White Mold

Hey guys. I wanted to give you a heads up cuz I’m not sure how things are going to be going from here on in.

So my health was degrading rather quickly the last week. I wasn’t sure what it was—I thought my adrenals were failing for some reason, maybe they were stressed, whatever. During this time some ceiling tiles fell in the basement where there is a half finished bathroom set up down there. We rent the place so we just, you know, cleaned up the immediate mess and didn’t think much about WHY the ceiling tiles fell. I started getting more and more tired and smelling this weird dust whenever I passed my brother’s bedroom, then the other day I took a walk to the basement to do some laundry and checked in on that weird little bathroom, and by the time I got upstairs it felt like I was either moments from hallucinating or dropping.

The guys took the ceiling tiles down and found mold—white mold. So, it’s not the same type of mold (black mold) that took over my bedroom and living room over a year ago that spring. It’s less toxic, and because the weather is cooler and humidity is low, there is less chance that it’ll take root into the main house. But even when they removed the ceiling tiles, they found the mold still on the wood, and it exposed it to the basement room, and it was getting into the main house and my brain was sparking, leaving me a twitching mess.

I am okay. I am not great, I am not ‘well’ and I am not myself, but I am okay, and that’s the main thing to focus on. Right now I’m having difficulty with reading, with perceiving individual elements in a group, with focusing, with neurosis, and some weird moments of random anxiety and paranoia. I’m combating a lot of the exhaustion by increasing my adrenal support, and most of my funding is going into clean up for the moment. I’m not writing. I don’t trust my brain, and I can’t focus atm. I’m hhoping this will change eventually, but I also know that mold and me don’t do well together and there is a reality to my condition I have to face. I do not know when I will be recovered enough to be able to write to the level I feel confident at—my vocabulary is shrinking so quickly, it’s alarming.

The landlord has said he will fund whatever professionals we hire, so we need to get the ball rolling. And we’ve already done a lot to get the house uh… separated… what’s the word? Sectioned off? We basically blocked off all the vents that connect to the basement, lined the upstairs floor with plastic sheeting (hardwood floors with potential cracks between the slats that the neurotoxins could permeate through into our rooms) and am currently wiping all the upstairs down with vinegar and using box fans in the windows to suck the contaminated air outside. The uh… fuck, I’m just staring at the screen spacing out. We got uh… lucky. We got lucky that the weather was surprisingly warm. 60 degrees in March—freaking lucky—and even though it’s nighttime, we’re still sending the air out and it’s cold, but it’s not freezing. But I don’t know how long that can hold. We shut all the vents, sealed them with cardboard and tape to prevent mold moving through (and it was, hardcore) but that means we have no working heater at the moment. It’s also been very frustrating because people are hoarding masks because of the corona virus they don’t even had and I can’t find anything to protect me from breathing in the mold that we do actually have. >_> It’s not a great time to need face masks.

Uh… I think that’s it… I’m spending most of my days in my car again— even less glamorous in the winter. >_> But it’s something. It’s survival. Depending on the level of mold remediation that will be done, this could be solved and we can stay, or when my royalties finally come in for PATB Serial in the next two months, that might be put into a desperate blind move just to get away from the mold. I cannot predict the future; but I can promise that I haven’t given up. I know you’ve all been waiting so long to see these stories continue, and I hope you can tell that even though I got sick for so long last time, I still showed up the moment I got my brain back. I have the knowledge and tools I need to heal now, and although it is a process that will take the time that it takes, I will return to writing. It’s everything to me.

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It’s live!!!

Super quick email today. Just wanted to let you know that episode #2 of PATB Serial just went live, so for those who preordered, you can crack it open now, and anyone waiting for KU, it’s in there full of suspense, shifters, and a crazy, explosive love now that Wylie gets his first glimpse of Dorian.

Also, on a side note, Theodore has become my temperamental badass and I’m loving him for it. 😉

I’ll have a proper newsletter this weekend. Got a mini cover reveal, among other things–there are so many awesome books that dropped this week I need to share. I feel like I’m still playing catch up with everything… Actually, I feel like I’m kicking my own ass with this write a book a month pace, and I might have to slow the fuck down. I just wanted to let you all know that the book is actually out there (and I’m still alive. @[email protected])

Hope you’re all doing well! ^.^ I’m still completely anti Valentine’s Day. It’s a great day for self love, not going to any kind of restaurant (seriously, restaurants are the worst on Valentine’s Day,) and remembering that society can suck their expectations of what love is. XD I’m gonna go curl up with a shifter (nope, that’s a cat >_>) and wait this day out. Possibly with hot cocoa. 😉

I’m me again!♥

Turns out the final missing link was progesterone. I knew my body had a genetic mutation that made it hard for it to create progesterone, but everything else seemed so much more important and I got out of the habit of taking it. I restarted the supplementation last week, and yeah, it’s like the world clicked into focus. Time is moving so slow because my brain is alert and recording it all. I had no idea how progesterone impacted my memory and mental clarity, or just how it was connected to being able to feel and be motivated. I’m waking up in the morning, getting things done that used to feel exhausting like it’s nothing– like I’m just living life.

I am full of so much damn gratitude to have found this place. I look at my writing and it makes sense– the doubts and confusion are gone. I’ve found my joy again and I am writing up a storm, peeps. Nothing can get in my way anymore and I’m looking to fly!♥

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I’m crazy excited about this! I have last year’s Demon Bonded calendar staring me in the face right now from the wall, and all I can think is how awesome it is to have gotten this done in time, really able to make images for the calendar instead of just fiddling with old covers. This is a return to art after a really super long break, and it’s just awesome to have gotten here. <3

Check out the pretties! ♥ I did an Art Card option for those who wanted the art without having to have a million different calendars in their house. Oh, and first time using Gumroad–super happy with their layout. They made this really easy. (link if it doesn’t load…)

Arting

Just wanted to check in and remind people I’m alive. @[email protected] I’ve been making a calendar the last two weeks. 3 more images to do and the 2020 Paranormal Academy for Troubled Boys calendar will be done. ♥ Here’s a little sneak peek of Theo’s finished image in his glorious dragon scales (cropped.)

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Fiddling…

I felt that Wylie looked too old in the other version. That, and the colors were too bright, kinda cartoony. So… this exploded instead. XD Ah, fun.

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Dorian’s got a cover!

Self explanatory. I’m trying to break whatever this thing is and move forward, so I sat down and got the next episode cover done. This week I want to put the first episode actually on Amazon and publish it. Just gotta keep moving and not think much…

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Hey peeps,

So, this is a tough one, but I’m trying to not have it be a tough one because attitude is pretty much everything these days. There’s mold in my place. White mold– less toxic by default than the black stuff that took over my bedroom and living room a couple years ago. It’s in the basement this time around– we discovered it when some random ceiling tiles fell down. There’s a mini bathroom down there, unfinished, and the ceiling tiles suddenly fell and knocked a shelf sideways. And I guess there’s been moisture building, and mold growing for a while, and with the tiles down it’s all exposed to the air…

Teh landlord is working with us to ensure it all gets cleaned up, but it’s going to take some time. and I… well, I already broke. Let’s be real. The exhaustion of late from the mold growing under the floor was suddenly joined with brain sparking once the spores flooded the air, and I’m just struggling to pull myself back together. Dystonia has started up again, my limbs unbearably heavy, head hard to hold up, brain fucked– it doesn’t matter. It is what it is.
 

A break

I’ve stopped working on the books for now. I can’t do it– I can’t watch my brain slip away all over again after I fought so hard to get here. I can’t force myself to walk a path my body and brain can’t survive like this. I spent over two years pouring the little energy and focus I could muster into writing these books, only to get my brain back and rewrite them each in a month– its not fucking worth the effort to write when my brain is broken. I only exhaust myself while somehow feeling like a constant failure.

So this time I’m resting– I am bored out of my mind, but I refuse to contribute to the destruction of myself by trying to get this broken brain to do what it can’t do. Mold is tough enough on me without me being an unrealistic psycho as well.

Uh… but I decided on a project for the moment so the boredom and bitterness can’t creep in and overtake me. I had another reader approach me about the fact that they can’t use text to audio technology on my site to hear the books, and it got me thinking how hard it has been for me to read since my brain got scrambled with mold. So, while I’m waiting to get the mold removal peeps in to survey and figure out what’s going to happen next, I’m starting to make some basic audio books of the completed stories on the site. That way subscribers can choose to read or hear the words, and for those who struggle with reading a screen or wall of text (I get it, it swims after a while) will have an option that works for them.

