Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Swordmaster Dasan Updates

 I’ve been writing.  Yesterday I put down 12,000 words.  Not in edits either, that’s all new content on Swordmaster Dasan 3.  But listen, I need to talk to you all before you get too excited - 

The new Swordmaster Dasan book is split into two parts.  Together, they complete this section of Kyo and Loki’s story, but there’s enough time between the two parts that I want to format it like I did Duncan.  Part One, then Part Two included in the same file.  The problem is that a whole ton of people were super pissed off by that.  I’m still not entirely sure whhhyyyy???  I charged for one book, gave two and was initially roasted in reviews for it, which perplexes me.  


The thought of packaging them separately did occur to me, but that presents a small quality issue and I can’t have that.  Part one could be it’s own story, as could part two, but there are character elements that make both better if read as one.  


So that’s how that story is going to be delivered, just a heads up :)


In the Playing with Tigers series, Loki is a secondary but very important character to the plot, and in that series there were a few comments made about him that I felt were worth exploring.  


The first was that Kura would always allow Loki, and only Loki, any time off that he requested because there had been an incident in the past where he challenged her for her job, won, became the first Headmaster in Sahrketh history, gave himself the week off, came back, then promptly resigned and took his previous job back before he shared any of the responsibility that came with the promotion.  That week that he fought so hard for is now part one of this story.  


The other comment was made by Loki himself in the second Playing with Tigers book, when he claimed that he alone was the reason why the Sahrketh were no longer welcome in Settra, which had previously been a sister nation.  That’s now part two.  Again, both parts will be packaged together as one overall story.


That’s about it for that book, although I have one more thing to say about the series before I call it quits for today.  


The timeline for all stories that include Loki goes like this - 

(Anything with ‘*’ at the end is available for free at Smashwords.com in multiple formats.  I’ll include links but make sure your adult settings on the site are allowing you to view mature content. Also fair warning - I think those are the original documents and they may be a unedited, but the story is the same. More typos and amateur errors, but at least free lol.)


Swordmaster Dasan*

Swordmaster Dasan 2 - Backbreaking*

Swordmaster Dasan 3 - Part One: A Prince Among Men & Part Two: The Lion’s Crown (Publication date TBD)

Playing with Tigers 

Playing with Tigers 2

Swordmaster Dasan - Yunan Holiday*

Manuscript - Title Pending (Publication date TBD)

Playing with Tigers 3 (Publication date TBD)

Swordmaster Dasan 4 (Publication date TBD) 


Yeah I know I have him in a lot.  What can I say?  I like him.  He’s a fun one because he’s so dynamic, but it meant starting off with this kinky dom named Localem in Playing with Tigers, then writing the prequel series explaining how he got to be so interested in BDSM.  Now I’m working on three books with him at completely different stages of his life and honestly it’s a lot of fun.  I get to work on him still finding himself in the early Swordmaster Dasan books, then work on him in his competent but very overconfident prime in the Playing with Tigers series, and I get to wrap it up with a book where you see him from two varying perspectives.  


Then we work our way into Playing with Tigers 3.  Now, I know a lot of people that read the Swordmaster Dasan series have little or no interest in Playing with Tigers, and I get it.  Those books are menage books and they’re fairly long, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.  But, the third Playing with Tigers book features more than a few situations with Loki and Kyo that cannot go unmentioned.  I can’t simply write the last planned Swordmaster Dasan book without readers knowing what happened between them both in PWT3.  I can recap in the fourth book, and intend to do so, but it wouldn’t be fair to not offer the option to experience it with the characters.


What I’ve been thinking is that I’ll release a free story to let readers enjoy the portions of Playing with Tigers 3 that only have to do with Loki and Kyo.  If I do it right, then it should have only very few spoilers for the end of the book these scenes are pulled from, and hopefully it will pack a similar punch to the full story.  


It would make the Swordmaster Dasan book series look like this -


Swordmaster Dasan*

Swordmaster Dasan 2*

Swordmaster Dasan 3 (Release TBD)

Swordmaster Dasan -Yunan Holiday* 

Swordmaster Dasan 3.5 <-this would be the new free accompanying story 

Swordmaster Dasan 4  (Release TBD)


I know it’s all over the place. I appreciate the people that have followed me on Facebook and commented on my blog more than they could possibly know, for every review and comment of praise or even condemnation, Thank You.  You took the time to look for me, and I hope I don’t let you down!


