'm slacking or not. Haha.

As you can see, today's been a good day writing-wise and I feel like this weekend will be just as prolific, because I plan on doing nothing but buckling down and writing, with lots of soda and junk food to keep me awake. I love this time of year, because it challenges me, and I do some of my best work for NaNo. Fun fact: Both Phoenix and One Two Three, Shatter started out as NaNoWriMo novels. That's probably why my poor editors had a slew of mistakes to correct even after I'd gone through it a couple times!

My food of choice right now is Runts and Rockstars, and my music of choice is old Get Scared, before they switched singers. They're a great inspiration for this novel. Originally it was called, tentatively, Best Kind Of Mess, and we'll see if that title sticks, but as of right now it's open for naming.

All right, I've probably eaten up my word count for the day in this blog post, so I'm going to go back to writing. Happy NaNoWriMo to all oter writers participating with me, and good luck!

National Novel Writing Month

So, I have done National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short) since 2008, and I've completed every year but once. I am going to embark on that goal once more, but this time I am going to be moving and working on top of it. The joys of being an indie writer!

I digress. I'm gonna talk a bit about the story I have in mind for this most prestigious event. It's called Tempestuous Heart, tentatively anyway. Since I've been re-reading both Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo, I've decided I want to write a historical fiction novel. Historical romance, to be more specific. Well, it might end up being romance. It might not. We'll have to see what kind of rollercoaster ride these characters take me on.

It's about two neighbors, both orphans adopted by English well-to-do families, and the way the differences in the way they grew up influence their relationship. One, Samuel, is a stickler for rules and adheres to society and the Catholic faith. The other, Thomas, is a wild child who would rather run in the fields and hunt than sit in a pew for church. The way they clash will, I'm sure, be a lot of fun to write.

I'm excited to begin it.