Writing – Page 2 – AJ Mullican, Author

Another goal hit in my keto life journey! I’m proud to say that I’m under 250 lbs now, which is something I feared I’d never reach again.

I’m far from “done” with the keto lifestyle. On the contrary, I feel so good about the weight that I’ve already lost that I’m planning on continuing indefinitely–not only for fear of backsliding, but also because I actually don’t mind the low-carb life. Can’t eat any of the snacks in the break room? Okay. I’ll bring my own snacks. Not much on the menu at a fast food joint or restaurant? Fine. I’ll pick what I can eat and just not eat the carb-y stuff.

For the official count, here’s my weight loss numbers for the last 30 days, 60 days, and overall since I started:

I’ve been doing a keto diet for about 2 1/2 months now. Almost 40 lbs in 2 1/2 months! I’m so happy.

I’ll plateau eventually. Probably a few times. But for now, I’m enjoying the steady decline in weight. My clothes fit better–sometimes too big now–and I feel better overall.

Speaking of feeling better, today I see my podiatrist to see if my foot has finally healed enough to get this stupid boot off. It’s been 8 weeks today, and I’m 1000% done with the boot. It’s heavy, it’s awkward, it makes my gait weird, and my other foot is getting painful from my favoring the foot with the boot. All that, plus I can’t drive. I miss running errands on lunch or being able to take myself to work. It’s the little things in life, man.

I haven’t had the boot off for much of anything besides showering and changing clothes. Because I wake up earlier than my husband and the boot has a ton of Velcro on it, I just sleep with it on to keep from waking him every time I get up in the night. Since this is a re-break of a bone that tends to re-break once initially broken, I’m trying to be a good patient and stick to my restrictions.

If all looks good on the x-ray this afternoon, I might be able to ditch the boot and just “take it easy” for however long the doctor determines I need to do so. I have a sinking feeling that he’s going to tell me “no sword fighting,” which will be a disappointment for sure. I’m eager to get back to rapier practice and relearn all that I’ve forgotten and recondition myself to holding the sword for long periods of time and sparring with friends, but all that might have to wait if the doctor says it might jeopardize my foot.

I really don’t want another 8 weeks of boot life.

Maybe later today I’ll call and schedule the DEXA scan I was supposed to get months ago. Hard to figure out a time to do it when I can’t drive myself to it! This needing a ride everywhere stinks.

Other news in the health front: I accidentally skipped a month of my biologic injection, but I got it yesterday so that’s on board. Hopefully my doc isn’t too mad at my slipup when I see her in a couple of weeks. (And hopefully I can drive myself to that appointment.) I was out of my Adderall for a couple of weeks while the pharmacy had issues with their shipments, but I’m happy to say that I have that again as well. My mental health is, well…

…Yeah. That. I hate my job. It’s getting to me. I mean, it’s the same thing day in, day out, five days a week. Sure, there’s the occasional half day or holiday, but lately I’m getting called in to either switch which half I’m working or to work the whole day on the half days (usually at the last possible minute), and the doctor has a couple days a month off, which makes the work load on his off days easier because there aren’t any patients, but yeah…that’s not enough. I don’t know what else I would do, though.

I’ve worked in healthcare for the better part of 19 years (9 years in a hospital setting, and close to 9 years where I’m at, with a brief period of joblessness and retail when I moved to Arizona), so I’m not quite sure what other marketable skills I might have. I mean, I’m quasi-bilingual, so there’s that, and here in AZ speaking Spanish is always a bonus, but my Spanish is limited. My grammar is terrible, and as far as conversational Spanish goes I can muddle through most of it, but I know sometimes I’m using the wrong word or wrong verb form. Medical Spanish? I’m almost completely fluent there. I can snag a chief complaint or medical history no problem. But if I want to do something different, something non-medical, I don’t know if my Spanish is up to par for other professions.