S K Hart


Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Updates

With each passing day I feel more and more like Duncan, except he had money and wasn’t constantly interrupted by equally isolated children. Thankfully we were able to get our vaccines started, but we aren’t going to be considered fully vaccinated until 2 weeks after our second shot, which puts us at mid-June for immunity. Obviously, I’ll take it. I already have several hundred autofill water balloons ready to go for anyone with a genuine vaccination card to come and have it out with me and my tribe of feral Covid kids. A knee high plastic pool and more super soakers than any adult should have collected will be waiting beside a barbecue of ludicrous proportions for any friend who can provide a genuine vaccination card signed in actual ink.

Depression can be a real bitch, and although I definitely do not struggle as much as many of my close friends, this last year was hard. I’ve employed every self-preservation tactic I know of and still ran out of drive constantly.

I was writing a scene two weeks ago and was struggling even though it’s a scene that I knew I shouldn’t have any trouble with. In it, one character is sad about something that happened to another character. If there was a way he could argue about it, that’s like… 90% of what I write. But, I couldn’t do it. I kept trying to make him angry, but the situation definitely didn’t call for it. It would ruin the scene. The fact that it would have such a drastic effect on him was the selling point of making the story go in that direction, so I stepped away after failing for hours. I eventually realized that I’d become so apathetic towards everything that I couldn’t even hit sadness anymore. All I had left was rage.

A ton of cardio and Covid- responsible socializing gave me a slight boost and I was able to make it through that scene after another two attempts, but that’s been the way my last year has gone. Having to take three times as much work to accomplish the same task. I’m not unique: everyone is struggling right now. I’m just grateful I was able to get a temporary burst of motivation to power me through, and even then it was on my third attempt. I’m looking forward to getting back to work over the summer when the kids are out of school and don’t need me to stumble through the steps of long division or factoring equations for them.

Math and I are old adversaries. Not because the math is necessarily difficult for me, but because the way I learn is sideways and hard for people to teach, which makes regurgitating math instructions for others very difficult. Let’s just say that I never wanted to grow up to be a teacher. My top three choices were Writer, Comic Artist, and Millionaire (as a child this was considered a job, walking around and being encumbered by how wealthy one is.). For anyone who has seen the cover of Swordmaster Dasan Part 2 – That was my art. After worrying for years it wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, I no longer care if it does! I get very stressed doing my own covers though, so we’ll stick with the writing. That stresses me out too but I seem to be able to enjoy it more.

It’s just a matter of getting both time to write and energy to do it simultaneously.

Updates for all of my current projects:

Playing with Tiger Series – I’m surprised by how much I’ve been working on the third one. The only thing that surprises me more than the amount I’m working on it, is the amount I’m enjoying it. Taking a hiatus from writing as long as I did allowed me to look back on the book with fresh eyes. I really do love those stories, it’s just hard to see that sometimes through the many errors that made it to publication. I was a young self-pub author with no money to invest in an editor, and the first two books definitely show that. So, as I work on the third, I occasionally go through a few chapters of the first and second books and clean them up. There will eventually be a re-release of the first two books, closely followed by the release of the third and final book for this story.

Swordmaster Dasan – Much like the Playing with Tigers Series, this one is riddled with errors. Unlike the Playing with Tigers Series, each installment is much smaller and easier to fix. As for new books, there are some changes coming in the near future. The first two SMD books take place before the PWT series begins and after some deliberation I am planning to add another before the PWT series. That would be followed chronologically by a small free story that takes place during the events of PWT3 between Loki and Kyo, and then the conclusion of their series would take place after the PWT series reaches its end. Expect two and a half more books for Loki and Kyo before they’re done. Once I have the final draft of the last Playing with Tigers book, these can be released.

Warren & Iyren – This one takes place in the same setting as the PWT and SMD series. It was written as the story of how two of the new characters in the final PWT book meet, and turned into one of my most loving couples. Also there’s some attempted murder, treason, dubious consent, a handicapped tiger, one or more bombs, suspected boar assassins and one very unimpressed Grandmaster Localem Arada. This one’s done but can’t be released until PWT3 is ready, and it needs a final edit and a cover, which is a whole different issue.