It’s hard to stay awake. It’s hard to have my mind when I am awake. The world is filtered though inflammaiton right now and doesn’t fully make sense — and the fact that the most competent candidate for president in the US dropped out because America can’t see a woman as electable is just as insane. So fuck it all — gotta let the insanity play out as it will. I will survive this. I already have, and I damn well know the books will be awesome once my brain is in working order to finish writing them, and yeah, this is a break. A pause in the journey, and while on this pause I can create something useful for people who need better accessibility to my site.
 

… sorry in advance

I don’t know if I can handle whatever people want to say in response to all this, gonna be real. I definitely can’t handle pity, barely disappointment, well wishes– seriously, I feel like acknowledging the potential shittiness of mold over taking my house in the middle of winter when I should be safe is just too freaking hard right now. 2 months — I had two months of a working brain, wrote two books and it was stolen away just like that… >_> You guys are awesome and it’s totally not your fault I’m a psychological mess over all this, and I apologize now because I doubt I will respond to emails. I’m tired, and this has broken me in a way I don’t want to think about right now.

This will be easier to heal from — I know how, now. I know I can. I know this isn’t the end I feared it was each time it hit. But there is this frustration with realizing how damn fragile I am, where the other people in the house go through their days like nothing has happened while I once again am trapped in a body that doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to think. And it’s just the way this body is. Mold will alwasy be out there and my body is always going to react like this, no promise of any stability or ability to plan.

And currently, I can’t get a face mask to save my life with everyone buying them up with the coronavirus fear — face mask only theoretically prevent you from spreading the disease if you have it, btw, you can still catch it while wearing a mask. Coronavirus can survive outside the human body for up to 9 days, and in colder temperatures, up to a month. (Aka, practice good hygiene and don’t lick anyone.) And maybe get the facts straight on how to clean it up while you’re at it. And if you find yourself with sudden conjunctivitis, it could be coronavirus and it is contagious by eye.

So even though masks won’t save someone from getting coronavirus, proper masks prevent the brain sparking inhalation of mold spores for someone like me, and I am shit out of luck. I’m grateful this hasn’t turned into multiple chemical sensitivity like last time — a good sign the spores this current mold is releasing aren’t as bad as the previous one. But people who need those multiple chemical sensitivity masks to be able to not feel like they’re going to die in unbearable pain 24-7, I’m sure they’re struggling more than ever now because of this ignorance of others about face masks. Ignorance + panic rarely helps anyone. :/

Hope you’re all safe out there, and your week is going better than mine. There’s never a bad time to remember all the people you love and spend a little extra time with them, yeah? Even with the world gone mad, it’s good to remember what matters.

Hey babes,

This week, I thought I’d try something new. I was thinking we could do some character prequels for The Paranormal Academy For Troubled Boys Serial. But… I wasn’t sure where to start. I thought since we’re in the Demon Arm Saga of everything, we might focus on either Wylie or Dorian. For Wylie, I want to start where he meets Beck, how they kinda drift towards each other when Wylie starts school after placed in the detention home. Then go into how Beck eventually gets Wylie interested in the gang because of Beck’s personal problems at home as he tries to escape a really oppressive/abusive home life. For Dorian story, I wanted to go into how he had his accident, all set within his very difficult home life of being a sorcerer expected to live up to a family name while he just wants to be a normal teen. When he rebels, and seeks hope with Alastor, that’s really when it all goes to shit for Dorian, and he ends up at the Academy a little after, where, three years later, Wylie shows up. So Wylie’s story would be much more recent to events, while Dorian’s story is a more detailed account of his power origin story.

So because I’m too close to this, I thought I’d leave it up to the fans to decide which story they would rather read. I’ll probably end up writing both eventually, but for now I just want to do one. This prequel will be 100% free, btw! So I’ve made a poll where people can click which character story they would rather read first as a prequel. Check it out and let me know what you think.

So I am in the middle of writing episode #3 of PATB serial, and it’s kind of exciting because we get a really good inside look at Academy life for the shifters. I love being able to expand on the world so much more this time around, and really start fleshing out the characters and their experiences. Wylie and Dorian are also going to have more moments as they try to figure out if what’s sparking between them is more important than the warnings the Academy Masters keep giving them. I get to start on one such scene on Monday, and I’m excited about that. <3

What I’m realizing as of late, is just how hard it is to juggle writing and having a life – still! I thought feeling better would make it easier. I made a point to take the weekend off, and that’s more of a joke to me in a lot of ways because I did so much work this weekend! I have so much work that I didn’t finish this weekend! @[email protected] But I did make a point to go outside both days before coming home and getting more work done. I would like to be able to pace these sorts of things during the rest of the week so I could actually have a weekend off, but that might be like trying to bend the reality of time in some ways. The truth is, there’s just a lot to do.

I wanted to let you guys know that I have been reading all the comments about what your fan fav taboo subjects are, and I am definitely looking at writing a new episode of Demon Bonded – well, at least fleshing out an episode – for March. I don’t want over promise anything right now. My main priority is the PATB serial, and I do want to get one out a month. But I know the fans of Demon Bonded have been ravenous for more, and me being sick and unable to write the last year has made the anticipation for the next episode certainly much worse. So I want to make sure I get some word count in there for you guys.

Also, I seriously have to get to emails and comments tonight. I have been ignoring my inbox outside of any website issues the last… 2 weeks? 3? It’s another thing I need to figure out how to juggle and squeeze into my day in a more effective way. I got so many ARC readers responding and sharing their reviews—you peeps are awesome and I loved every one!

I’m really not good at task switching. I definitely can’t multitask at all. My brain just will not. So I gotta figure something out because this stuff doesn’t get easier the more I write – if anything it gets more difficult as I put all my attention into writing, and fail to be able to balance with the rest of the world. But I’m enjoying my weekend off, of sorts, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to have some time to think about how I’m just always rushing toward a goal instead of planning things better. Doing things doesn’t have much point if you don’t enjoy the journey. I can always get something done, but I won’t remember it as being worthwhile if I didn’t enjoy the process. It’s important. I should treat it as important as it is.

I hope you guys are having a great weekend; the weather here has been amazing. Well, as long as we don’t think of it is terrible climate change creeping up on us. @[email protected] I’m trying to keep the real world out of my newsletters as much as possible, because I need the escape I’m pretty sure just as much as we all do. So for today, I’m focusing on the wonderful weather and the nice, comforting cup of decaf coffee I’m drinking. Happy reading, and don’t forget to vote for your fav prequel idea!

Hey peeps,

I had ideas planned for this newsletter but I just… well, I got sick. I am feeling ragged, run out, just doing too much. I had hoped that I would have recovered by now, but my body is telling me very persistently to rest, and I am foolishly fighting it even now. (Btw, if you emailed me, I will get to you. Just being slow atm.)

So maybe we can do some catch up? I know it’s been a while. I’ve been pushing the books hard—speaking of which, the latest PATB Serial book hit #1 in New Releases for LGBT Fantasy Fiction!

Yay! If you missed it, it’s out and gorgeous. We finally catch up with Dorian, who has spent the last 3 years at the Academy trying to get his shit together, only to fall madly head over heels (in as resistant a fashion as possible) with Wylie-fucking-Doe and his hissing inner dragon. Check it if you missed it. It’s in KU for you kindle unlimited readers.

So yeah, there’s that (yay!) Uh, I threw together a cover for the next episode but it’s a draft atm because—guess what? I decided the episodes needed title names and not just numbers. I was kinda super lazy doing the bare minimum there and realized it was a disservice to anyone who wanted to try the books out and had no clue about anything inside. So now, titles! (Once I can figure out how to arrange all the elements so it doesn’t look like I just crammed a ton more words in there. @[email protected] These are some rather busy covers already…)

I’m not doing a preorder yet. This month has kinda proved to me that I’m ignoring my limits, and I need to figure something out with how to go forward. It might be that I plan to release a book every 6 weeks instead of every 4, or maybe even a book every 9 weeks—I don’t know yet. All I know is that I’m struggling with my current pace and I might have to change things up as I go along. There were definitely perks to having a preorder with a deadline. When the days started creeping up and I saw the deadline looming, I got shit done. 10 days and bam! Book! But there were other issues, like me totally working beyond my limits to make that deadline. I’m a very all or nothing person and it can be pretty self destructive if I’m not careful. For example…

Let me tell you about my short love affair with coffee <3

So, for the last two weeks coming up to when I got this book published, I did some big changes. One of those big changes was removing all sweeteners from my diet. Even the good, healthy, natural ones. I cut them all out because I suspected (and was unfortunately right) that they were setting off my immune system and triggering the autoimmune. Removing them was great. I could focus again, I could write, everything was flowing and I felt so good. But there was the drawback of a lot of the things I enjoyed had some sort of sweetener in it.