I have a degree that’s non-medical–a Bachelor’s of Science in Criminal Justice Administration–but that’s 13 years old now, and I have done absolutely nothing with it since I graduated. Well, I got it framed and hung it up. That’s about it.

A friend of mine has been encouraging me to look at the possibility of working on post as a contractor or some other type of government position, but I’m leery of that. When I first found out I was moving here, I spent months ahead of time applying at various positions on a government website, and I never heard back from any of them. I even revamped my resume based on some redacted resumes my dad showed me from hires he’d done as a DOD employee. So I had my Resume Wizard one from Word that failed, and my Based on a Successfully Hired Government Employee resume that also failed. I just don’t know if I can handle the stress of trying to find a job while maintaining my stressful job.

If I was better at marketing–if my book was selling enough to be profitable–I’d hold a sliver of hope that I could make money doing that. It’s not, though, and I’m not, so that’s out. No, writing is a second profession for me, not my primary source of income, and I doubt it ever will be. I can dream, but…yeah.

I’ve gotta get moving on that marketing stuff, speaking of which. I’m part of a group of authors who are making a run on the USA Today Bestseller’s list with a box set of stories, and my newest WIP is geared towards that. I’ve got a lot of work to do with that, though, because I need to get followers and do some heavy marketing as well. Can’t get to the bestseller list without working for it.

It seems like a lot: the boot, the existential employment crisis, the writing, the marketing…Can I do it all?

I don’t know, but I know one thing: Something’s gotta give. I don’t know how soon, but it’s gotta happen. Whether it’s freedom from the boot and freedom to do my normal activities, or a new job, or a surge in sales, something has to happen to change things. And I know, I have to change to make some of these things happen. I just have to be brave enough to try.

Hell to Pay

Short Story, Writing

Story prompt time! I was given this prompt by fellow author Angelique Jordonna: “You’re looking to unleash hell on earth; how do you bring this about? What are you going to do to summon those evil spirits, hell hounds, Satan….whatever?”

That’s it. I’m done. Done with this life, done with the bullshit, done with humanity.

Don’t get me wrong. I tried to “live my best life” or whatever. I tried to keep my chin up and all that. But people suck regardless of what you do, and I’m just over it.

It took me forever to find a solution to life and all its misery. I mean, even though I’m fed up, I still want to make my mark. And boy howdy, it’s one helluva mark. Get it? Hell of a mark?

Fine. Don’t laugh. Keep screaming in agony. This is why I did it: no one appreciates a good pun.

When I told my friends what I had planned, they all just kind of scoffed and dismissed me. Went back to their iPhones and smart watches. Ignored me. They fucking earned this, I tell you.

I know you probably don’t appreciate the effort I went into, seeing as how you’re burning in eternal hellfire and all. But trust me, it was a feat in itself, bringing Hell to reality. No one thought I could do it. “Satan’s not real,” they said. “Hell is just a construct of The Man to keep the sheep in line,” they said. “You’ve lost it if you think you can summon an actual demon,” they said. Well, fuck them. I showed all of them.

I have the Internet to thank for my success, really. Just about any resource you need, it’s there. It might take some searching, some really creative keywords, but yeah. You wanna summon demons? Raise Hell? Meet Satan and all his pals? You can do it. Well, you could have….I kinda beat you to it.

How did I get Satan himself to come party with me for this end-of-days event? Simple: I emailed him. What did you think it would take? A virgin sacrifice? Complicated ritual? Chanting in Aramaic? Please. It’s the twenty-first century. Satan keeps up with the times.

Satan’s not really that bad of a dude, to be honest. I mean, you might think he is, but I think he’s pretty cool. The guy has some cool torture ideas. Like, beyond Biblical. I’m talking some of the sickest, most depraved shit I’ve ever heard of. Horror-movie-on-steroids type torture. I suppose it’s not as cool to experience it firsthand, but watching it is pretty neat. Totally sitting here next to Satan with my beer and popcorn, fist-bumping him when someone who pissed me off starts to scream.