Luda – I am destined to just never be satisfied with this book. It’s not like the others, maybe that’s why. Duncan had a lot going on, Playing with Tigers has about fifty different story lines inside of it, one of them was even good enough to become its own series, and Tarro? Well he’s the sexiest clever mess I could conjure. Luda, on the other hand is mentally healthy and tries to avoid terrible mistakes. He has good habits and out of all my characters, he’s probably the most wholesome. Apparently, I’m so cynical that I can’t tell if I’m writing a kind and caring individual correctly. I keep writing way more of the book than it needs, then cleaving half off and trying again. I’ve probably thrown away more pages than there are in Duncan, which is saying something. Hopefully I’ll have a serious talk with myself in the future regarding my expectations, because I want Luda to succeed as a book, but it can’t until I finish changing it and finally publish it lol

Duncan 2 – It’s hard to follow an act like Calvin, especially when Calvin is still present in the story line and available to loudly critique whatever catastrophe follows him. I believe I’ve FINALLY succeeded, but the draft is unorganized and needs work. I need to write the planned conclusion to the Cartwright story line within Duncan’s books as well, since Duncan is going to ALWAYS be released as two books packaged together if I can do it. I’ll throw an excerpt up somewhere when I get a chance

Cat & Crow 2 – There’s a decent amount of this book written, especially now. I tend to write Tarro when I’m at the very limit of my sanity, and doing virtual schooling for two children throughout Covid seems to have worked out well for this manuscript. We’ll see how this one goes.
That’s it for now. There are more, but they aren’t worth mentioning until I have more of them finished.

Feel free to leave me a message here or message me directly through goodreads!

Happy Hunting

S. K. <3


Thursday, June 11, 2020

What I've been working on

As the world keeps burning I find myself more often giving my kids the day off from their COVID-19 distance learning and claiming one of my computers for myself.  It seems that everybody I know is at least as stressed as I am, and understandably so.  Thankfully I have an outlet for that in my writing!

I have one novel that I’ve been editing regularly after deciding that the beginning wasn’t good enough and rewriting it for I think the twenty-thousandth time.  I’ve had the cover for over a year, which is at least twice as long as I’ve ever had a cover and not a finalized book to attach it to, and that bothers me.  When did I reach the point where my excitement at sharing my stories turned to anxiety?  Is that just part of maturing or did I actually let the fear of criticism turn me into a coward?  More importantly, can I get that excitement back?  We’ll find out I suppose haha

Years ago, while discussing the werewolf/shifter genre of M/M writing, I commented to one of my friends that I haven’t found any that I particularly loved.  I only even sort of liked a few and assumed that I simply dislike the subgenre, and to be honest I still have no idea why the usual shifter and were stories don’t appeal to me.  They should, they have everything that I go to a book for but for some reason they just don’t draw me in.  The problem here is me, not the books.

In the end, he challenged me to write one.  Another friend joined in and they laughed, knowing that I cannot refuse a direct challenge.  It’s a flaw, I’m working on it.  That’s actually how I started writing, now that I think of it.  

I wrote three books with wolf shifters.  Well, I also wrote one that is complete but I can only really call half of a shifter story.  So three and a half?  ...I guess? 

It’s fine.  Point is, I’ve had these books for (Unfortunately) several years.  They sit there in my documents folder, festering and pouting, waiting for me to pick them back up and give them the good fierce edits that they deserve and I honestly haven’t had the time or attention span to do that until recently.   

Now, two of those books are not even remotely ready.  I’m not sure I can even call them books, to be honest.  When I write the first draft of a story it reads more like a fever dream.  Creating a story only takes me a fifth of the time editing does because I can pour ideas out endlessly and I can write very quickly, but it’s sloppy.  

One of the stories is practically done.  I could publish this year if I apply myself and nothing goes wrong in my life, but that’s the trick.  For nothing to interfere.  

The other has a shifter in it as one of the two main characters and his shiftyness is a plot point, but he’s with a Sahrketh man, who is technically a were…  So it’s only half shifter?  But the other half is a were?  Unsure how to catagorize that one but that’s not the point.  

I’m currently working on a yet untitled story that stars Luda.  He’s a flamboyant outcast that takes care of pets for a living, and has a crush on a human man that he suspects has never noticed him.  This story is unlike my other books.  Yes it has a few parts that I hope people will bite their nails over, but generally its mood is much lighter than what I feel is my norm.  I tried something new, and will continue to try new angles and approaches but to be honest this was hard for me to maintain through an entire book.  I’m more of a sarcastic, cynical person than a dreamer.  Luda was more difficult for me to write than Calvin was.  

