My sister's cat as a Bombchu from The Legend of Zelda.

Rough concept sketch for Kirven and Nusa, two Werelupe supporting characters from my Neopian Times stories. I recently completed a short story where they come into play again, and thought I might as well take the opportunity to play around with Werelupe character design a little.

I know the crossbow is probably not entirely accurate. Were this a more polished piece, I would have done more homework. It'll do for now.

Farewell to Lynwood

Suhel originated as a supporting character in Worth Searching For, and I had no plans for her beyond needing someone to be Isengrim's second-in-command and to fulfill her role in the plot. However, as I continued to write about the cast, I couldn't stop wondering about Suhel's past. In my headcanon, Werelupes usually happen as a result of normal Lupes going "feral", and I wanted to explore another case of that and give Suhel a bit of a different past than Isengrim, but one that still explains her attitude toward the outside world, and why she so highly values being a member of Isengrim's pack.

What I didn't anticipate was that this story would lead to further developments later down the road, but I'll have more to say about that when the time comes.

When revising this story for posting on the blog, I took the opportunity to greatly expand upon just what it was about Lynwood that made Suhel hate it so much, and her evolving relationship with Lexora. Working under the constraints of 4,000 words for a Neopian Times short story, I couldn't go into many details then.

For the record, Suhel has a Glaswegian accent, because I can get oddly specific about my characters.

From the moment Suhel Caradoc laid eyes on the Lynwood School for Girls, she knew she did not belong there.

The little Christmas-coloured Lupe poked out her snout from the window of her carriage, eyeing the grounds with distaste. The low-cut lawns stood behind signs saying “KEEP OFF THE GRASS”. The stately trees had been expertly trimmed to remove all low-hanging branches that might facilitate climbing. The school building itself was the most boring grey monolith Suhel had ever seen, as if not a single Neopoint of the construction budget had gone into trying to make it interesting or beautiful. At least Suhel’s parents’ house contained the expensive things they had bought to show off, but Lynwood seemed to scream dullness—or rather, to whisper it politely.

Suhel’s dark green ears drooped. Barring holidays, this was to be her home for the next seven years of her education, and she felt a pit of dread well up in her stomach.

 

I needed a new Facebook profile picture, and I can never really do things the normal way.

My niece wanted to know what her cat would look like as a dinosaur, so there you are. (Ear-tufts are purely hypothetical.)

 

Today I followed a painting tutorial on the Corel Painter YouTube channel. (And by "followed", I of course mean "observed the instructor's brushes and techniques and used them to create something entirely different".)

My painting is pretty rusty, but I feel like maybe this didn't turn out completely horribly. And I learned some very useful digital painting techniques so that's nice.

Create Your Own Adventure

This is definitely one of the less serious entries in my Neopets fanfic corpus, but I'm including it here because it just plain amuses me. I also think it's a good bit of character development for Hyren, lest anyone think he went soft after defecting from Virtupets to save two socially awkward children. :) (There is also a teeny, tiny bit of lore in here that comes into play in a future fic, but my main reason for including this one is that I just think it's funny.)

As for how it came about, well, one day I was feeling nostalgic and was looking at stuff about Neoadventures, a whole sub-segment of the Neopets website dedicated to allowing users to create their own choose-your-own stories. That got me thinking about how they might actually work in-universe. And then for some reason, my next thought was "what would happen if Hyren decided to write one". Maybe because he's chock-full of old war stories.

Hyren may allegedly play the straight man to the rest of his kooky family, but he is quite weird in his own special way. :)

Edits made to this fic from the version that got into the Neopian Times are just a few minor technical fixes. I think I'm getting better at this crazy writing thing!

I always suspected that my Grundo had a sadistic streak. Years of serving as a commander in Dr. Sloth’s galactic marine corps will probably do that to you. But my hunch was confirmed the day Hyren brought home an Adventure Generator.

I was sprawled on one of the library couches in our Neohome, reading, when the little blue guy walked in and spread a scroll of parchment across the table. He looked it up and down and nodded satisfactorily, and uncorked a bottle of ink.

Hyren prefers to let his swords do the talking, so his sudden interest in writing piqued my interest. “What are you doing?” I asked from behind my copy of Destruct-O-Match Basics—that fiendish avatar keeps eluding me.

“Making a Neoadventure,” he said, dipping his pen.

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s new.”