I bet you’re wondering what kind of deal I made with Satan to get the ball rolling on this. Turns out he wanted this too. His hands were just tied by holy legal shit. I guess he can’t raise literal Hell without a specific request by a mortal. Once that’s been made though, he’s a free bird. Hellfire, demonic possession, torture–all it needed was my simple “Hey, dude, can we just end life as we know it? I’m kind of cheesed at all these people, and I’d like to see them burn.”

Yep, that was it. It was all me. This hellscape is courtesy of my temper.

I pet the closest head of Cerberus, who’s lying next to my throne. I guess freeing Satan from his constraints has its perks. No torture for me, and I get a bonus comfy seat. Anyway, Cerberus is chewing on someone’s thigh bone, wagging his tail. He’s fluffier than I pictured when I thought of “demonic hellhound.” I think the bone used to belong to that guy who made fun of me in junior high.

“This is nice,” I say to Satan. “The fires are warm, and the screams are relaxing.”

“Yep,” he says. “No one ever thinks about that. They just think about ‘peace’ and ‘harmony’ and ‘being a good person.’ Bunch of crap, if you ask me.”

I nod and take a swig.

Best email I ever sent.

Coming soon to audiobook: Abnormal!

#books, #dystopian, #publishing, Abnormal, Novel, Promotion, Reading, Social Media, Writing

Good news, everyone! ABNORMAL is coming to audiobook–soon! Missed out on this fast-paced sci-fi/dystopian novel because you just don’t have time to read a physical or digital copy? No sweat. You’ll be able to listen to the story soon. 🙂

Even better: I need reviewers! Send a message/email (here or on one of my social media pages), and I can put you on our reviewer list. What does that mean? It means as soon as I know the release date, you’ll know…and possibly some other fun stuff 😉

ABNORMAL’s journey has been incredible, and I can’t wait for more people to have access to this story of action, survival, love, and loss.

In what has been described as Push meets Blade Runner, Abnormal takes place in a future where genetic Gifts are treasured and revered–unless you’re poor. For the lower classes, any genetic “abnormalities” discovered before birth are terminated by government mandate. Clare, an Abnormal whose mother managed to evade the genescans, must keep a low profile or risk being sent to an internment camp. When two Gifted men stalk and assault her, she kills them in self defense. Too bad their parents are on the Council. Now Clare is on the run and must keep one step ahead of the Squads.

I’m still hard at work on the third installment of the series, and the sequel is with the publisher. This new milestone in ABNORMAL’s life is exciting, and I can’t wait to hear it for myself.

Hidden walls and speed bumps

#books, #dystopian, #publishing, Abnormal, escape the light, Musings, Novel, Stress, Thoughts, Writing

It happens a lot in the writing world: You’re going along at a decent clip, then BAM! you come up upon a brick wall that derails your train of thought or slams the brakes on your progress.

One of the biggest author questions I see on Twitter’s #writingcommunity hashtag is “How do I get past writer’s block?” (or some other version of that question). It’s an age-old question, and there are probably as many answers as there are ways to phrase the question–actually, probably more answers.

Everyone has a different method of breaking writer’s blocks, and no method works for all writers. I, for one, usually take a break, regroup, then come back and reread the previous work to remind myself where I left off and what’s going on. Does it work every time? No, but it’s been somewhat effective so far for me. This time, however, it’s not helping.

What next? Well, I could try any number of things..and that’s kind of the problem. You see, I have too many options here. I could do X, Y, Z, A, Q, W, or even go into the Greek or Cyrillic languages for more letters and still not run out of things to try. I could drink until something comes to me, I could try a writing prompt, I could move on to another WIP and work on it, I could scribble down a nonsense scene to get the creative juices flowing–but which one to do?

Is it possible to have writer’s block block? Because I think that’s a thing now. I can’t think of a viable solution to getting out of this rut.