The other book that I have a complete but very rough manuscript for is a sister story to the Playing with Tigers series.  It’s the story of how two characters in PWT3 meet, because after writing one single scene between them in PWT3, I paused that project to focus on them for a little while.  As with Luda, I tried something new and I struggled to make sure it was just right.  I’m fairly confident that I succeeded with this one.  The book has a lot of uncomfortable charm to it, and I hope it has as much draw as that single scene in Playing with Tigers 3 does.  I quite literally wrote five pages with them and fell in love with them.  I can’t wait to share them with everyone because I’m sure they’ll love them too.  

Well, I’m off to make some tea and get started on my day of battling children and writing.  

I’ll post again soon!

S. K. Hart

Monday, May 18, 2020

I'm not dead!

Hi everyone!  I keep disappearing, and I am sorry for that!  I’m making an effort to try harder.  Although I haven’t published in forever, I have been writing, I simply end up hating everything once I finish and telling myself that it’s not good enough.  I’m sure plenty of creators out there know what I’m talking about.  


I’ve also been involved with several other up and coming authors over the last few years, friends and acquaintances that wanted to write and needed encouragement, a push, some help or someone to show them the way.  One or two of them just wanted praise, but they’re not part of my group anymore because I am not a compliment vending machine.  Rather the opposite actually HA 


Long story short, even though I haven’t been publishing, I’ve been busy behind the scenes both with my own projects and other people’s, because it’s a lot less stressful when you help someone else publish a book than it is to publish your own.  Between the constant issue of finding a cover and proofreaders, the fact that my books are pirated 75% more than they’re purchased (and that’s only the ones I know about lols) and the stress of waiting for the first review of a book, I needed a break.  A long one.  I’m still not entirely sure that I’m ready to publish anything again, but part of me craves it.  I still stay up at night and slink away to lean over a laptop and get lost in a story, whether I’m describing the predatory look in Calvin’s eyes as he lays his eyes on Duncan again in Spannerdire or the spatter of blood on Kura’s face as she fights back to back with Kyo over a carpet of slain enemies.  From Gerstan to the Whichway Expressway, Traichi and yet to be seen Kureshna - I am still there.  It’s really just a matter of whether I’m ready to invite anyone else.  I kept thinking it was time, but it wasn’t.


Well, then the world sort of stopped for awhile.


Covid did for America what Calvin had done for Duncan: It stopped everything and broke the world.  That sudden halt is very jarring for several reasons that I’m sure I don’t have to explain.  You’re in it too, or you have been.  It’s necessary, and it’s hard.  My concerns stretch from my father, who is a diabetic 70 year old with COPD (1000% dead if he catches this shit) to how bad my (only recently manageable, right before COVID) agoraphobia will become by the end of this. 


I apologize for getting off track, this post isn’t about COVID19.  My email is still being flooded by any business that has ever even heard of an email telling me what they’re doing for this pandemic, even if it’s some abstract company that was closed by the state two months ago.  I don’t want to be them.


My point is that it’s stressful, and stressful times are unfortunately when I write the best and the fastest.  


The Cat & the Crow was published within 2 months of me having the idea.  It was also published while my oldest son (at the time 8) was having a poor reaction to a medication for anxiety.  He became suicidal, and made an attempt at school.  In order to have him weaned off as quickly as possible, he was placed in a mental hospital for two months.  With my (at the time) newborn, I could not visit him myself.  I wasn’t allowed to bring a child under two onto the children’s ward, and everyone that could watch my youngest so that I could go were only free during hours that visitation was off limits.  When I did rarely get an opportunity to visit my boy, I saw and heard things from those children that will haunt me forever, and my son had to stay with them so that he could get better.  He did, by the way~ Now he’s taller than me and is generally a super fun guy, spent two hours today drawing handsome squidward for a biology assignment about mutation.  But he and I still remember what happened in there, and although we both agree even now that it necessary, it was harder than we could’ve imagined.


The book was written at a ludicrous speed because I throw myself into creative outlets to channel my stress.  I’ve been doing that again, although I am also quite happily dividing my time amongst many friends who are starting up their author career as well.  I’m not sure what will come of it, but I realized that when I started having issues with anxiety, I started to publish blog posts and updates less often, then I stopped altogether.  


I apologize for it.  


I’m back, although I’m not sure what will be published first or specifically when that will be.  Maybe I’ll buckle down on that one that’s almost complete from last year.  Sadly I hadn’t touched it since about this time in 2019, although I’m sure I have my notes on it.  That one is the different one, starring someone who is well adjusted and generally a very happy person for a change.  I know, it’s like I didn’t even write it.  An adult engaged in a healthy relationship?  I swear I haven’t lost my touch!  It was just something new and I promise it has some of my typical terrible behavior! 