Wildsong

Yes, but do you have a Gnarfas backstory? :)

If you'll remember, Gnarfas makes an appearance in Worth Fighting For, and it got me to wondering just how he ended up with the Werelupes, anyhow (Neopian canon says nothing about it). I decided to combine these ponderings with my weighing in on whether or not Balthazar is a Werelupe. While there's nothing in canon that says he is, multiple Neopian Times authors have written him as a Werelupe, and I decided to go with a little bit of both for an answer. :)

This is the story where I firmly establish the idea that Lupes can turn into Werelupes by doing something called "letting in the wild", which basically makes them into a more bestial version of their species. In my headcanon, this was the original method by which Lupes became Werelupes, and once the Werelupe condition was discovered, it became the object of curses and the like. Thus, while many Werelupes are "natural" Werelupes who just went feral, it is also possible for a Lupe to become a Werelupe by magical means. 

It's established in later stories of mine that Kyrii can also let in the wild and become Werekyrii (i.e. Halloween Kyrii), and that other species, while unable to become full Were-pets, also have the ability to turn feral to a certain extent, explaining Lord Darigan's transformation into the Bat-Thing during the Battle for Meridell plot, as well as the condition of a certain Eyrie in one of my future stories.

Because my inspiration likes to surprise me like this, it turned out that in my headcanon, Gnarfas and Balthazar both have ties to the wild. I also mentioned in Worth Fighting For that Balthazar paid tribute to Isengrim during Isengrim's pack's time in the Haunted Woods, and I really wanted to write a story about them palling around in the Woods, and about the nature of their friendship. (Being a former villain himself, Isengrim has a lot of ties with other canon villains that I find fun to explore.)

Another big element introduced in this story was Isengrim's current, "correct" personality. As I have mentioned several times in previous blog posts about my Neopets writing, in the original version of Worth Searching For, I established a personality and character development for him that, after writing a few more stories with that personality, I realized just wasn't what I wanted for his character. It made him a rather unlikeable person in Worth Searching For, and also someone that I found I didn't enjoy writing.

So I decided his personality needed a major rehaul, and introduced my new take on the Werelupe King in this story, which worked well because I got to portray him among friends and as the protagonist the whole way through. This Isengrim is friendly, compassionate, generous, and deeply concerned with protecting and taking care of his friends and anyone he feels is in need of help. He is much more capable of being a caring, committed, reciprocal friend and family member to his owner and adoptive siblings. And I think he is a much more likable character--I certainly ended up enjoying writing him a whole lot more, and he ended up becoming an integral part of my core Neopets cast. So I'm really glad I decided to make the personality change, even if it necessitated drastically altering a few previous fics.

This story received a nomination for Best Descriptions in the 2016 fan-voted Neopian Times Awards, which I'm really grateful for. I still think it holds up extremely well six years later, and I only made a few minor edits - technical fixes and a few tweaks here and there to line up better with later headcanon - from the version that originally got into the Neopian Times.

Night in the Haunted Woods falls with swiftness upon its victims.

It is not as many stories say—the forest is not rife with yowling spooks and ghoulish spectres at every turn. It is not a scaled-up version of a Neopia Central home’s Halloween decorations, which brashly proclaim frightfulness in the most colourful of fashions.

The terror of the Haunted Woods is quieter, more cunning than that. It lies in wait, never fully asleep, a brooding heaviness of barely-heard echoes and strange feelings in the air that taunt the mind until the Woods decides to reveal its darkest secrets. Something is out there – perhaps many somethings – that makes even the bravest and hardiest Neopet return from the Woods forever shaken.

Unless they are a Werelupe—and then at one time it was home.

Unbreakable Bonds

After spending some time exploring Hyren's past, my thoughts turned to Blynn. I wanted to write something in her point of view for a change and see what was really going on in that kooky little head of hers. Turns out Blynn is a surprisingly deep person, and this story explains the nature of her relationship with her owner, and that of Neopets and owners in general (see: Isengrim's backstory). 

I also had a lot of fun coming up with my own unique interpretation of how creating a Neopet might work. On the website, Neopet creation is extremely nondescript, consisting of just checking boxes and filling out information. Other Neopian Times authors have put their own creative spin on the process over the years, and I wanted to do something kind of cosmic that really hammers home the powerful bond between a created Neopet and its creator.

Terra is inspired by my own experiences as a painfully shy and anxious teenager who had a hard time making friends. For people like that, it's especially important to have friends who unconditionally love you and take you as you are. Blynn is a goofball not just because it's her nature, but because as Terra's original bestie, Blynn has made it her life's mission to make Terra laugh. On Terra's end of things, she learns an important lesson here that friendships aren't supposed to be one-sided, and a true friend won't place all of the responsibility for the relationship on your shoulders.