“Where is Clare right now?” you might ask. “What’s she doing? What can happen to her to move the story forward?” Sure. Ask the easy ones. The ones I’ve already answered to myself, the ones that come first. How about a hard one? Like “What happens next?” or “How does X come to be?” or “Why is X happening?” Because those questions are plaguing me at the moment.

Maybe I’ll “freewrite” here….just let the writer’s block busters flow until something sparks something else.

Should I freewrite a scene? Jump to another spot in the story and come back to the stuck part? Work on another story altogether? Outline more? Should I open a dictionary or thesaurus or something and flip to a random page and close my eyes and point to a word and go from there? Interview my characters? Mind map? Ugh. So many ways to theoretically break through a block–and right now, none of them sound “right.”

At this rate, I’m going to be one slow author. I’ll be in my sixties before this series and the spin-off series are done! And what about other projects? I’d like to do more than one or two series and be done with writing. I want to branch out, write more varied works. I want to grow as an author.

Eh, what am I talking about? I’ll be fine. I just need to breathe. Take it easy. One sentence at a time. Maybe I should skip around. Or outline. Try new styles. Who knows? I could come upon the mystery solution to all writers’ blocks.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

On Valkyrie Wings

Poetry, Writing

The battle’s won

But death is nigh

Red haze of blood

Obscures my eye

I blink, I wipe

I try to clear

But I can’t see

Only can hear

The beat of wings

The rush of air

The winds, they come

Run through my hair

Through blood-red haze

A light does shine

Glowing over

Me and mine

“Come, brave soul”

She says to me

“Come with me now,

And you’ll be free.”

I raise my hand

I take a breath

I try to think

Of what I’ve left

Of who still stands

Who soldiers on

Of who will grieve

Once I am gone

None come to mind

It’s all a blur

My thoughts, my eyes

Centered on her

Her flaxen hair

Her brilliant light

Her beating wings

That give her flight

Her hand takes mine

She pulls me up

Inside I rise

My body slumps

My soul, it flies

With her as guide

Valhalla blooms

Before my eyes

No longer live

But not quite dead

My eyes now cleared

Of haze of red

Odin beckons

Inside his hall

Urging me in

I heed his call

Gliding forward

I take a seat

I lift my cup

I drink the mead

Thoughts of my life

Fade from the fore

My cup empties

I ask for more

I fear not death

Now that I’m here

I welcome fate

With smiles and cheer

Piloting without a manual

#books, #publishing, Celebrity, Fandom, Horror, Interview, Learning, Marketing, Novel, Podcast, Promotion, Q&A, Reading, Self Publishing, Social Media, Writing

Remember that webcast/podcast idea I talked about a few months back? No? Well, I don’t blame you. I haven’t really been talking about it, because the logistics were a nightmare, but now…

…Now we have our pilot episode recorded and aired! That’s right, Muses and Murderers podcast (the webcast/video portion is on hold until I get a better setup) is officially started. It had some hiccups, it had some bumps, it had some awkward silences, but it’s live and ready to listen to!

I learned quite a bit in the process as we winged it today with a three-way call, a voice recording app, and a slew of other apps to make the recording work for sharing to a podcast app. Apps. Have I said “apps” enough? After today’s session, I know a few steps I can use to shorten the time and process from recording to publication, so that’s good. Because three hours to get a less-than-hour-long episode aired is a bit much. Lol

One thing that I’m grateful for as I went through the interview today was my experiences with Talk Nerdy With Us. Those phone interviews when I was with them made me more comfortable with the interview process today. I’ve listened through the whole podcast, and it sounds pretty good for a first time thing. I mean, I’ve interviewed people over the phone on behalf of Talk Nerdy and I’ve been on podcasts and webcasts, but this was my first time “running the show,” so it was an interesting experience.

First interview down, many, many still to set up and record. I’m hoping to get some done next weekend, now that I know how it will go and how to get it done. I’ll get some emails out in the coming days, set up some taping times….but I’m feeling much better about it.