Maybe I’ll dust that off later today.  

I mean, I have the cover, I’m really just being a coward at this point, right?  There’s a worldwide plague and murder hornets and probably a god damned sharknado climbing up the coast with a rusty bucket of bullshit next, how the hell can the judgement of the internet regarding a book that I wrote possibly compete with that?  

Easily.  *sigh* 

We’ll see.  In the meantime, I’m going to have myself an iced coffee and work on the forever awaited PWT3 because sometimes you want to write about a woman unceremoniously breaking someone’s nose for being a jerk and it’s that sort of Tuesday. 

As usual anyone who wants to contact me can find me here or on facebook, goodreads also works if anyone wants to have a conversation with me.

Wish me luck :)

S. K. Hart (Not dead.)

Monday, August 1, 2016

Is this because of what I did to Calvin?

So, I haven’t been able to feel my arms for a few days.  Since Wednesday, actually.  It feels like they’ve gone to sleep, they’re so numb that I went to do my hair and hit myself in the forehead, making me even more uncoordinated than I normally am.  The most annoying part of that is how often you notice that you can’t feel them.  Every thirty seconds going, “Oh, is my arm asleep?” in a goddamn loop. 

Furthermore, when the numbness does fade, all I can feel is this stinging ache that runs the length of them.  I have arthritis in my hands, from writing actually, haha, and this pain isn’t the same but it’s added to it. 

Well, since I refuse to pay five hundred dollars to go to the Emergency room and hear that I have ‘stress’ or ‘bone ghosts,’ (I am very happy with the local ER, does it show?  They thought that I had stress when I had kidneystones, because stress makes me piss blood, it runs in my family, we’re very talented.) I waited until today to go to my doctor, and after bending and stretching me a few ways he came to the conclusion that I very probably have a slipped disk in my neck that’s putting pressure on my nerves for my arms.  At a strange angle, no less, letting different halves of my two arms go numb at the same time.  I have imaging later this week to confirm, but after he was done pressing on my head and back, the pain he left in his wake makes me think that he was probably right. 

Which was a relief really, because once I told people about my interesting problem they started guessing for me.  I have heard that I have the Zika Virus, MS, BRAIN WORMS (looking at you Seth.), blood clots, lyme disease, and I responded with the aforementioned ‘bone ghosts.’  Ha, technically I was the closest without going over!  He said a slipped disk and I was ready to throw confetti. 

But now I’m sitting here hours after my victory diagnosis, groaning constantly from my necessary but painful bending, and all I can think of is that I did this to a few of my characters.  Kyo in his lower back, of course, but more specifically to Calvin.  The place in my neck is even oddly the same. 

Which leaves me in a tricky situation because now all I want to do is write him, but my typo game has gotten much worse with this whole no feeling/very awful feeling in my arms thing.  I feel like I should get him laid or something as an apology.  Except that I like M/M and he’s homophobic so he probably wouldn’t enjoy it.  Although that does also make it hotter for me if there’s a romantic chase involved haha

Going to go chill with my bone ghosts and try to get some feeling in my typing arms!

S. K. Hart


Thursday, March 24, 2016

Misery in Mexico with Nicole Castle!

I don’t know if I’ve ever posted how I met my friend and fellow author Nicole Castle, but here’s the short version.  I liked Chance Assassin so that got us talking, and she invited me to join her on a trip to Cancun, which is where I met her for the very first time face to face.  We’ve been going on these trips ever since, every March.  This year was my third invitation, and for once I was looking forward to it.  I get anxious about traveling but oh my god, this year…

About a month ago I was hospitalized (kidneys hooray!), my father’s health began failing so fast that we all realized he’ll be leaving us sooner than we thought, my husband was having anxiety for the first time in his life because of a poor work environment and my older son was being bullied at school (Still is.  Lawyers are the next step).  My mother in law decided to surprise me with a sudden and unwanted bathroom renovation at this precise moment, so I ended up busier than I’d ever been while both of our bathrooms were torn apart.  My younger son began acting up because of the stress and my mother began to leak blood like a sieve. 

I needed a vacation but because everything here in New England was held together with hope and stubbornness, I wasn’t sure that I should go.  It was my mother who convinced me that I should.  Whether or not she was right, I’m undecided.  I think… haha nope. 