The revisions I made to this story before putting it up here are mostly minor prose fixes. I did expand Terra's and Blynn's conversation at the park to better explain aspects of Terra's personality and her social struggles. I would have liked to have done this originally, but the story was pushing the 4,000-word limit for Neopian Times short stories, so rather than have to break it up into a two-parter, I opted to try to make it more concise. (Now that I'm no longer working with a word count limit, I can expand things as I see fit!)

Dedicated to all members of the Neopets Team, past and present, whose hard work and creative genius have made Neopia a safe haven and source of joy for so many. Thank you.

Even back in Year 4, Neopia Central was a busy place.

Bustling crowds of shoppers hurried from one store to the next, or stopped to eat, or unfolded that week’s copy of the Neopian Times to read the conclusion to their favourite series. All of them had a Neopet or several by their side, crowded around their owners with enthusiasm, admiration, and sometimes a good-natured snarky comment.

Amid the throng, a young human girl strode with purpose. She was a simple pale-skinned teen, with her long copper hair tied back and her blue eyes hidden shyly behind glasses. Certainly, she did not stand out among her fellow owners.

But one thing made her different.

She was alone.

Pixie Mallow

 

My dear boy Mallow being his usual charming self.

Never Again, Spiced Apple Pie, Chapter 3

 Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

A wriggling pink mass of space fungus splayed its tentacles into the control room, bowling over Hyren. He almost got sick right there, but he forced himself to keep his composure and complete the roll, springing back up to punch away a tentacle and wrestle several more.

“This is Engineering!” a female voice fizzed from behind Hyren. “How in the galaxy are you contacting us?”

“I managed to restore the network,” Dothan said. “We’re under space fungus infestation!”

“I know that!” the other voice snapped. “I’ve been trying to activate the repellent for half an hour now!”

Hyren tried to wrench the doors closed. It didn’t work, both because the dense fungus wouldn’t get out of the way, and because Hyren’s own stomach was still in upheaval. As he had to use more and more of his energy to control his digestive system, his strength had begun to give.

Never Again, Spiced Apple Pie, Chapter 2

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Hyren knew he at least couldn’t secure the station from here. Suppressing a moan, he moved for the door and it slid open to reveal a darkened, deserted hallway. If engineering wasn’t going to answer, he’d just have to go to them himself—after he collected his weapons and armour from his dormitory. Adrenaline would just have to help him ignore the nausea.

“I sure am glad I’m allergic to glowspice,” Dothan said.

Hyren froze and turned around. The ensign was trailing him like a hapless baby Nedler. “Just don’t get in my way,” Hyren said.

Their bare feet slapped on the floor as they made their way toward the lifts. They passed no one else in the silent corridors. It seemed as though everyone but Dothan had eaten the spiced apple pie. And with the station's’s network down, any nearby robot Petpets wouldn’t be of much assistance.

Hyren pushed the lift button, and in response got a red indicator light. He stared up at it, wishing it meant anything but a lift lockdown. Standing back, he contemplated prying the doors open with his bare hands and climbing up the cable. His stomach protested and he winced.

Never Again, Spiced Apple Pie, Chapter 1

I have this incurable problem where I come up with minor, incidental characters for stories, and then start wanting to know more about them. Virtupets officer Dothan Reebitz from Worth Fighting For was supposed to be little more than a connection between Hyren and Virtupets at a critical juncture in Hyren's character arc, and a personified reminder to Hyren of everything he grew to find distasteful about his position after his adventure with Terra and Blynn. Dothan also ended up helping save the day during the climax because I wanted to give him a little bit of follow-up. But it left me wondering how he was so familiar with Hyren and why Hyren didn't really seem reciprocal.

In addition - for those who have never played Neopets - the site's programming has an intentional quirk where you cannot feed a Neopet a food item that contains the same number of characters in its name as the pet does (much to the frustration of people going for the Gourmet Club high score). For the real (virtual?) Hyren, one of those items is Spiced Apple Pie, a space food from the Virtupets Space Station. I found this a little ironic, and I figured there was probably some sort of hilarious in-universe story behind why Hyren, a veteran space marine, refuses to touch spiced apple pie.

And you know those times when two initially separate concepts click together in your head and you realize they'd be awesome woven together into a plotline?

