The Echo-y Spaces in My Heart

This is a playlist :}

It's called The Echo-y Spaces in My Heart, and it's basically full of some really nice, mostly mellow music. Some Bon Iver, some Le Loup, some stuff off the Twilight soundtracks, that kind of thing :}

Let me know what you think, or if you want an actual list.

Oh my gosh

I love my job. . . .

Today, I took my younger sister to work (she's five) and she played with the twins. Oh my goodness, is there anything cuter than three well-behaved kids hanging out and playing?
She taught them how to build a block tower and how to play with an alligator pop-up ball thing (I don't even know what it was) and they were just generally adorable.
I love kids. Really, even when they irritate the absolute living crap out of me, which happens often because I have a flash temper, I love them.

Just look at her! 

Frankly, I'd really like to give writing children's stories a shot later on, when my writing schedule clears up. I'd love to write a middle grade book. 

The most fun part of imagining any character --

THEIR CLOTHES OF COURSE!
Oh my gosh, I absolutely love imagining the clothes that my characters wear. I'm addicted to Polyvore and have tons of sets for my own characters as well as for other people's.
Frankly, I just love fashion. If I was to choose another dream to have I'd totally choose fashion designer or to make costumes for movies. I love thinking up whole closets for my ladies and even my boys. Everyone in my head looks fierce in my opinion.
Some of my favorite things you'll be seeing either in art or in prose are the Steampunk-inspired dresses that the main lady in my new project, with lots of 1870's silhouettes, pompadour-heeled boots, and tons of color. You'll see or read about Carrick's winter coat, which has a feather lining rather than fur. You'll read about Sophie's military-inspired style in Nightling #2, which is probably going to be released in March.
Clothes are a huge part of the world in anything I write. Usually there's a dressmaker or a tailor character, or someone who loves fashion. I use costumes and color palettes to describe characters or to set their moods. Cornelia, always in black and green is sly and a little mad. Olivia is always in blue. Corvyn in blacks and dark grays. Sophie in paler grays and olive greens.
I have way too much fun with this. 

random drawing

She's ittly-bittly isn't she?

Sometimes I draw when I just really dont' want to write -- that way at least I'm doing SOMETHING creative and productive. I made the cover to Sterling myself, and I'll most likely be making the covers to all the books I publish myself. 

Officially starting a new project

Outlook. hopeful. Thinking it will be a steampunky fairytale circus-y gypsy thing. No, I don't know either. But I've written a few pages so far and feel quite hopeful.

The Fourth Doctor for all the things!

A Sterling Journey . . . (heh. . . see what I did there?)

This is the first thing I saw when I posted Sterling in the Kindle Store. This is the moment I let myself go take a nap, finally!

It's pretty hard to believe that it's been around three weeks since then, isn't it? Well, for me it is. Sterling was rejected several times by agents, which was a big factor in me deciding to sell through Kindle. And I don't blame them! Not only am I a new author, but Sterling is also a strange book! Is it an adventure, is it a romance? Is it about a knight or a Champion (a Champion, silly)? Is it a Coming-of-Age tale or is it an intrigue? 

It's all of those things! And as I work on the next book in the series, Lovely, I'm starting to realize that it's not so much a first book as a bit of a prequel. 

In it's very first incarnation, Sterling wasn't the title -- the title was Empress, and it was about a girl who had been chosen by an old man to lead a race of winged people (think The Young Victoria meets Maximum Ride, only way less interesting). I was 15 when I wrote it. 

YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT. 

It was bad. Really bad. Whereas Sterling is only 45000 words or so, Empress was over 100,000. Where Olivia has a set personality, the main character in Empress (called Sterling) was kind of all over the place. I had been trying to copy what I saw was popular in YA literature, and failing miserably. I'll never say I wouldn't piggyback on trends, but I'm definitely doing my own thing with this series and loving every character to death, even the villain. In fact, I love the work I do in these books so much I can't even bear to delete anything! I keep it all in 'notebook documents'. 

It's taken three years for me to par it all down, but somehow along the way, I ended up making it even LONGER with sequels! Originally I had planned for only two books, Empress, and then a second unnamed sequel about Sterling's lost little sister. 

Corvyn used to be named Chriss, the Claude-like character used to be named Wycliffe (a name I intend to recycle), and Lucas used to be named Silva. I know I was watching too much anime at the time, but I look back and say, "no. just. . . no."

So basically it's been a long, bumpy, terribly written road from Empress to Sterling, this post is way too long, and I would never ever go back. :}

Playlist Makers Anonymous

I make a TON of playlists, I think I have at least 20 in my Grooveshark sidebar. Sometimes I give them really ridiculous or pretentious sounding names, like my 'forbidden/tragic romance' playlist, which is called Us Against the Stars, or Indie Princess, which is just a lot of music that I loved by bands I hadn't heard of before I used Pandora.
A playlist I made for a fanfiction I was writing for Doctor Who, called TARDIS Blue, (the OC I made for it had TARDIS blue hair) is one of my faves, but I haven't used it in a while, I have lists named after characters from books like "Sophie", "Josephine," or "Milo and Amelia."
Then there are just the random ones, like "Atmosfeer", "Busy", or "The Red Necklace", which I put together for the book by Sally Gardner. I have a Florence playlist, which is all Florence and the Machine (my favorite band).
Oddly enough, the thing about me and my playlists is that I never ever use them. I have them, and I spend about a half hour making each one, and then I use it for about two days, and then I stop and forget about it, which is generally what happens with most of my music anyway, unless it's a really really great song. I'll spend hours and hours listening to it until I hate it, and then I'll listen to something else and go back to it.
(Here's) my Grooveshark profile, for anyone who wants to check out those ignored playlists :}

Everyone in Elysia is a Whovian

One of the things I really tried to get across in the book, well, without shoving it down your throat or making it awkward, is that Elysia is a modern country. Their monarchy is constitutional, where the king does have some political power, but not much, and they are totally into technology.

Citizens watch T.V and have iPods and mp3 players, iPads, or at least their fictional equivalents. Not everyone uses them, but they’re about the same as other Western European countries in that respect, even if they do have a bit of an outdated social system.

This is just a headcanon, I don’t want to get sued by the BBC, but gosh darnit, if I had my way then everyone in Elysia would be watching Doctor Who every Saturday night, Olivia would be humming “oooweeeeeoooooooweeeeeoooo-oooooooo” all day long and driving Corvyn up the wall (he doesn’t watch much TV, mostly because he wants everyone to think he reads a lot, and besides that, Baker isn’t on TV anymore and Four is his favorite Doctor).

This post is also on my Tumblr, (here) -- I'm addicted to Tumblr :}

Chili Garlic Sauce

I love chili garlic sauce. The one with the chicken on it? I use that in everything.
Oddly enough, I dont' like it as a condiment, I don't put it on my food, but gosh darnit, it just adds something AWESOME to everything.
Stroganoff? Chili Garlic sauce.
Tacos? Chili garlic sauce.
Cookies? Chili Garlic sauce.
Apple juice? Chili garlic sauce.
Okay, not the last two (unless I'm feeling bosslike) but in pasta, chili, meat, teriyaki anything, sauces, what have you -- It's like lemon juice with sass.
Also, can I just Eowyn's white dress in the Two Towers? It's just a lovely dress.