We’re gonna do this thing.

We’re gonna do awesome things with this thing.

To Sleep… Perchance to Dream

#dreams, Flash Fiction, Horror, Short Story, Writing

I’m not quite sure what woke me. I don’t recall hearing anything unusual, but it’s certainly not normal for me to wake in the middle of the night like this.

I stop and listen, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. The sounds all seem normal. The shadows all seem normal… except….

I roll out of bed to see a single, menacing eye staring at me through my window. I try to scream, but a voice that is not my own comes out instead and says, “The pact is sealed.”

Pact? What pact? And who said that? I want to ask the eye who it is, who spoke for me, what’s going on, but I can’t move.

“Excellent, Kiyyah. You have done well.” The giant red eye bobs with its speech, so I can only assume it’s attached to a head of some sort, though from the glowing veins, the black sclera, and the scaly lids I’m not certain what kind of head it belongs to, or if I even want to know.

My body bends at the waist, bowing deep, and it’s then that I notice blood dripping to the floor from my clenched fists. Dark red rivulets ooze down my hot pink sweatpants, staining the leopard print slippers on my feet.

“Is there anything else you require of me, my master?” It’s my mouth moving again, but the words still aren’t mine.

“Just one final thing,” the eye says, and the corners of its lids crinkle a little. Is it… smiling?

I’m not prepared for the entity that was inhabiting me to be wrenched out. I’m not prepared for any of this, but the slow, agonizing ripping sensation is something I can’t much describe, let alone prepare for. Bloody hands aside, my body remains intact, but the scream that wouldn’t come finally finds my lips and fills the room.

A shriveled old woman falls from my body, almost like she’d been living inside and gotten evicted. Foam bubbles from her mouth as she writhes in agony, her screams joining my own for a scant few seconds before she falls still.

My second act back in control of my body, once I’ve screamed my throat raw, is to heave up the remainder of my dinner. The dead old lady doesn’t smell any more appealing than she looks, and I can’t take the stench.

The giant eye blinks a slow, eerie blink before it speaks again. “Hmm. It appears Kiyyah didn’t check your constitution as thoroughly as she should have.” A low rumble sounds, and it takes me a second to realize that the eye is laughing. “Shall I bring her back and punish her properly?”

I wipe the back of my bloody hand across my mouth to clean off the vomit. “N-no…I think she learned her lesson.”

“And what about you, child? What lesson have you learned this night?”

I look at my hands, still bleeding from deep, jagged cuts, and at Kiyyah’s still form. I’m still not sure what’s going on, I’m not even sure this is real, but I somehow know that whatever I’ve gotten into, there’s no getting out. I clear my throat, straighten my back, and look my new master in the eye.

“I live to serve, Master.”

Diamonds in the Rust

Flash Fiction, Short story, Writing

It’s hotter than Satan’s balls out today. I’ve got my hair tied up off the back of my neck, but a few scraggly strands fell out and are plastered to my damp skin. They’re itchy, but not as annoying as the swarms of flies buzzing in my ears.

Why am I trudging through the thick, muggy air in this old junkyard, risking tetanus, injury, and heat stroke? Well, I found something the other day. Something strange that could change my life for the better–if I can just find what I’m looking for.

You see, I’m not the most well-off person. I don’t make a lot of money, but I’ve been smart enough to keep my credit score looking decent. Decent enough to get the deed to a run-down old farmhouse at the police auction last month.

It’s not the nicest place, but overall it’s cheaper than anything I could find for rent in town. I started cleaning it up about a week ago, and after umpteen heart attacks when I brushed an occupied spider web out of my hair, it’s finally starting to look livable. Livable by a human being, that is. The spiders are gone now. Mostly. I hope.