I enjoyed writing more about Hyren's time at Virtupets and as a mutant, and coming up with ways to effectively challenge a guy who's eight feet tall, a thousand pounds of muscle, commands his own entire branch of the military, and can beat anyone in a swordfight. Turns out Hyren is very susceptible to both food poisoning and emotional turmoil. :) This story also serves as a good lead-up to Worth Fighting For and explains why Hyren reacted the way he did in that story.

It's a testament to Hyren's toughness that he's able to do what he does in this story while also suffering from severe nausea. I experienced some chronic stomach issues for a few years before writing this story, so I guess part of what inspired it was knowing how it feels to have to function while constantly feeling sick to your stomach, and wanting to portray someone who has the willpower to do what needs to be done despite his own body fighting him.

As far as edits go, I didn't actually have to change much here. I think it was a pretty solid story to begin with, and it just needed a few minor technical fix-ups.

I should also mention that this story actually won a Neopian Times Award in 2016 for Favorite Protagonist (Hyren). The NTAs were (maybe they're still going?) annual awards given by members of the Neopets fan community for outstanding Neopian Times publications. I still feel deeply honored and grateful for that award. It was really satisfying to know that the stuff I was submitting to the Times was being enjoyed by others.

Fair warning, this story does contain a few mentions of throwing up, but I tried really really hard to keep it as non-graphic as possible.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Grundo’s Café was as busy as ever. The canteen on the recreation deck of the Virtupets Space Station held a myriad of Neopets unwrapping their rehydrated chicken dumplings and carefully nibbling their electric nachos. Wall-mounted screens showed the latest in news and entertainment from around the galaxy, including an interview with some Alien Aisha musicians and the latest strike on Sloth’s forces on some far-flung world.

“Order up!” Gargarox, the chef-proprietor, hollered. A light blinked on the overhang above the kitchen, and the mutant Grundo slid a tray of food to a waiting Stopngo 400. The squat robot Petpet extended its mechanical arms to receive the tray, stomping off with it to one of the tables in the expansive diner. Gargarox turned back to the food synthesisers and picked up another dish, lumbering over to the long counter surrounding the kitchen to serve a patron sitting there.

It was at this counter that Hyren the blue Grundo and his owner Terra were perched, enjoying lunch.

“I can never finish these milkyway shakes,” Terra said, swinging her legs as they dangled from her stool. The copper-haired human woman set down a cup still half-full of a glittering dark beverage. “They’re so good… but so filling. Somehow.” She slid the shake over to the Grundo. “Want the rest?”

Hyren looked up from his beef rouladen and smiled. “Sure.”

It had been a good stay on the Space Station with his family. Relaxing, with the occasional chaotic hijinks, and a healthy dose of snark mixed in. It was what made his family the best in the universe.

Great news! The revised edition of The Voyage of the Kaus Media is now available on Amazon! 

As I mentioned before, most of my edits were technical in nature, and I think the book reads a lot smoother now. I did include two substantial changes to the storyline, though: I altered Angela's actions right before the Battle of Viper's Pass to give her better character development, and I added something at the end of the Menket act of the plot to give that section more satisfying closure. Even though it's only been a few years since I wrote this book, I feel like I've learned so much more about writing since then!

If you haven't yet read VotKM, now's the perfect time to embark on a steampunk fantasy epic about a downtrodden girl who learns her destiny is to be a destroyer of nations... or is it? Can she finally find the courage and self-worth to say "no" and stick up for her own values before it's too late?

I wrote this book not only for people who love a good adventure, but for people like Angela who struggle to feel like they have a voice in a noisy world that doesn't seem to care much about who they are or what they need. You do have a voice, you are precious and important, and you can do incredible - even world-changing - things with your innate strengths and talents. The world needs you!

Comments disabled

Hello all,

In light of a recent rash of spambots, and the fact that this blog does not get many (legit) comments to begin with, I've gone ahead and disabled comments across the blog.

If you'd like to get a hold of me, please feel free to do so on Facebook, Instagram, or Goodreads.

And if you're enjoying my Neopets fanfiction, I have a surprise coming soon! :)

I forgot one last Kingdom Hearts Union χ player character design! (Also I just made up the Keyblade.)

I'd love a black coat in real life.

Author Thoughts: Marketing (or lack thereof)

As I'm between projects right now, I thought maybe I would take some time to discuss authorly topics that have been on my mind lately, in the hopes that what I have to say might help my fellow authors and aspiring authors. I'm sure my opinions won't be for everyone, but maybe they'll mean something to someone who really needs it. I've had some unusual experiences as a professional author, and maybe there are a few other folks like me out there who need to feel validated.