My morning routine would be to wake up and eat a Questbar before sitting down to write. Easy, simple, uncomplicated. But when I saw even stevia and erythritol were making me jittery and stealing my focus, suddenly I had to figure out what breakfast was without feeling, well, bereft of my treat, I guess. I’m a sugar addict. It was my comfort as a small child and I have been seeking some sort of sugary flavor my entire life. Going cold turkey was really the only way I could make this work given my nature, so I chose a different addiction to seek out (of course I did—don’t give me that look XD) and it was coffee.

I was crushing hard on coffee this month. I started with instant—you know, the bare minimum—but as I felt like I was losing without having that sweet flavor, I started really throwing myself into the hobby of coffee. I got a mini 4-cup French press, got a milk frother thingy that mixes everything up, even some protein powder and powdered goat’s milk to throw in there in the morning. It’s been good, really good. Except at some point, I forgot that my adrenals are still iffy, and the caffeine I was drinking every day was squeezing the life out of the poor little buggers, and yeah, I crashed, hard. Funnily enough, shortly after I finished the book—like, by days. It was like my body was only allowed to break once I was done; I’m really a monster to myself like that. @[email protected]

I realized I must have been ignoring the signs that I was working so hard, masking it by reaching for caffeine and just pushing past my limits. Not good. So I have discovered decaf—which is fucking awesome, btw! I can now have coffee whenever I want while also going back on my adrenal meds for support until I get myself back to healthy. I’m still off sweeteners, which is also great. There’s a lot of things I’m probably not going to be able to have again, if I’m real about it, but I guess time will tell. I’m excited to have stopped my immune responses so well that now I can notice when I screw up and eat something wrong and get sick, instead of being sick constantly and not knowing why.

I have been so excited to be able to write again, to just be in the flow of it all, that I did that thing I tend to do, which is kick my own ass going after a goal. I have to reevaluate some things, see if I can pace myself better to avoid what happened last time, etc. I think I don’t want to actually put the preorder up until the book is 100% written like I did with episode #1, giving me a chance to do the publishing side of things during that week before it goes live. I guess we’ll see. I’m feeling a bit like a long distance runner; I need to plan everything so differently from my old mentality of just sprinting like mad at a goal. It’s a different kind of strategy that I’m still learning—one I’m sure that will be super worth learning once I do.

Hope you’re all having a great weak—and don’t miss the reads below. There are some awesome books there this week, including Wendy’s new take on the Alpha/Omega trope that people are loving like mad!

MM, LGBTQ and RH Reads

Trust No Alpha

It’s a world gone mad. The Alphas are out of control.

When you discover you’re not who you thought you were, the nightmare begins.

KRIS

At age eighteen, life as he knows it is over for Kris. A secret to his nature he was not aware of has been revealed.

Now, kept as a prisoner in a locked room in the mansion of his wealthy father, Kris is at the mercy of Alpha laws and Alpha domination.

Things take a turn for the worse when his own litter mate threatens him, and his father starts behaving strangely around him.

Escape is his only hope. But where can he go in a world that allows him no rights?

THORNE

Marked as a dangerous Alpha, and living a secluded life alone and unloved, Thorne still grieves for the mate whose death he feels responsible for. Years have passed, and he refuses to even try to function in normal society.

One day he discovers a young man on his property, disheveled, desperate, and scared. He acts like a runaway Omega, but he doesn’t smell like one.

What is this boy? And why does Thorne feel an immediate need to protect him? To bond him? To make him his?

A non-shifter, Omegaverse love story of rescue, first time, fertility issues and an HEA. Standalone read. 65,500 words. (While Omegas are birth-fathers in this universe, there is no on-page mpreg in this book.)

 

Cat Escort

A night of passion with a Cat Shifter escort becomes everything for a man with poor self-esteem.

To mend his broken heart, Seth purchases a date with a Cat Shifter Escort. The sex was so amazing, it let him forget his pain. Seth never expected to see him again.

Nao couldn’t forget the client who’d cried in his arms, so destroyed from love gone wrong. He wanted nothing more than to help the beautiful, broken man.

Their night was supposed to be a onetime thing, but six months later, everything changed when they met again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Vampire’s Honor

Years ago, the true king of the vampires sacrificed his throne and his fated love for the common good. But it wasn’t enough…

Rune knows the Adini Treasure is real, and he wants it. With the treasure, he’ll have the power to crush his enemy—the Adi ’el Lumi—forever.

Isaac longs for love but is sick of waiting for it. When he witnesses the murder of a strange vampire with an even stranger map, he isn’t sure what he’s found. But he isn’t letting it go. Not even for the swoon-worthy vampire prince who comes to claim it.

When a witch’s calling card leads Rune to a snarky vampire with secrets and a sassy human with a treasure map, he takes them on a perilous hunt into the forgotten vampire cities. His worst fears and darkest desires await him. With everything at stake, he’ll have only one chance to either fulfill his destiny… or save Isaac, his fated love.

Don’t miss the exciting, heartwarming conclusion to the Ellowyn Found trilogy!

 

 

Fake it ’til You Make Out

Heath
It’s a classic story: Boy meets girl, girl breaks boy’s heart, boy pretends to be gay to get back at girl, girl outs boy to everyone on Facebook…

Okay, maybe it’s not that classic. But it’s what happened to me.

When I bump into my cheating ex and catch sight of the moon-sized rock on her finger, there’s only one option to save face: pretend to be dating my gay best friend, Declan.

And when she outs me on Facebook and everyone I know sees it, there’s still only one option: keep pretending to be dating Declan.

And when Declan and I have to kiss to keep up the ruse and it turns out there’s actually a spark between us (more like a blazing inferno, if truth be told) there’s once again only one option…

Warning: this book is not appropriate for anyone who doesn’t like laughing, anyone who doesn’t like dogs, or anyone who doesn’t like hot men having a lot of sex…with each other.

 

 

Don’t Call Me Kid

Falling in love with your brother’s boyfriend and pining over him for a decade? It can’t get any more complicated than that!

Van found the man of his dreams on his fifteenth birthday. And promptly lost him on the same day when he realized Parker was dating his older brother, Taylor.

Ten years later, Van still nurses his unrequited love, but Parker and Taylor are no longer together. Too bad Parker only sees Van as an inexperienced kid, or a friend at best.

If Van plays his cards right, he might get a chance to tell Parker how he feels. With their complicated histories and Taylor wanting his husband back, their situation is as difficult as they come. Will Van finally get his man, or will he have to give up his teenage fantasies once and for all?

Don’t Call Me Kid is the first novella in the Just Don’t contemporary gay romance serial. If you like your romances on the angsty side and with a touch of complicated family dynamics, then this first book will have you craving for more in no time.

 

 

Crimson: Secrets and Lies of a Living Vampire

An isolated mountain estate. A hidden lab. A dark secret that threatens the entire vampire race.

When vampire Emilie takes a new nanny job at the remote mountain home of Dr. Owen Bennett, the last thing she expects is to be thrown head-first into a dangerous mystery.

After spending the last hundred years believing she was alone in the world, the undeniable chemistry with handsome and eccentric Owen⎯who she suspects may also be a vampire⎯promises a future she never thought possible.

But…things at the Bennett house just don’t add up.

Owen’s ex-wife has seemingly vanished, he refuses to divulge who he works for, and he keeps his research under lock and key.

Determined to uncover the truth, Emilie discovers a secret that holds severe repercussions for all her kind.

When dark forces intervene, Emilie is forced to make an unthinkable choice – between newfound love or what she knows to be right.

 

Hey peeps,

So I’m flying through getting the final draft of episode #2 of the PATB serial ready for Valentine’s Day. Aka, you guys are getting a sneak peek!!! (and I don’t have to write a newsletter XD)

I thought I’d introduce you all to one of the new villains. Elie has quickly become a fav of mine—likely because he’s fucked in the head (always so fun. XD) This is the first inside look into skinners in the series, they’re mentality, interactions and goals. You can read the excerpt below. ^^

I’m starting a new reference area for the PATB serial, stuff that will be filled out as I go along and can snag some spare time. You can find it here! Wylie’s bio page is filled out so far, and I’m planning on doing everyone’s by the time it’s all done. Right now you can find some fun facts, and more digestible facts of the magic, tech, and lore stuff.

I eventually want to get some PATB focused quizzes up—stuff like, which character is your best match? Or what type of paranormal would you be? That fun kind of stuff. But for now, I’m off to edit! Hope you’re all having a great weekend. <3

Excerpt from Scene 5 of Episode #2 of PATB Serial:

“Evelyn, run. Just fucking run,” Elie gasped, his chest heaving as he watched his sister pull herself up from her sprawl on the ground. Blood was thick, smeared down here face where it had smashed against the ground unprotected. Her eyes were focused though—Evelyn never wavered even when the world was falling down around them. It had a lot to do with the drugs she took before every hunt, a mixture of potions made to keep her from feeling panic or pain. Normally he would have found his sister’s steady presence reassuring, but she stank of death. It was a heavy perfume in the air, one that appeared since he watched Edsel fall to the crimson haired killer.