Here’s the story for the entertainment of others!
Misery in Los Cabos with Nicole Castle –

The journey began when I was felt up by a Logan TSA agent when the machine beeped on me for the very first time.  Since Logan is one of those airports where you do not fuck around, I usually end up making myself look suspicious because I’m far too eager to do whatever they want.  Cooperate?  FUCK YES I AM COOPERATING SO HARD!  I don a state of mind where if I display anything but freakish excitement they’ll think I’m up to some shit, so I make sure I am as enthusiastic as goddamn possible.  Not only did I beep, I beeped on the upper inside of my thigh.  *Knowing smile and slow nod*  Yeaaah.  A woman who sounded like Dr. Girlfriend from Venture Brothers who smelled like peanuts and had the alluring qualities of a treasure troll quickly approached and explained what she was planning to do: slip her hands under the edge of my underwear and feel around, then feel my butt and inside of my legs.  How did I react?  I nodded and put my hands behind my head and smiled at her, then invited her to go ahead.  You know, I’ve never imagined an expression like the one she gave me.  She seemed stunned when she asked if I was comfortable doing that right there in front of everyone in the security line at 2am.  I think my response was something along the lines of it was her idea so I wasn’t letting her back out now.  So, to the muffled chuckles of her coworkers, this poor woman groped me, and then had to listen to me crack jokes about how if she wanted a cigarette after that I had a spare for her. 

Bonus; the seventy-three year old woman behind me also beeped and received the same treatment!  The smile she gave this employee was even creepier than mine. 

After experiencing the sexy allure of being partially stripped in public and groped by a woman half my height with a hygiene problem, I was tired (satisfied?) enough to sleep through most of the ride to Houston, which for anybody who’s never been, is a massive airport.  Sadly, I run funny.  Add to my funny run the fact that I hadn’t eaten since 2am, had all of my possessions strapped to my back like I was planning on camping for the next decade and have a habit of smoking nonstop before getting on a plane.  I knew I would have to speed walk.  If I dared to run I feared I would drop dead.  I attracted a few stares as I marched to the closest sandwich shop like a mobile hoarder and did the unthinkable: I grabbed a sandwich from a cooler and ate it like it needed to die violently.  All of this while scurrying poorly towards my next gate.  I saw the time, risked everything and ran, only to end up at the correct gate, doubled over and having a Duncan moment.  And my plane wasn’t there.  It was running behind.  I had this image in my head where we went to board and just fell off of the end of that tunnel thing onto the pavement, and I wasn’t proud of how hard I laughed at that.  I guess the hope for me to make it there on time had come true, but so had the hope that maybe the plane would wait for me to get there if I got lost.  Forty minutes were spent catching my breath, during which time I called Sasha to see how my little one was treating her.  He was being good, and that upset me because he’s always terrible for me so I spent the remainder of my wait grumbling to myself about how bad I am at being a parent. 

Bonus: was able to lose some faith in humanity!  A woman who clearly had asthma was panting as loud as me and when she went to check something at the desk a spring breaker loudly and rudely asked her if she was sick, then spat that she can’t get sick because it was her spring break.  The woman informed her that she was having an asthma attack brought on by stress, since she was heading to Los Cabos to bury her brother.  The young twit continued to try and humiliate her, but was silenced by her friends before everyone else got involved.  <- this comes up again later.

On my second solo plane ride of the day, I spent my time talking to another person who was traveling from Boston, who – Are you ready for this?  Was a super tall and wiry ginger who towards the end of our conversation shared a story that implied he liked to roller skate.  If you don’t know why that had me internally rolling around giggling, let me know and I’ll personally send you a copy of The Disassembled Life of Duncan Cole.  Green eyes and if memory serves he was eating candy to try and get his ears to pop.  Yeah, I refused to ask his name because I want to believe it was Dan.  He even looked similar to how I’d imagined the character, ha!  When ‘Probably not Dan but dear god that’s strange’ went to the airplane’s bathroom/closet of turbulence terror, I got caught in a conversation with the young man sitting near the window closest to me until we arrived in Mexico.

For anyone who has never gone to Mexico I love the way they do Customs.  They have you push a button.  If the light turns red, they’ll check your bags and ask you questions to make sure you’re not dangerous.  If it turns green?  Well, you’re FREE TO GO!  It’s like they really can’t be bothered to give a shit if everyone is smuggling something.  My customs guy was so busy commenting on my Captain America shirt that he actually asked me what color I got because he wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to his national security job thingy.  I said green and he bid me a good vacation.  Sadly, I’m honest, because this would’ve been a much better story if I’d gotten the red light instead. 