Today I want to talk about marketing, and why I don't do it. I used to try. Check the "opinions" tag for my series of blog posts about why it didn't work well for me. My miserable experiences with marketing also helped launch me on the path to discovering that not only was marketing not one of my strong suits, but I also just plain do not want to market my work. Some of what I have to say here may be repetitive of some of what I've said in those previous posts, but I feel that it's well worth reiterating.

(Please note that if you are an author who is finding fulfillment in marketing, this post is not meant to criticize how you run your career. This post is for those of us who do not have your skillset, find marketing a horrible experience, and wonder if there's any alternative for the modern independent author. So if you're sitting there reading this like "but marketing has done wonders for my books!" then probably this post isn't for you.)

(This post is also expressly not for people who concern themselves with making a living off of their books. I'm grateful to be in a position where I do not need to write for a living, so I don't have to pay attention to how much money my books are making. This post is for people who have the means to write for the sake of writing, but I'll talk a little bit more about that later.)

New feature! I realized that if you're reading my Neopets fanfiction on this blog, even though they're all collected under the "stories on the blog" tag, it can still get a bit messy as there are also unrelated stories in there, and they're all in reverse chronological order.

So, I created a dedicated page listing all of the Neopets fics currently on the blog! (This definitely isn't all of them--more are coming as I have the time and energy to revise them, create the necessary illustrations, and post them.)

You can access this page from the bottom of any Neopets fanfic blog post. I'm also working on getting it onto the sidebar for quick direct access. Now you can enjoy all of the fics from one central location, in the correct order! (Many of the fics skip around somewhat in canonical time as they cover characters' backstories and such, but I think they're best enjoyed and make the most sense in the order they were written.)

Even more Pokemon-ish thoughts

All right, look, I've got a more serious and writing-related blog post I've been composing off-and-on these past few weeks, but right now whenever I think too hard, I can feel my brain short-circuiting. So I thought I would at least not make this blog look totally dead, and also follow up on something I wrote a few months ago. I knowwwww, this is a professional author blog and not a game review blog, but I retain a keen interest in game development, and this is a specific topic that has piqued my interest lately.

Now that I've played both Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Legends: Arceus, I've had the chance to retrospect and re-analyze how I was feeling about both of them before they came out. And, well, in my opinion, my respective misgivings and excitement were well-placed.

Finally, some artwork! Uggghhh I'm still in "brain drain" mode you guys. But I did manage to put together some very rough concept sketches for one of the main characters of my next novel!

This is Wix, a fairy warrior who rides her corgi mount Kinnyfan into battle because in the mortal world, she's only about the height of a human hand. One blustery day, she shows up in Scarborough, England in a desperate attempt to stop the invasion of the mortal realm by the usurper fairy queen, who is trying to find the magical artifact that will allow fairies to regain their full size - and full magic power - in the mortal realm.

Wix finds some unlikely allies in a trio of siblings on holiday and a middle-aged fantasy author, and although she is deeply distrustful of humans, these quirky mortals may be Wix's only chance at finding the long-lost true fairy king and saving both their worlds.

When designing the fairies in this book, I wanted to focus on making them look distinctly non-human. They're not just people with wings, they're a totally different class of creature, and while some fairies approach looking human, others can look drastically different--the ones that are more monstrous or grotesque in form are called goblins. Wix is one of the more human-looking fair folk, but on the quest to find the fairy king, the protagonists will also run into some highly unusual fairies, including quite possibly the ugliest thing to ever exist.

 

I'm very pleased to announce that my revision of The Voyage of the Kaus Media is done! I actually ended up whacking off about 10,000 words, so I wanted to talk a little bit about what's changed this time around.

Most of my edits are strictly prose-related. The book came out in 2019, and it turns out I've actually improved as an author since then (go figure). I'm not trying to be OCD about revising my work, but when I re-read something and just start cringing, I know I need to take action. I want my books to be the absolute best they can be, and I would feel ashamed of offering something for sale that wasn't the highest quality I can manage.