“Don’t be a fool, Elie. I’m not going to leave you here to die.” Evelyn wiped the back of her sleeve carelessly across her face to sop up the blood and stumbled forward, her left leg dragging at her side where the knee refused to hold her up. “Just calm down, stop your fucking freak out, and relax your muscles enough for me to get you out of this trap.”

Elie’s leg had grown stiff in the snare, but he still managed to flinch away once his sister reached him, her hand bloody with bits of bird sticking to it. It had happened almost immediately. The moment his foot had stepped down into the magic infused loops of wire, three points of enchanted tipped blades had slashed into his leg, numbing the muscles and nerve ending while also filling him with the illusion of intense pain. A sadistic trap, Elie’s body was flooded with adrenaline and his mind overloaded with the horrendous sensations of his flesh being ripped from his bones, his jerking movement of escape only pulling the wires in tighter and trapping him more complete.

The illusion left him wanting to scream in agony, but every time Elie looked at his leg, he could see it was intact. The flesh would only entropy if he was caught too long and the wires were pulled tight enough to cut off his circulation. Not that it mattered. Elie already knew he’d be dead long before that process could start.

“You’ve tangled this completely around you,” Evelyn hissed in frustration, blood threatening to drip past her eyebrow and into her eye. “Fuck. All you had to do was sit still!”

Elie watched his sister’s nimble, gut splattered fingers dance around the wire encasing his leg. “Do you feel it?” Elie asked shakily, his teeth refusing to stop chattering. He might have been cold, but Elie had long stopped feeling the high winds blowing at their altitude that October evening. Shock was setting in, his body already at its limit to this torturous trap.

“What, the wounds?” Evelyn shook her head sharply. “If you were trained enough, you could drink the potions too. But right now it would only make you high and even more useless.”

“No…” Elie avoided his sister’s sharp gaze. “Do you feel it when all your familiars are killed?”

Evelyn growled under her breath and gritted her teeth. “You are the worst. Stop talking and focus on holding still.”

Elie nodded and let his head fall back on the raised edge of the roof that marked the end of the building. “I’m sorry I’m useless.”

“Me too.” Grunting, Evelyn held her hands over his leg and Elie’s gaze darted down as he watched his sister weave her spell into the air and his flesh.

“I’m sorry I got him killed…”

“Shut up! Your words are a curse to us all.” Snarling, Evelyn slashed her arm forward, and a blade tore through Elie’s pant leg. She pulled the material down, growling the entire time. “I’ll take the fucking leg if I have to. Shut up and let me work!”

Elie’s impulsive retort froze on his lips when Evelyn’s magic washed over him and his body was forced into a temporary paralysis. The snare could only be released if he didn’t move long enough to prevent the wires from pulling tighter and tighter. But Elie hadn’t been able to focus past the pain to do the spell, hadn’t been able to do anything but cover his screams when the snare bit into his leg when he was caught.

Elie’s thoughts only felt more frantic as his opened eyes stared out into the dark around them. He couldn’t hear their hunter, but he knew he was still out there. A skinner, obviously. No basic sorcerer or hunter had skills like the monster lurking out there. He felt like a monster; every time Elie caught a glimpse of the crimson haired warrior, something in his brutality spoke of animal, monster, demon. The skinner must have been hunting for years, soaked in the blood of his kills until he didn’t know what it was to be human.

Elie shuddered internally, wishing he could close his eyes as his mind filled with visions of the monsters that came for him whenever the dark was complete. So many dead, generations of blood and power carved into him and ingrained in his mind from every dark story his parents taught him from the moment he could listen. But the monster out there wasn’t from his mind, not some far away fairytale or ghostly visage from a past kill. No, this was Elie’s worst nightmare come to life, a man powerful enough to kill the strongest person he knew—his brother, Edsel—and suck the very life from him.

“Finally!” Evelyn hissed as she pulled the broken wire from Elie’s leg, her fingers getting pinched from the sharp edge and releasing droplets of blood to glitter in the low light. “Come on. Get to your feet.”

The moment Evelyn released him from the spell, Elie grabbed her arm, his eyes wide with fear. “He’s an energy eater, Evelyn. He drinks…”

“Stop it with your fucking nonsense.” Evelyn pulled his hand roughly off her arm and glared into her younger brother’s eyes. “Get the fuck out of here, Elie. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Elie shook his head, his lips pursed in stubborn refusal even as he saw the rage sparking in his sister’s eyes. “He’s dead. There’s no point in staying. They’re all dead and I don’t want you dead too!” Elie’s plea was wasted; he could see the resolve on Evelyn’s face, her intimidating makeup and streaked blood making her look more like the monster out in the dark than the girl she was.

“You’re a fool if you think he’ll stop,” Evelyn said tightly. “You’re too inexperienced, Elie. You don’t understand how we operate.”

Elie’s shoulders sagged. Maybe that was true. His parents had only begrudgingly started to train him before they were killed on a hunt gone wrong—his first hunt. His parents had treated him differently from Edsel and Evelyn, his mind so fragile to them… Deranged.

Elie blinked, his gaze focusing on Evelyn’s angry expression. “Don’t let him get your blood. He will suck the life from you.”

“Spare me your demented visions,” Evelyn snapped as she pulled the chameleon coat up from where she had folded it on the ground. “You should have stayed in college.”

“Stayed with the weak, soft things that are hunted, yeah?” Elie forced out, his teeth chattering as he struggled to move his leg. “Things you hunt. Kill. Murder. Subhumans to the slaughter. No, college was an insult.” Blood was pouring down the limb from where the wires had cut deep, but he simply wrapped it in a bandage that congealed the wound, then gave some of the material to Evelyn, who snarled when he made an attempt to touch her.

“Better an insult than to get your parents killed.”

She muttered it under her breath but Elie heard, his eyes widening minutely. He nodded, for it was true. His parents should have left him in college. Deranged. Their choice term for him behind his back. But at college he was clever, innovative, useful, even if it was only to a bunch of powerless subhumans. “A god among swine,” Elie whispered bitterly, “Or fool of the slaughter?”

“Save your mad ramblings for someone who gives a fuck,” Evelyn growled and pushed up from the ground.

Elie looked away when Evelyn approached their fallen brother and ruthlessly went through his pockets, stripping anything of use. He wrinkled his nose, certain he could smell the rot already sinking in, or perhaps seeping out. Edsel was full of such ugliness, such disgusting filth that reached levels Elie couldn’t bare to think without a part of his brain screaming in protest. He grasped his head, fingers digging into his scalp as he listened to his sister clean any magical remnants that could be used to trace back to them from Edsel’s body.

Edsel had forced the family business on him. Once their parents had died, fallen to their fragile son’s mistake in battle, Evelyn had demanded he be sent away, exiled to another type of life for softer, weaker creatures. Edsel had refused; Elie was already marked as a Briargrave. He had dragged Elie with him everywhere, forcing him to learn the art of hunting, catching and slaughter no matter his protests or poor skills. His older brother didn’t care if Elie vomited during every kill; he would see all his siblings skinners to ensure their family legacy lived on.

His sister adapted to Edsel’s leadership, but that was to be expected. Evelyn was always so detail oriented, so methodical. Always full of plans she would break down in ways that would be seen through to the very end every time. Product was always caught. Product always got to where it needed to go. Payment was always received. Evelyn was the brains behind the business, the will to insure that they were more than just a family of shifter hunters, but that they profited.

Elie’s gaze wandered, daring to dart to where Edsel’s corpse stretched, blood and semen cleaned away with spells now, his tattoos burning away under Evelyn’s spells as she worked. Even that night while his sister’s illusions dazzled and confused the sorcerer hunting them, Evelyn had spent most of her time erasing their tracks and setting up protection. The sharp eyed skinner with red hair had yet to strike a blow against his sister, and Elie felt bursting with pride just thinking of it. Evelyn never ran, never hesitated, but set trap after trap while erasing their presence from the world around them. She even used his designs; while Edsel mocked Elie’s adjustments to their legacy weapons, his sister had seen the value of his innovations enough to take them into battle.

Elie managed to get enough sensation in his leg to stand when Evelyn stalked over to him and grabbed him roughly by the jacket. “Listen to me,” Evelyn hissed as she pulled his coat from him and forced Elie’s hand into Edsel’s chameleon skinned coat. Elie tried to flinch away but Evelyn wouldn’t let him, grabbing his other arm to push it into the jacket’s empty sleeve. “Do not look back, Elie. Just walk the fuck away and don’t look back. You aren’t strong enough to win—you will never be strong enough to take on this lifestyle. Do you understand me!” Evelyn demanded when Elie continued to cower, refusing to meet her eyes. “You have always been clever, Elie, the smartest of us three. Use your brain! Walk the fuck away from all this! Tonight. Forever!”