Anyway, the farmhouse had a wonky floorboard that was driving me bonkers every time I stepped on it. Since the house was an as-is package, I had to fix it myself. I’m not much of a handyman–er, handywoman, I guess–but I own a crowbar and a hammer, and I can find a slab of wood somewhere to fill in where the creaky board used to be.

No, I’m not in the junkyard to find a slab of wood. Let me finish.

Underneath that creaky board was a brittle, yellowed old envelope. The sticky stuff on the seal was all dissolved, so I didn’t technically open someone else’s stuff… the letter just kinda fell out. And came unfolded when it landed. And it’s not my fault it landed right side up. I couldn’t help but read it.

I didn’t know much about the history of the farmhouse until I did some research after reading that letter. Turns out it was owned by a pretty sketchy dude. I mean, assault-robbery-murder kind of sketchy. The robbery part is where the letter comes in.

The guy’s name was William “Switchblade Bill” Halder. Good ol’ Switchblade Bill knocked off a few jewelry stores a while back. He was caught and locked up, but he got shanked in a prison fight before the cops could find out what he did with the jewels. Not just any jewels: diamonds.

The cops must’ve been pretty dumb to auction off the house before checking any hiding spots, because the letter was from Switchblade Bill. I can’t read who it was addressed to–once the envelope came open, it pretty much disintegrated–but Bill went and wrote a letter to someone detailing what he did with the diamonds.

It’s been thirty years. The car was an old clunker even then, but no one has used this junkyard in over a decade. And I haven’t found any news reports about forty grand worth of diamonds being discovered there. So there’s a chance. A chance for things to go my way for once.

Just as I’m about to give up, when I’m on my last sip of the water I brought, I see it. A nineteen sixty-two Studebaker. It’s looking more shit-brown than the cherry-red it used to be, but I googled that car enough in the past week to recognize its corpse behind that old refrigerator.

I look down at the el cheapo lockpick set I ordered online. Just in case the glove box is locked. Not that I know how to pick a lock, but there’s enough of a cell signal out here that I’m sure I can find some kind of a tutorial online. It can’t be that hard, right? I mean, it always looks easy enough on TV.

My first real obstacle comes when I pull the handle and the door is jammed. It wiggles a bit, but it won’t come open. A nearby hunk of metal takes care of the dirty window, and I’m able to shimmy inside.

My clothes are drenched in sweat, and I’m not sure it’s entirely from the heat. This is it. This is where I get my life out of the fucking gutter. This is where I come out on top.

The lock turns out to be a bigger pain in the ass than I thought it would be. It’s beyond rusty, and the tumblers won’t budge. In the end, I have to climb out of the car window, find my hunk of metal, and climb back in.

It takes a few whacks to break the lock. My palm is sliced to shit from the rusty piece of metal. I’ll need to get a tetanus shot when I get back to town. Maybe a couple of stitches. It’ll be worth it, though.

I take a deep breath before I pull open the glove box. My heart is pounding, and I feel kind of faint. I reach out, and–

–and at first I think the sudden chest pain is from nerves. It takes me a second to look down at the growing red stain on my shirt.

That’s not supposed to be there. I know I’ve been crawling around a rust bucket for the last hour, but the stain shouldn’t be growing.

I hear laughing coming from outside the car, and now I’m really confused. I thought I was the only one here. Who’s laughing at my rust-stained shirt?

I turn my head and see a huge guy standing about twenty feet away. He’s smoking a cigar I think–there’s smoke of some kind coming from his hand, anyway.

I blink, and for some reason it’s a super slow blink. Slo-mo. Like someone is messing with the remote control for my life. The big guy isn’t affected, though, because in the span of that blink he’s right next to me.

It’s not a cigar he’s got in his hand. It’s a gun with a funny looking barrel, like the kind you see assassins using in movies. One of those things to make the gun quiet. What are those things called? I can’t think of the word…

“Thanks for finding my partner’s stash for me,” he says. “Saved me a buttload of trouble.”

Partner? I’m so confused.

I open my mouth to talk, but all that comes out is a wheeze.

