A New Fancy Update

So, some seriously exciting things have happened since the last post. As always, the overall quiet here just means that we’ve been busy-busy-busy, like hugely, and let me tell you all about these seriously exciting things!

Firstly, the first book of Monsters is finally in the hands of our betas. So, our original intended release date has been slapped in the face, but things are moving, and we’re feeling tentatively good about everything.

Secondly, and this is the true criminal behind our absence: we’re moving! And I don’t mean, you know, right down the street or around the corner. I don’t even mean within the same state.

Nope.

We’re moving to Pittsburgh.

Wowowowow. But why Pittsburgh? Victoria is actually originally from the Pittsburgh area, and she moved down to California to be with—ehehehe—me. But! An opportunity opened up for a comfortable living situation in Pittsburgh, and so we’re seizing the heck out of it. That means we’ll be living in the actual setting of Marionettes and Monsters.

Freaken awesome.

(You know, until it’s winter, and we have polar vortexes, and I lose all my fingers and toes.)

So, we’ve spent the last couple of weeks pillaging our room, throwing clothes into bags to be donated, trashing things that need to be trashed, and otherwise condensing our belongings into a tiny, little car. That’s all we’re taking with us—whatever can fit.

Luckily, we’re also tiny, little people.

I never thought I’d say that.

We did have a small bump recently (and by “small”, I mean “huge”, because we didn’t expect a driver in a parking lot to slam into the side of our car, and that’s been a Scion-sized wrench in our plans), but all systems are still go and we’re planning to be on our way the week of the 17th (in two weeks *breathes heavily*).

On our road trip, we plan to take pictures too, so we may just update the blog with our adventures, whatever they end up being.

Okay, and thirdly, in the interim of Victoria working and completing her revisions of Monsters, we ended up starting a new project. Already we’re about 90k words in, a couple hundred pages. The extra fun thing about this story is that it’s a New Adult Paranormal Romance. Or maybe it’s a New Adult Urban Fantasy.

Whatever the case, it’s a steamy, psychological urban fantasy set in Los Angeles. I don’t want to say too much about it yet, but I’ve already done a ton of concept art for it and penned an early draft of a synopsis. It’s looking pretty darn sweet so far, and Victoria and I are both vibrating from excitement with this one. We might even seek traditional trade publication??

It’s been so long since I’ve had to send out queries to literary agents.

Like, four years?

Like four years.

(Shhh four years is a long time ok it’s like 1/7th of my life.)

Okay, I think that’sssssss it. Yeah. The next couple weeks are going to be a stressful mess, what with how we tried to cram all the work hours we could into a small amount of time, and also all the pre-moving preparations we have to make (on top of the car repairs, which we’ll be praying to every god in every pantheon to be fixed in time for our departure).

As usual, more updates to come. Until then, stay awesome-possum.

Yep, we used to work at a haunt

Is that something I could put on a resume?

Okay, albeit it was a small-scale haunt held every Halloween by my old boss, a family friend, but he's a serious Halloween haunt hobbyist. Each year, he and his family would build their house into a walk-through haunt for the heckuvit. They'd start planning in August just to have it ready for one day at the end of October, and each year had a new theme.

(Got some minor makeup gore in this post down below, so bewaaaaaaare.)

I'm not really a haunt-type person. Little me, I'm an introvert. But, despite that, I also participated in stage plays and musicals every year of my high school career. Kinda odd, I guess.

But scaring people is a whole lot different than speaking onstage in front of an audience. If anything, it's actually harder. It's a lot more intimate, and the audience is expecting a whole lot more out of the performance from every actor.

It's pretty demanding, even physically. My bossman has worked plenty of professional haunts, and he'd wake up the next morning sore and beat -- and got the worst cold of his life one time (misssserable). The first time I participated in his haunt, I bruised my hand up to my arm just to create the perfect slap-of-flesh-against-hard-surface tune. Those were some wicked bruises. Ah, good times.

Victoria's first go at the haunt utilized her vocal chords to the utmost capacity. As in, she screamed. Shattered glass with those screams. And every time my boss has his birthday bash with the whole family present, everyone always remembers her by that scream.

I mean, the makeup's convincing enough. I'm rubbing my neck even as I try very hard not to look at that picture. (I'm not a big gore person either. Yikes. Give me a psychological horror film, okay, but blood and guts? I'll make some embarrassing noises I'd rather not talk about.)

Just to give an idea of how intense her scream was, as soon as people entered her "chamber", so to speak, and she let loose that deadly shriek, people would fall over themselves and create some awesome fire hazards. Ah, yes. Memories.

After my first couple haunts, I got to be one of the walkers, antagonizing the line and perusing the haunt at my own will. At least then I could chose the people I wanted to approach, and I mean, a good and proper doll-like role was perfect.