Deranged. It was always the same. None of them accepted him.

Elie licked dry lips, his hand coming up to grasp at his hair. “I-I… Evelyn, I can’t. With Edsel dead, I’m the last male heir. I have to take over—”

“Don’t you lie to me, Elie Briargrave!” Evelyn screamed and wrenched him by the lapels of the chameleon scaled jacket, forcing him to meet her blazing eyes. “You wanted him dead! You wanted him dead, and now he is! You wanted mother and father dead, and you said it, and they’re gone! And when you look at me…” Evelyn glared at him, her eyes burning into his. “I know what you’re thinking, Elie. It’s all over your stupid, crazy face!”

Elie stared back at her silently, his chest heaving for air. He couldn’t deny it. He wanted Edsel dead. He hated him, and he wanted him dead, and had said it aloud only a day ago, daring any wayward spirit to hear it and comply. Looking at Evelyn, the rage twisted on her face smeared in black makeup, he couldn’t say that he didn’t want her dead either. In her face he saw every one, every spirit carved into her flesh and tied to her soul forever. Tied to him…

Elie tore his gaze away from the death in Evelyn’s eyes. “I would never say it,” he whispered. “Not you, Ev. I would never curse you like I did them.”

“You didn’t curse them, you idiot!” Evelyn shouted and pushed him back with a disgusted look on her face. “You don’t have the ability to will magic, Elie. You’re just fucking crazy.”

Deranged… Too fragile for our legacy of slaughter… A curse on the bloodline… Cursed.

“Still,” Elie tried, his voice pitched softly to avoid enraging his sister further. “I would never wish you dead. You… It’s different.” When the voices came—when the faces swarmed his vision, haunting him for being trapped in the flesh of the Briargraves—Elie never listened to the ones who wanted Evelyn dead. They didn’t know her. They didn’t know that she was good inside. She cared. “You… you came to save me.”

“You fucking fool.” Evelyn swung before Elie could react, and he screeched and fell backwards as colors burst behind his eyes and pain exploded through his face. He grabbed his cheek with two hands and gaped up at his sister, blinking dumbly from where he ended up sprawled on the concrete. “Did that hurt?” Evelyn spat as she stepped over him and glared down. “Dying is going to hurt a fuck ton more. Run, Elie. Run the fuck away and let this life go. You were never one of us.”

But he was! He had the mark, had it all carved into his flesh before he could even walk or speak or understand the monsters waiting for him in the dark…

Elie’s eyes widened when a grimace of pain crossed Evelyn’s face. “You’re hurt!” He scrambled up, seeing for the first time the thick layer of blood sticky on her leather boot where a sword had slashed deep. Her blood was only in place because of the crisscross of magically enhanced bandages Evelyn had placed along the artery. “Shit, Ev. If that bandage goes…”

“Run! Fucking run, you dumb, weak, useless little nuisance!” Pelting him with her familiar, childhood curses, Evelyn dragged Elie up by the arm and set him on his feet. Before he could flinch back, she pulled a dagger free, slashed the blade across her palm, and smeared her fresh blood into the dark green scales of the chameleon coat. The blood soaked in and the magic activated, the scales growing clear and bending light until all that could be seen of Elie standing there was his face and hands not covered by the shifter pelt. Evelyn raised her hand to paint Elie’s face with blood to hide him completely. She froze, her body went rigid, and she exhaled in a sharp gasp.

“Ev?” Elie stared at his sister, a scream clawing at his throat when she didn’t breathe again, her eyes bulging and body motionless. “Evelyn!” He grabbed her hand, trying to get her to respond, only to cry out in alarm when his hand grew wet with her blood. Elie dropped her like she burned to the touch, and went to wipe the fluid from his fingers, only to freeze when breath broke free from his sister in a long, soft wheeze.

“You can’t win.” Evelyn’s words were like dry paper on her unmoving lips as she struggled to speak. “He’s an old one… using ancient blood magic… There is no winning.”

Thud. At the noise behind him, Elie whirled, a blade jumping into his hands that he held up defensively. He squinted his eyes, peering at the far side of the barrier shrouded in shadows where a raven fluttered wildly on its side, streaking blood along the rooftop as it tried to get to its feet. While Elie watched, the bird began to shrink. Its chest caved in, growing thinner and thinner, and feathers fell away and disintegrated like ash. Thud. Elie’s gaze dart to the right when another of Evelyn’s familiars dropped down from the dark sky and collapsed, its beak open wide in a death scream it never released. Its body shuddered and collapsed, the bird’s muscles growing tighter and tighter until they snapped completely and the air, magic, and life force were sucked straight out of the creature.

Thud. Thud! “No,” Elie whimpered when another raven fell, then another, then another. Evelyn’s familiars rained down from the sky and crashed to the rooftop, their feathers flaring into bursts of ash before disintegrating completely. “Evelyn,” he croaked as he turned back, his eyes wide in horror when he found his sister’s chest sunken in, her limbs spindly thin and growing thinner.

“How do I cut the connection?” Elie shouted, but he knew it was too late. Evelyn’s beautiful hair was disintegrating, the golden strands breaking away into a glitter of crushed stars quickly stolen away by the wind.

“Run.” Evelyn’s voice hissed out. “Don’t waste this moment…”

“I didn’t wish it, Evelyn! I didn’t!” Elie insisted, rushing toward his sister, only to stop short when one of her bones snapped. “Oh no… No! I don’t want you to leave,” he pleaded. “Not like this.” Tears welled in Elie’s eyes while he gazed at his sister’s face at it twisted and distorted, her energy being sucked out of her.

Evelyn’s body wrenched, her back arching unnaturally. When her voice wheezed out, it sounded older than dust. “You never should have come home… Be clever and run… Run.”

Deranged. His father’s voice called to him, accusing, damning as Elie fought back tears. He hadn’t wished it. He hadn’t! He never wanted this!

Don’t forget to preorder episode #2 of PATB serial! It releases February 14th where we not only meet villains, but the paranormal patients at the Academy, including Wylie’s soon to be deadly obsession, Dorian Black. ♥

How does magic work in PATB?

So, for starters, this is a paranormal story, not a fantasy, so all my magic is made to work in a world similar to our own. Physics apply; limits apply—there is no breaking reality but bending the rules in place to make room for the paranormal. Magic is an energy—a paranormal energy—that occurs side by side with our normal energy, very similar in every way except for a few key differences.

1) Magic is energy that can be manipulated through will.

2) Magic is solely created in the bodies of paranormals.

3) Magic, unlike energy, does not experience entropy. (oh yeah, I fucking nerded this shit up. XD)

4) Magic needs will and/or to be connected to a paranormal, otherwise it becomes inert.

5) Inert magic requires a lot of energy to activate, the only exception being elemental magic users.

So what does that all mean? For the most part, people can’t will energy outside of action. You can think something, but unless you actually do something, very little is going to happen to reach a goal. But with magic, that changes. Magic can interact with normal energy and matter, manipulating what’s around the user to change the world as willed.

Magic can transform like normal energy does. It can be potential energy, willed by a sorcerer to be stored in wards/charms without any energy loss, therefore usable once the spell is triggered. It can be kinetic energy, willed by a sorcerer into spells/sorcery to alter the physical world. Because it doesn’t entropy once triggered, magic can be far more powerful than normal energy, a little going a long way. But it isn’t limitless; without a will to direct magic, it becomes inert, just existing in a potential but nonreactive form, spreading out in the natural world and eventually infusing with whatever it’s around. This is how elemental magic comes to exist in the PATB world.

 

Magic is a byproduct of paranormals

The biggest thing about magic in the PATB world is that it only exists in active form because of paranormals. Their bodies can run on magic, produce magic, or both. The distinction is important. Some magic users are also made up of magic where they cannot function as a biological being without magic, while other magic users are merely capable of manipulating magic but cannot produce it. If a being needs to run on magic, that doesn’t automatically mean their body will produce any extra that can be used in sorcery—but it’s at least a very good sign that they will be able to will magic. Shifters transform the normal energy they get from food into magic to fuel their inner beasts—which is why they eat so much. And for all shifters, their flesh—alive or dead—will always have magic in active form.

This is really the core of how the paranormal hierarchy came to be. In some ways, magic is set by birth, aka, there is little changing a person’s biological makeup to allow them to produce magic if they don’t, control magic if they can’t, or create more magic than their bodies naturally create. But magic can be stolen and stored. A magic user can drain a sorcerer dead, stealing whatever magic their body might be running on at its core, and storing it for use later—but it’s a one time score. Once it’s used up, the magic is gone, inert and a total bitch to make usable again. But a shifter? A magic user can kill and preserve every part they want of that shifter and use their magic for decades. And if it’s a rare shifter like Wylie, whose body holds far more magic in it because of the nature of a dragon shifter, he could power a magic user for centuries, or his flesh could be used in energy intensive spells that otherwise would be impossible.