The guy leans in the window and shoves me into the driver’s side seat. I flop over like a limp… something. Why can’t I think of words? And hell, why is everything still moving so slow?

I hear the clatter of something small and hard falling onto the floor beneath the glove box. I want to object to this guy’s thievery, but as my eyelids start to sag I smile a little at the irony. Here I was, shiny new lockpick set in hand, ready to rob a dead man, and now I’m getting robbed before I can do the robbing.

The car seat underneath me has a bright red stain too. Huh. Wonder where that came from.

Welcome to Hell

Flash Fiction, Writing

Hello, all! Today’s insomniac post will be a short/flash (don’t know what length yet as I am pantsing it) story based on a prompt I saw on Facebook. Enjoy 🙂

I blink and cough, my eyes and throat irritated from the smoke. A quick glance at my surroundings has me a little confused. Where am I? Where did these candles come from? And who–or what–is this scaly guy that’s standing here grinning from ear to ear…at least, I think those are ears.

“What the hell?” is about the most eloquent thing I can manage at the moment. The scaly guy chuckles and grins even wider. Are those multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth he’s sporting?

“Hell, indeed,” he says. “Tell me, Karen, now that I’ve summoned and bound you, are you prepared to do my bidding?”

“Summoned? Bound?” I look down but see no ropes or chains. When I try to step out of the circle, however, I find I’m unable to get past the boundary marked by the candles.

“Yes, Karen. Summoned from the depths of Hell, bound, and at my mercy.” A thick string of saliva runs down what passes for a chin on his face. “Again I ask, are you prepared to do my bidding?”

Bidding? What is he talking about? I swallow past a hard lump in my throat. “What is your ‘bidding,’ anyway?”

His mouth gapes open as he laughs. More drool oozes down, and I’m about to lose my half-caf nonfat mocha latte at the sight of him.

“My request is simple. I require a boon, a favor most vile.”

My inability to escape this circle, combined with the creepy vibes this scaly guy is putting out, are suffocating me. I’m trying to stay calm, but I’m way out of my comfort zone. I decide to work towards my strengths and reply with my go-to power play.

I cross my arms over my chest and tilt my chin up, hoping that I cut an imposing figure. I look the dude square in the eyes and say, “I want to speak with your manager.”

The guy’s shoulders release, and he sighs. “Yes, Karen. That is precisely what I need.”

To boldly go where no pantser has gone before…

#books, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Geek, Learning, Musings, Novel, Sci-fi, Stress, Thoughts, Work, Writing

Well, here goes nothing. I’m about to venture into uncharted territories. About to head beyond the horizon, beyond the now, beyond the future even.

Where am I going, you ask?

I’m going to do the unthinkable. The unimaginable. Potentially the most frightening thing I’ve ever done.

I’m going to try to mind-map/thought-bubble a rough outline for the fourth book in the Abnormal series–before I’ve written out all of Book 3!

I know, I know. I’m scared, too.

My mind is ticking away, and it needs an outlet. And my brand-spanking-new journal needs filling. Plus, it’s not even 0400 and I’m bored af. So I’m going to try to outline beyond where I’ve written, and I’m going to maybe–maybe–tiptoe into Book 5’s story a bit, too.

You see, I have a long-term plan now, more than just “I’m gonna write a bunch of books with the same characters in the same world.” Now that I’ve decided to go ahead with the YA spin-off series, I need to actually plan stuff. I mean, I have to decide how fast to age the characters in the NA series, where to leave off at the end of the NA series, and where to start the YA series. That means the dreaded planning.

In addition to quasi-plotting out Book 4/possibly Book 5, I also might plan out the titles of the YA books, or at least the first few. I already know what I want to call the series, but I haven’t decided on book titles yet.

Yeah. I’m going to do this.

But I’ve gotta stop talking about it…if I just keep rambling here, I’ll never get it done! Lol

And….Engage!