Yo, also, that's totally my real hair. That's 100% my own hair attached to my head, and that was the end of the night after it had deflated from the elements.

I'd walk around barefoot just like that. All I had to worry about was dodging out of the way of shoes when kids went screaming.

And when I say "kids", I mean grown adults, as well as adult men. The guys were the most satisfying to get to wet their pants, I have to say. They come in with the most swagger, and then leave with the least.

But, this picture doesn't really show my face. So let's take A CLOSER LOOK.

Ah, yes. There we are, still getting ready. I hadn't emptied a can of hairspray into my hair just yet, but don't I look like just a dear? Almost as inviting as he looks. That's a guy you'd introduce to your parents, for sure.

Eheheheh.

But, if there was one thing I learned through these haunts, it was how to effectively scare people. There's "shocked scared", but there's also "buildup scared". When I write, the buildup scared is my favorite. I love some good tension, the "ohshit ohshit ohshit" moment before the explosive "OHSHIT".

I mean, "Interlude" is a perfect Halloween story, and we constructed it with my typical breakneck pacing style. Mmm, sweet, suspenseful tension.

Maybe next year we'll be able to market Interlude as a perfect Halloween story. For now, we're focusing on our marketing plan for November and December to get some momentum going -- and, as I've mentioned on the writing tumblog and blog, I'll be doing NaNoWriMo this year to get a head start on writing book 4.

Awesome times ahead.

Everyone stay safe this year!

Lots of Awesome Things

Definitely been needing an update for a while now. Lots of things got in the way the past couple of weeks, including someone stealing our wallet and phone -- including my driver's license, our debit cards, and even my social security card, which is really scary. We've been picking up the pieces one at a time, and today we were finally able to get some pens for signing!

Here's all the updates for the past few weeks!

The paperbacks arrived

This means we can put together the contest really soon. We'll have signed paperbacks, bookmarks, and even a couple posters. You can see us trying to practice our signatures and totally failing. Why is signing stuff so hard?

Also, the paperbacks are available for purchase via the Amazon store. The one thing I love about using Createspace was how low I could make the price -- definitely couldn't do that with Lulu. The downside? The shipping quality is just as expected of Amazon: sucky. One of the books we received looked like someone had dropped it. Dented the corner in, creased the cover. This one won't be going into the contest, maybe into the hands of a book review blogger that only takes physical books. We'll see what happens.

The first revision of book two is finished

And it took me almost two weeks thanks to all the things that happened here. It seems like, with every book, whether I'm writing or revising, I'm going to hit the same four stages:

First quarter: YEAH, this rocks, this is going to be good, I'm so stoked.
Second quarter: Okay, well, things are moving, I guess.
Third quarter: This sucks.
Final quarter: ...

I wouldn't have gotten through it without Kesha's accoustic Harold Song, Fall Out Boy's The Mighty Fall, or The Wright Brothers' Blood on My Name. Those songs kept me pumped up and I guess slightly delusional in a way?

From here, it's Victoria's turn to read through and help me with the problem area's I need to fix, plus whatever else she can find or wants to change. Once I make those changes, it's off to our betas!

The goal is to have the second book out by August. I'm thinking it's probably likely we'll have it available halfway through August at this rate, but ideally sooner. We'll see how crazy I'm willing to work myself.

Dance in Shadow and Whisper has a 4.67 on Goodreads

Which is SUPER exciting. One of our lovely book review bloggers is Dabin from So Many Books, So Little Time. She gave us a very nice four stars, which we are definitely glad to have. It was sort of affirming for us, that there's a realm beyond our friends that can enjoy this book and these characters, too!

Our second five star rating comes from Reena of Starlight Book Reviews, and she'll have a full review up soon! We're so excited, ahhhh.

We're waiting on a couple more bloggers and we check about a hundred times every day for news. It's no wonder I've been running low on sanity points recently.

New author pictures

Which isn't anything special, really. Just makes us feel more official. We set aside a day to do stuff with our hair and faces that look good in picture form and these were the results.

It was unreasonably hot that day (not even as hot as it WILL get by the end of summer). I'm just glad it didn't show in our faces!

So, hopefully I can throw together an official "about the authors" page soon instead of the one that redirects to the page on KSW. But that's low on the priority list right now.

Anyway, that's it for now (as far as I can remember, which is never very far, because "remember" and "I" are two words that never go together with me). More updates and random rambles as they come to my brain. Until then, I'll be working on KSW and finishing the cover of the second book. I can't wait to reveal both the cover and the title!

Oh, and I should probably eat something, preferably adult-like. Kraft mac and cheese. Yeah.