And Wylie wouldn’t just be a battery for a sorcerer. They would also be able to steal his paranormal traits, like heal by harvesting his saliva, use a spell to activate his allure that’s in his flesh, or have super strength and deadly scales if they stole his skin. A dragon shifter is a fortune of opportunity to the right magic user who is ambitious enough, which is why although shifters are hunted, it’s the magical ones that tend to be hunted to extinction. Magic users aren’t hanging out in graveyards, looking to steal the corpses of shifters—well, not as much anymore. >_> They go and either hunt and kill shifters, or they pay someone who does it for a living, aka, skinners. And in case you didn’t guess, that means hunters have found uses for the more everyday shifters as well, keeping them alive so that they can fuel the magic they want instead of killing them outright. The shifter slave trade started as a way to harvest shifters for their magic, and then evolved from there.

 

Nullifiers and anti paranormal tech

So we’ve got this amazing energy source controlled by will that doesn’t break down or entropy in the hands of a few select beings on the planet. Just what in the world do the normal humans have at their disposal to protect them from magic?

Visdevor and electrified visdevor, for starters. Humans discovered if they chemically bonded steel with visdevor (a synthetic compound I made up for this series) and added a current of electricity, they could create a field that makes magic inert, taking that once active and willable magic and turning it into an inactive form. Pretty badass.

They use this on howlers, cursed humans who have been taken over by the werewolf virus—because, yeah, we have magic based viruses in this world. The only issue is, a nullifier requires a ton of energy to create a nullifying field that can suck the magic out of a paranormal and turn it inert. Otherwise it’s only useful on contact, mostly only capable of burning the skin. This means normal energy that can entropy is being used to fuel a weapon against paranormal energy that doesn’t entropy, and depending on the source, magic can also activate inert magic at the time of casting, creating a chain response that can be larger than anticipated. Aka, to contain magic, you need a lot of energy, and fuel to provide that energy.

Nullifiers can either contain or kill paranormals depending on their exposure and how much of their biological body requires magic to live. This is the interesting difference between shifters and howlers: a shifter is human when in his human form, and therefore when hit by a nullifier, it will only damage their inner animal, requiring them to consume more energy and transform it into magic to recover. A howler, on the other hand is a biological being who is being taken over by a magical virus. In the early stages of the virus, nullifier technology could potentially ‘cure’ a human of the curse. But as a human’s body is taken over and replaced with para-biological parts, contact with a nullifier will turn off processes that can lead to the death of a cursed human. Once a human is full howler, nullifier technology can kill them. This is why the giant electrified visdevor fences work against the plague. When the magic is being sucked out of a howler, it is sucking out their life force.

This is also a problem for halflings, who are beings whose bodies are part paranormal and part biological based. What might be a nuisance with nullifier tech for a shifter or sorcerer whose human forms don’t need magic to survive, will be a crisis for a halfling whose life can be in jeopardy just from coming in contact with visdevor or a nullifying field. And if they’re a demon, or have full paranormal biology? Their magic going inert can kill them.

This is why Collin McPherson has been leading research into the field of paranormal safe nullifying technology and has created the null-collar. It is still in developmental phases but he hopes that he can one day create a long term solution for howlers where their paranormal viral side can be suppressed without killing the host.

 

Is magic conscious?

So, there are some interesting things when it comes to magic in the PATB world that raises the question of if magic might actually be conscious. For starters, we have shifters, where the magical side of them has a completely different personality than the human side. The inner beast can like different foods, can want different things—it can even fall in love!—all autonomous to the human side’s interests. That magical side can even take on its own form, a body of paranormal biology that can be shifted to at will. When it comes to shifters, it feels like the paranormal side has a will of it’s own!

Then we have the howlers, aka werewolves. With a human infected by this magical virus, a distinct personality and physical traits occur. At the full moon, a howler’s viral paranormal side gains power over its host, and when it does it seeks to spread its infection and take over more humans. This magical virus doesn’t just seek to survive, but it manifests a personality of its own in its human host, one that battles with the person it’s trying to take over. There are some who believe the magical virus—being all the same strand—is manifesting the same consciousness into every howler out there like a hive mind or a pando colony.

If you talk to Dorian, he’s happy to point out how people with magic are usually more beautiful, more charismatic and alluring, as if the very magic itself is trying to change a host to make it more viable to mate and then create a better host. It’s almost like magic is trying to reproduce in the same way biological beings do.

Then there’s the fact that magic can be manipulated by will—in some ways, is an extension of will, an extension of the physical body inacting change on the physical world with paranormal energy. Dorian would ask what a shifter really is: a human body that then created a shifter animal, or was it a conscious shifter animal acting like a parasite in a human body as it grew, using the biological basis to build enough energy to gain human form?

Adam, our sneaky tech sorcerer, has a different theory about magic based around how magic doesn’t decay and it doesn’t transform into normal energy even though it can be created by energy. It’s only active with will. He thinks that magic is an extension of consciousness but not necessarily conscious. William, the resident elf halfling at the Academy has a different theory. He thinks magic originates from outside the known universe and is mimicking the life that it finds here, not necessarily consciously but consciousness being created as it mimics conscious beings.

There are a lot of different theories in the PATB world as to just why magic is the way it is and where it came from. This is one of those questions that no one really knows the answer to, the same way we don’t really understand what consciousness is or how it comes to be in our world.

So, what do you think? Did I nerd it up just a little too much for something as simple as ‘magic did it?’ XD

 

What is Theodore Howld’s goto magic?

Theodore, our badass grown up dragon shifter is usually seen using his beast magic, which is basically his dragon’s preferred default. This includes allure to draw prey in, extreme force by manipulating air molecules to crush and incapacitate his prey, and an amazingly powerful energy drain that can feed/heal his dragon and kill his prey all in one go. Sever, the name of Theodore’s dragon, is an apex predator, partially in response to so many paranormals having been hunted down and wiped out by skinners. I like to think of Sever as what nature/magic created to adapt to being hunted.

Curious what Theodore’s sceptre might look like in real life? A little bit like this, but it packs more than an aura punch. XD

Hey peeps,

I’m hanging out at the hospital. My brother ended up with appendicitis and we’re waiting to see if the antibiotics will be enough, or if he’ll need surgery. So, to avoid having to think of all those worrisome things, I thought I share with you all some of the reasons I went in the direction I did with The Paranormal Academy For Troubled Boys Serial.

Oh, if you missed the preorder for the second episode of PATB Serial, you can snag it here!

Before I get into the changes made in the serial, I picked up a book today that was, like, everything I’ve been missing in my reading lately. In the first chapter alone there was forced-to-fuck, straight to gay, noncon, and unseen alien/demonic entities controlling the action. First chapter. And yeah, there’s plot too. <3 So if you’re interested in a crazy, wild ride of a read—one that’s only $0.99—you should check out the Beast In The Nothing Room.

A lot of amazing books released this week. I’m putting them all here, cuz I’m being wordy today and I don’t want anyone to miss any of the deals.

MM Reads

MF and LGBTQ Reads

10 Things I deliberately changed in PATB (and didn’t)

So, I feel like I should start this off by explaining, a lot of these changes came about because of branding. When I started writing, I wasn’t thinking too much of long term. I was ill, life was happening, and writing was just about whatever felt fun in the moment. But that started to change once I saw my health improving, and I could look at my writing as a business, not just an escape. I had to make some big decisions of how I wanted to brand the Sadie Sins books so that whenever someone picked up one of my books, they would have a fair idea of what to expect about the contents.

If you’ve read episode #1 of the PATB Serial (which hit bestseller in LGBT fantasy last week!!! <3 ) and happened to have read Demon Arms before, you might already have an idea of what direction I’m going for with my branding. But if you haven’t, I’m happy to explain it a bit.

1. More Than Insta Love!

When I was writing the first sequel to Demon Arms, I got to do something I’d never done before. I got to write characters falling in love instead of crashing straight there. I wanted to do that in the Demon Arms story arc too, where it felt like there were reasons Wylie and Dorian end up together, emotional connections and stuff beyond plain old chemistry and a demanding inner dragon. I wanted a space they could grow together, not just magic into love. I write a lot of lust stories—and I love them, don’t get me wrong! XD But I wanted to write a real love story (well, ass real as magic and shifters can get, anyways.)

2. Turning Up The Heat

This was actually one of the choices I struggled with conceptually for a while with this series, partially with how tame I had written Demon Arms. Demon Arms had been confused for YA by a lot of readers, YA with some sex—it just didn’t make much sense, especially when these readers would then see what else I wrote and find a bunch of books that pushed limits they didn’t want pushed. This choice was where the branding direction came in, and I’m sure it is both controversial and loved depending on each reader’s preference.