After a harrowing drive to the resort (there may have been bodies in our wake), I was told I’d need to wait fifteen minutes for them to finish cleaning our room.  That didn’t sound unreasonable so I left my bag with them and went to have a smoke, and thirty minutes later was informed that it was ready, but they could no longer locate my bag.  I found that hard to believe since the fucker weighed more than it rightfully should and was so overstuffed that the seams were strained to their absolute limit, screaming for merciful death every time I zipped it.  The room had coffee rings on the table and a blue pill of unknown origin under the edge of the bed when my bodybag and I finally arrived.  It makes me wonder what the hell they had to do in there.  Were there bodies?  Projectile vomit?  They’d been in there when I arrived and took double the estimated time to finish.  They didn’t touch the table or the floor, so what did they do exactly?  I dropped my things on a chair, opened the door to the balcony to wave some of the frigid air out into the wild to fend for itself, made myself pretty and promptly fell into an exhausted nap so that I could time travel to Nicole’s arrival. 

*drum roll*  Nicole woke me up when she came in and I have never been so damn happy to see anybody!  Usually on these trips we have a eating itinerary that makes me wonder how we are so thin, so I’d waited for her to begin.

1st breakfast
2nd breakfast
Elevensies
Brunch
Luncheon
Afternoon snack
Afternoon tea (which usually doesn’t include teas, just more food)
Sunset mealtime
Dinner
Supper
Dessert
Nightcap meal
And whenever possible Midnight Snack.

This is why I diet before going on vacation.  I will work out and eat healthy because I plan ahead.  I only had four days to eat like the damned, and the clock was ticking.  We were heading to the buffet when we spotted the pool bar.  I asked her to get a plate of nachos while I went for a burger, because Nicole is a vegetarian but thankfully doesn’t seem to mind if I eat as many animals as I can find, because let’s face it, it’s not happening.  I love animals and the cuter they are the more delicious they taste.  The burger was the size of my head: it was the first to die.  She’d coyly saved about three nachos from her own massacred plate to ask if I wanted any but I wasn’t feeling up to it after eating that burger so fast that I probably should’ve worn a smock and offered her an umbrella.  Somehow she was able to eat my cut of the nachos.  Like that person who will eat a whole pizza but leave the last slice, you know, in case you wanted some. 

We went to our first dinner function, which went by without too much of a hitch.  My throat and ears were burning but I don’t fly often so I figured that it was from the plane and brushed it off.  At this point I’d been awake for almost twenty four hours with only that pitiful nap to break it up, so we went back to the room early, and that was where I stayed.  Not by choice, but necessity.  Nicole went to change only to discover that WHOOPS they’d never delivered her checked bag to the room.  She went to hunt it and by the time she got back I had a problem. 

My stomach is my worst enemy.  It took me almost two years to realize that my bitchy whore of a stomach was actually what was causing my anxiety because I have a rare side effect of acid reflux disease.  So rare that my doctor was freakishly excited that I had it and he could catalogue it from one of his own patients (the sadist).  When I have any issue with my stomach, it causes me to have panic attacks.  I’m not talking feeling antsy, I’m talking IMPENDING DOOM HIDE UNDER A TABLE AND CRY LIKE A BITCH panic attacks.  I’m taking ambulance rides and EKG panic attacks. 

And so began our sorry descent into what I will just bluntly call Shit Madness.  I could be coy, but really there’s no point.  Guess who shouldn’t have eaten that sandwich at the airport?  Or maybe it was the burger, I have no idea.  I was sure I hadn’t come in contact with any impure water, because Nicole taught me well when we met in Cancun.  All I know is that I told Nicole I wasn’t feeling well, and after the first fifteen or so trips to the bathroom that this poor unfortunate woman had to share with me, the panic started.  Within a few minutes I was sobbing and weaving incoherent apologies for things and situations that I don’t even remember.  I might’ve apologized to her because I like the color green, I have no idea.  To make matters worse, she then tried to figure out how to comfort me and when she awkwardly patted my head I snatched her hand and dragged her into the bed with me like a vampire collecting a victim, then made her spoon with me.  Which worked out great because that air conditioner was making both of us so cold that our noses were running. 