One of the big things I did with this revision is to take out a lot of Angela's inner monologue. When I was revising the manuscript the first time around, I tried to be extra conscientious of making sure the reader constantly knew what Angela was thinking and feeling about everything. Turns out, not only is that not actually strictly necessary, but in reading the novel again, I felt that all of this discussing her thoughts and feelings was really bogging down the pacing for me. Plus, there were numerous times when it just became repetitive to the point of redundancy--do we really need to be reminded in every chapter that Angela misses her family, is grateful for her friends, etc.?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I got rid of all the inner monologue. But there is definitely such a thing as too much of it. Angela is a complex character who undergoes a great deal of personal growth over the course of the plot, so there are definitely times when I needed to discuss what was going on in her head. But the rest of the time, I can let her dialogue and her actions do the talking for her, and trust that the reader can fill in the blanks. Plus, I think it helps that I made sure to really establish at the beginning of the book what kind of person she is and what her background is, so that her actions and reactions are not as enigmatic to the reader.

Another thing I did was carefully reexamine my use of dialogue tags, and remove them when necessary. It's my rule of thumb that if a paragraph starts talking about one character, and doesn't mention any other characters, I generally don't need a dialogue tag in that paragraph; it's understood that everything in the paragraph is pertaining to that character. So that probably got rid of about 7,000 words right there.

For the most part, the story is exactly the same; I did slightly alter some tidbits here and there, but it was mostly for increased plot clarity. The plot did get one major alteration (mild spoilers ahead): during the battle at Viper's Pass, in the previous version, Captain Saixaphas asked Angela to stay on the command bridge because her powers might be useful in the battle. In this new version, Saixaphas wants her to go back to her cabin, but Angela insists on staying in case she's needed. I really wanted to hammer home just how much she changed after her experiences in Elrath, how it became the turning point for her being more proactive and really believing she could make a difference.

I've handed the manuscript over to my editor, and hopefully very soon it'll be up on Amazon. I'm looking forward to bringing VotKM up to speed with my more recent work!

Also, now's about a good a time as any to mention that updates may be a little scarce for a while. I have a lot going on, and I'm just plain tuckered out from Blue Diver, so I think I need a vacation. I'm still hoping to get started on my next novel sometime this year, but for now I need some R&R. Catch you later!

NEXT-DAY EDIT: Okay, I added one more substantial change to the plot that I think a) really makes a lot of sense and b) gives the Ulo part of the plot some nice closure. I won't give away any spoilers, but if you're a fan of Ohmi, now she gets her due. :)

Here are the last of the old tablet sketches!

Skydwellers portraits! I'm really glad I made Miette a more sympathetic character in later revisions of that book; it sets her up a lot better to be the main character in the sequel.

Character design for Sidony, a light faerie who makes an appearance in one of my later Neopets fics. I definitely still want to put the rest up here on the blog, but I've been very busy with other things so it's slow going. I'll put one up very soon, though! It's a fun spaceventure with pre-Worth Fighting For Hyren. And space fungus.

 

Time for more Throwback Thursday fun! Here are some sketches I drew in elementary school of Burgess Shale fauna! There's Opabinia, a trilobite, and a rather terrifying view of Anomalocaris. :)

 

Miscellaneous sketches.

 

More Kingdom Hearts Union χ player character designs! I decided to go in a decidedly non-human direction with some of them (thanks to wildly re-interpreting the reindeer suits).

 

2022 road map

When I say "road map", please picture a very vague child's doodle.

May 2022 bring you many moments of joy and reasons to be grateful.

I thought this might be an appropriate time to discuss my tentative plans for this coming year.

As you know, I'm fresh off of publishing Blue Diver, and I'm still taking a bit of a mental health break after that big project. 

However, at some point in the near future, I'm going to make minor, mostly technical, revisions to The Voyage of the Kaus Media. I recently revisited it and while I think the story is still good, my prose has gotten much better in the past three years, and I'd really like to bring VotKM up to speed with my current writing.

After that, at some point, I will begin work on my next novel, a modern fantasy set in England. And partly in the fairy realm. I'm excited about this one because one of the main characters is on the autism spectrum, and people with ASD need more literary heroes like them. Oh, and snails are important. 🙂

Finally, although I have no solid timeline for all of this, depending on my schedule, later this year I would really like to get started on the sequel to Thunder Girl. If you enjoyed the original, I think you're going to love this brand new steampunk fantasy adventure that features a mummy's curse, a questionably human airship captain, and Australia's native fossils. Should be lots of fun. 

I'd like to thank you readers for your support and appreciation of my work. It brings me the greatest joy to see people enjoy something I've created, and it always makes my day when I hear how one of my books helped you de-stress or provided memorable quality time reading with your family. I feel so blessed and grateful that God has given me the ability to contribute to making this world a happier and more beautiful place through my art, and I look forward to more of the same in the coming year.