Here’s the deal, I didn’t want to have to use a new pen name for this series, I didn’t want to build something from scratch, and more importantly, I didn’t want to find myself stuck writing a series I didn’t enjoy writing. So I went in and turned the heat up. For the peeps leaving reviews such as ‘rape and more rape’ yes, that was absolutely by design. Now you know; welcome to a Sadie Sins’s book. For anyone who picks up episode #1 of PATB Serial and enjoys it, they can be happy to discover that my other books contain adult subjects, much of it dark and sexual explicit, and they will not be freaked out by that. For those who can’t handle this first episode, I don’t have to worry about them hating on my other books.

So you’re now all informed. There will be no ‘sweet’ Demon Arms sequels free of kinky sex and aggressive personalities. I’m planning threesomes, sexual slavery, dubcon, scenes of my delicious killer Theo doing what he does best, dark moments, caretakers crossing boundaries with patients, and just all around fun. There’s no point having a power like allure and not using it like a weapon or weakness. This is a world of dark, manipulative magics gained through hunting down and killing shifters; it’s not supposed to be a civilized reflection of reality.

I want a mature audience. I’m not talking like in age (although, to be real, I’ve met more than a few awesome-sauce 80 year old fans.) I’m talking a more mature mentality when it comes to erotic sex, in not thinking fiction is real, in allowing a book to be a book and not demanding it be anything else. I want to have some fucking fun, and I don’t need peeps crying rape about words on a screen. (Go ahead, try to rape words. See how they respond when you shove a dick into text. If pain is felt, it’s not from the damn words.)

This is a tame series, but it’s still a Sadie Sins book. I’m tired of being told erotic sex can’t ever meet amazing plot and strong characterization. I’m tired of people trying to insist that sex ruins the validity and value of a story, and that stories with sex have to be hidden away. I do not subscribe to that kind of discriminatory thinking about my fiction, and I want to draw in readers who don’t either.

3. Show, Not Tell

I started this when I wrote Hellcat, this hint of craft that’s been growing after I spent a few years writing. I has started looking at scripts, started studying movies and tv series and musing on how I could improve the things my writing was lacking. I needed to create a more concrete world. My characters were all in their heads, narrating the events instead of IN the events. I wanted to show the world, but more importantly, show how the characters impacted their environment. What did a gesture do to the scene—a burst of magic, a flare of anger, anxiety? If it were a movie, how would it look, and how would the physical world change in response to the character’s action? I felt the best way to get the characters out of their heads was to put them in the scene.

Now, when Wylie’s hands are shaking because he’s nervous, he tears through a shelf and a bundle of cash so we can SEE he’s nervous. We don’t narrate that men are hollering at Theodore for base, sexual favors but have them shout thinks like “suck my dick, sexy!” In my first draft of Hellcat, I had tried to explain that Sean was a shitty friend to TJ, only to realize it would be way easier to show it by having him jerk off while talking to him on the phone. It that doesn’t say total shit friend, what does, right?

There are some consequences to showing instead of telling. My very first draft of Demon Arms was in first person, and it had a strong narrative voice as a result that shined through even when I changed it to third person for the final draft of the book. Showing a scene instead of letting Wylie tell it stripped a lot of the personality away from his inner voice. I tried to preserve it a bit, ensure that his thoughts or words were heard, but it absolutely changed things. Wylie’s not just telling a story now but is in one, reacting to what’s happening, and at the same time, the environment reacting to him.

I still struggle with it. It’s a new skill I’m learning, not quite a natural habit, but it makes me see my writing in a brand new way, I love that. I love the challenge. I can’t imagine ever settling for the same old thing as a creative. Without the promise of something new to learn, it just gets boring after a while.

4. Beast Voices

This was a last minute decision, but it made this story in a lot of ways. I was doing the final draft and I kept forgetting the motivation of a very important character Wylie was dealing with: his dragon. There’s this voice inside of him that’s been quiet for so long, so quiet that he confused it with his own for the last 10 years. Yet here he is, mid heist, letting his demon arms out for the longest time ever, and he’s starting to realize he’s not that alone in his head. That the shit he thought was annoying about his arms is actually quite deliberate because the beast inside him is a different being who wants different things—for starters, blood.

Wylie was not an ‘out-of-control’ paranormal like the other patients in Demon Arms, he was just a wannabe thug with a bad past that he used to excuse his shitty behavior. But as our intro into the series, I wanted to show what out of control really meant—how a shifter could lose control because they’re battling with a completely different personality inside them. I think Theodore becomes a beautiful example for this. We don’t really know why he’s working for the Academy in this intro, why he is so interested in ensuring the patients are safe, but we know in this first book that he is damn well familiar with what it’s like to be out of control when it comes to his dragon. For the most part, they seem in sync, doing what needs to be done, the goals the same… until the dragon asserts a demand of the moment, and you can see the cascade of compromises Theodore must make to get along with the beast.

Would these compromises be required when things are much calmer, when stress isn’t crashing down around Theodore? Probably not. We get to see the beasts as a stress response, where the more difficult something presses on Theodore psychologically, the more his beast rebels and wants to do things his way. It’s why Wylie’s dragon showed up in that gang initiation—stress. Stress kills, even. XD We don’t see Theodore go out of control, but we do see what happens when his beast is in control, tearing through skinners and full of a rage that comes from being hunted for a lifetime and seeing so many die.

I found that in Demon Arms, the conflict was rather nonexistent or easily diffused when it came to the patients. It wasn’t realistic, and I realized I needed those beast voices—those impulsive, animalistic reactions—to keep tensions up in the more peaceful parts of the story. Otherwise, it’s boring.

5. A Grown Up Perspective

I really wanted some adults to get a pov this time around. Theodore and Michael get love story arcs later in the series that I wanted to easily transition into by giving them stronger parts now. I wanted to head hop, I’ll be real. XD I like head hopping, and apparently I did it well this time cuz no complaints were made (that I saw.) I want readers to meet the characters and care, and I could only do that if they got to really see and feel what it was like to be in their shoes.

But also, Theo and Michael are the first wave of Academy goers—the ones still alive—and they’ve seen up close the world and danger that they’re protecting their paranormal patients from. They’re a bridge in a lot of ways, providing a more worldly view. They don’t get to hide from the world but are forced to navigate it as a form of protection. They understand when direct action is needed and how sometimes good and bad are completely blurred when fighting to live. That those lines are naturally blurred when it comes to killing, and trying to pretend they aren’t is idealistic nonsense that neither of them subscribe to.

Killing to survive is not a heroic act. Murder at all is not some white shining knight BS. Death should not be prettied up or sanitized—to kill a person, there is blood, pain, a line crossed every time. This is not a simple ‘bad guys are evil and therefore they deserve to die’ type of series. That’s 2-Dimensional and unrealistic. Everyone who dies is a character, and I want my characters to be fleshed out, felt, possibly even mourned.

I am not here to write a manual of how to be a good person—the teens in this book; that goal might be important to a lot of them. It’s usually a theme for younger people as they strive to find a place in the world. But Michael and Theodore have experienced a level of life—of war and slaughter and systematic bigotry—that makes them not care about morality the same way. They care about survival; they care about a life well lived; they care about doing what needs to be done with ruthless precision, sometimes preemptively, so that they can wake up and face themselves in the mirror each day because their patients weren’t slaughtered. For every confused question from the teens of if it’s right to do bad to survive, our caretaker adults already have an answer and it’s ‘it doesn’t matter. Just survive.’

6. Not Always Agreeing With The Characters

This was a risk, but at the same time I find the stories I love the most are of complex characters we don’t necessarily like all the time. I don’t think good characters are necessarily supposed to be people that would be your best friend. I think it’s a bit like the funny prankster in a story; that guy is usually a sarcastic, total asshole. People ignore it because they laugh, but the reality is you don’t want to live with Homer Simpson, or Peter Griffin, or with those douche-bags from the big bang nerd show. People in sitcoms are fucking terrible, and I don’t think their behavior should really be a reflection of how people should treat each other. But that doesn’t mean they’re not entertaining.

So, this is not a sitcom. These are people trying to do the right thing, but in situations where right is a compromise to the dark stuff happening around them. It’s the compromise of ‘a little bit better than worst.’ First time around, everyone was best friends in the Academy, except for Leo. Leo is won over pretty easily, and you see this a lot in stories, especially romance troops. It’s like this equalizing of conflict and personalities to get along, just because the characters are all in the same scenes. They lose their independence, they lose their motivation, and they become tools for the author who is failing to notice that these characters are no longer there own personalities.

In that regard, I’m trying to be better this time around (but it is tough.) I’m not saying on making them enemies for the sake of conflict – although there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s more, trying to allow the characters to be true to themselves while not being caught up by my own personal need to make them agreeable to get the plot going. Sometimes characters kick and scream, fighting against the plot, and those are usually the best stories. These big personalities, these alphas, sorcerers, just inner beasts combined with hormonal teens and 20 somethings should not result in everyone getting along. That shouldn’t be automatic; that should be what a lot of the work in the character development is for, teaching them to get along.

7. Villains

I realized we needed villains. Wylie’s gangsters weren’t going to be enough. How could I show that this was a world full of shifter hunters, that shifters were actually in danger, and let it be felt, not just heard in passing? Well, now the police station isn’t full of indifferent professionals who were just trying their best, but some are clearly bigoted against paranormals like Wylie, hating him just because they know at some point he can turn into something they can’t. We can see the bigotry is deep, where even the paramedics, a company created to help people, would put the well-being of others and their own profit aside to ensure their unreasonable hatred makes their decisions.

This is why villains, shifter hunters and skinners, were needed from the very beginning. We need to see what it means to hunt a shifter, what that power looks like that they’re trying to obtain, the type of money that went into it—that armored bus wasn’t cheap—and we got to see that in things like the chameleon coat, and some of the abilities the skinners use against Theodore as they battle. We get to see the hatred, the question of what is really human in the sorcerer who takes over George Snyder’s appearance. Here’s a sorcerer passing as everyone else around him, but his hatred runs far deeper than any strangeness that would be in a shifter hiding in human flesh.

These themes were already there in the first book, but they were just themes, they weren’t really realized in the environment. I think this time around you get to feel the weight of these concepts, see how the world is shaped by them. I’m actually rather excited about it, to be honest. Characters grow the best when in conflict, and stories get more interesting as a result.

8. Increased Word Count and Detail

Okay, this was not particularly planned. Actually, I fought this a lot until I realized just WHY my writing style had changed so drastically. When I realized what was happening, I gave into it. I don’t subscribe to a ‘right’ kind of writing. I think we all have different styles and that’s perfectly fine. But I do know as a content creator, some level of consistency in style is helpful, if not expected, and that was my concern in all this.

Here’s the reality: my brain changed. I had no say in the matter. It started happening once I got my allergies under control. I think the first signs of it were when I was writing Hellcat in the beginning of 2018. That book—believe it or not—was supposed to be a short story. Instead it became a novel over 100,000 words long. I noticed something was happening in my head, how I looked at words, how I started to *see* a scene and not just float around in the dark. Shortly after publishing Hellcat, I was hit with mold that took over my bedroom and living room, and the neurotoxins had me suffering with multiple chemical sensitivity for months. During this really shitty time, my brain got messed up. It’s hard to be an observer to your mind when your brain is the one struggling, but my functionality in my life was impaired. Eventually, after taking a ton of supplements to regrow neurons, support and protect my brain, supplement my flat lined dopamine, remove the neurotoxins, heal the damage, lower the inflammation and stop the immune response, I returned to ‘normal.’ Except normal had changed.

You can see the change when during episode 11 of Demon Bonded in July, 2018. What averaged as 15,000 word episodes became 35,000 just for a handful of scenes, and I was completely unable to stop it. My brain had decided on a new level of ‘done,’ and it wasn’t where the old line used to be.

Have you ever looked at the way someone cleans a kitchen counter top—or a room, or maybe it’s their car, etc—and it’s different from the way you clean? We all have different levels of done. Some people need to wash that counter down, make sure every crumb and speck it swept away, clearing off the surface completely just to neatly arrange things back once it’s all clean: that’s their done. Someone else, they pick up the obviously dirty dishes piled there, toss them in the sink for washing later, and flick a few crumbs away: that’s their done. Another person might glance at the mess on the counter top and decide to go watch tv: that’s their done. We’re all different, yet we still have a line that’s called done. My done line moved, and it feels in a drastic way, much more toward the cleaning every fucking aspect of the counter to then neatly arrange the stuff back on the top. And no, this style is not always relatable to people who wait a week or month to get to cleaning their counter top.

When I started this rewrite, I noticed that a scene suddenly took 3 times the amount of words to write on average. It required more words to describe a scene, to linger and show an action instead of have the character think something unattached to the physical world of the scene. The style was more immersive, more in-depth, more action oriented. And to be real, when I saw this drastic change, I worried. A lot. I had attracted a fan base with my previous style. 100%. And I know the writing game—popular fiction is rarely about wordage or sophisticated vocabulary. And erotica? Yeah, no. Just no. This could absolutely destroy me as a writer if my fanbase hated it. But… my brain couldn’t write any other way.

I had no choice in this. Seriously, it’s not like I’m looking to pad word count, or scam people by making a book so long it needs to be broken into pieces, or anything like that. It broke me for a while— I could see the severe problems with such a big writing style change after years of having put out a different style. It could be career breaking, or at least fan breaking—I don’t even like to read long books, but here I am, everything I write becoming long as fuck! My brain changed and there was nothing I could do about it.

So… I chose to embrace it instead of trying to slice up this new style. I had spent far too long battling with myself, battling my insecurities, and making compromises where I was never allowed to just exist as I am. I accepted there was no going back and forged forward instead. The new style came naturally, meaning I would write faster this way, in flow, as long as I didn’t battle myself. If I set the style in the first book, those who liked it would know the entire series had the same style instead of getting a bad surprise next book. And it is a style thing—style doesn’t mean anything beyond a preference of getting words on a page. I can’t decide what readers like; I can only write to the best of my ability and put my work out there.

I am absolutely certain that I have alienated previous readers with this style, and there is very little I can do about it but keep writing. I’m sorry if you were used to how I wrote before; I really am. I can just hope my brain has settled and sticks with one style—whatever it might be—so fans won’t have to go through such a drastic change again.

9. Serial Instead of Novels

This story was too complex in plot and far too much planned in the future to be able to squish it all into a novel format. Demon Arms was planned as a love story a book, and it just wasn’t going to work. I started Fox and Vincent’s story arc in the sequel and they just couldn’t fit some romance mold. So instead of cutting the story down to fit a norm, I decided to go wild and plan this as a long serial. Each episode plans to be around 80,000 words, give or take.

10. Demon Arms Was Unscathed

I think the greatest reason I was able to break out of the old style was by not touching Demon Arms. This wasn’t a rewrite that was ‘fixing’ the original. I didn’t want to replace it, didn’t want to take it away from the fans. This was probably the final deciding factor in why I pushed to create it as a serial instead of novels; I needed to change the format completely to push away from it getting caught up in the old book.

I was a younger author when I wrote Demon Arms, still swayed by popular demands, still trying to figure out what my style was, what my brand was. I had to think hard about if I wanted to be isolated on Amazon and the romance genre for being dark—dark romance was so damn small, and it was hard to know if it would be allowed to grow when everyone was screaming about requiring HEAs for a book to be a ‘real’ romance, etc. I didn’t want to erase the first book even though I had grown up. When I set out to write the PATB Serial, I knew who I was, and I knew who Sadie Sins was, and I didn’t need to erase that journey.

Sadie Sins does not write young adult. Her endings are happy but there are always compromises, always dark paths to get there, and morality is not the main key. Cleverness, perseverance, character connections; that’s how happy endings are reached. Love in the darkest of moments fuel these characters to never give up, to be their best versions, even if they’re still imperfect and held back by their unique limits. It’s easy to love a diamond for its shine, but far more valuable to love it for its flaws.

 

PATB Serial hit #1 in LGBT Fantasy Fiction!

Babes, I am so out of the game

I have no selling strategy, I have no goals right now where I can go ‘there, I made it. Author self worth achieved!’ I am just trying to get my momentum back with all this, relearn how to chew gum and walk at the same time kinda thing. But apparently while I was sick and full of a fair bit of self-loathing for not getting anything accomplished, I became part of a community of kickass writers and readers.

I have found myself surrounded by generous people who have shared this book without me asking, without me saying a damn word. Where their kindness and enthusiasm for me finally wobbling back on my author feet has far outshined my tentative, rather terror stricken self in all this.

One of my biggest struggles, not just as an author but as a person, has been to make this very difficult journey from independent to interdependent. I have no clue how to do it–letting people help me has been so freaking difficult. I love to help others, but I know because I haven’t figured out the other half that my help is lacking. I just don’t know how to fit into the human reciprocation game. But I really want to freaking learn. Feeling like I’m a part of something bigger but still accepts me for my flaws makes me want to be the best version of me I can be. It’s a different type of motivational fuel, one that doesn’t feel so damn lonely.

So yeah… I’m loving the world today. XD I hope you’re all having a great weekend (and that I didn’t get too much sappy injected into your day. 😉 ) I just wanted to share the good news.