And so it came to pass that Nicole Castle and I huddled for warmth in Mexico watching Storage Wars and reruns of House.  She made a joke that I’d finally gotten her to sleep with me, I told her that she had to notify my children of my love if I was found dead in the morning, she responded that she would CPR the shit out of me, I countered that it wouldn’t be necessary as there was nothing left to help her achieve that goal…  Good times. 

I really am the best traveling companion, I don’t know why more people don’t take me places. 

By morning I was so sick that I wanted to go home because nothing is quite as scary as being sick in another country a half day away from your children.  Turned out that I was too poor.  When I called my husband he was too poor too, and bitch that I am I laughed at him for it, like I wasn’t equally as impoverished as he was.  Remembering that we had an eating schedule but recognizing that I wasn’t going to take part in it, I made sure Nicole knew she should go to breakfast, and she was kind enough to bring me back some toast.  I ate in bed and covered myself hatefully in crumbs, glowering at Bear Grylls from Man VS Wild because we watched an episode where he got diarrhea and halfway through climbing a waterfall dropped his pants to let loose.  Mocking me, the smug jerk.  Nicole slipped back in the bed with me (it was too cold to sleep in separate beds and we needed all blankets with both bodies to survive) and we had a moment where we both sort of looked at the shrapnel from my obliterated toast and then at each other.  I lazily shoved as many crumbs out as I could and tried to let her sleep because she’d watched over me through the worst of my panic.  She’d been prepared to CPR the fuck out of me with the skills she’d picked up in sixth grade.  We briefly contemplated switching beds but resigned ourselves to nap in my breadcrumbs like a narcoleptic version of Hansel and Gretel.

Nicole stole more bread to feed me lunch and we decided to try and get out of the room.  I have no idea why.  We both dislike crowds and noise, sand, the smell of tanning lotion, we didn’t want to swim in the ocean where we were because the beach was a 45 degree angle into the largest waves I’d seen in awhile and I burn stupidly fast.  She mentioned that she wanted a pina colada.  My friend who guarded me from my demons through the night wanted a drink, so goddamn it, she would have one!  Or… not.  We went to the bar and after 15 minutes of waiting, often as the only people there, the bartender didn’t serve us.  More than that, he would stare at us for a few seconds, then busy himself with cleaning glasses, only to serve the next people that came up to the bar.  It took another employee asking him why we hadn’t been served to get a answer why: he was only serving people who were at one specific location on the thirty foot bar and we were about five feet to his right.  I was too sick to cause a scene, but Nicole removed my chance to try because she said she wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of making us conform.  Feeling like a rebellious American, I agreed and we went back to the room, but I still wished I could’ve at least gotten her drunk as thanks.  That way she could puke on me and we’d be even.

By dinner I was convinced I was well enough to try and eat.  That plan backfired when I had to weakly stumble back to the room again, retreating from the sustenance I needed because I wagered I needed the facilities more.  Much to my surprise she returned defeated as well, since they weren’t letting anyone take bread back from dinner.  I had to get up.  So, pale as hell and looking like death, I put on the warmest clothes I had and went to dinner with her, where I was thwarted by the all Mexican buffet.  It may sound like a Mexican buffet is common in Mexico, but at the resorts we’d been to there was always a huge variety of choices.  Never had I been faced with so many foods that could take my personal hell and make it worse.  Nicole got me a bowl of chicken broth because I was too goddamn dizzy to do that, and I had to spit my first sip back in the bowl because they added so much spice even to that, that I couldn’t have it.  The waiters slowed and stared at me when I grabbed three pieces of bread, dropped them on a napkin and choked them down with water, because my face was likely one of murder.  I didn’t want to risk missing my breakfast if I didn’t feel better by then, so we quietly devised a plan to smuggle some more bread.  I was wearing a fitted hoodie that hid very little, but with my hands in my pocket I was sure I could conceal some bread.  But what to use as a distraction to get past the guard at the buffet?  Nicole, our fearless writer of fearless assassins, pulled a Vincent and filled a disposable cup with popcorn, then made a show of eating it as we walked out so that even if they did stop her, they would never catch me.  That’s right, we stole free bread.  And we got away with it by distracting the authorities with popcorn.  Thug life.

My panic was only an occasional problem at this point, but after panic attacks comes a brief few hours of depression.  Giving in to anxiety makes me feel weak and pathetic, and knowing that I’d ruined our vacation wasn’t helping.  The only reason she and I go to Mexico and Jamaica is to see each other, and I’d seen the toilet more than her and she’d only seen me at my absolute worst.  I turned on the television and smiled a bit when she came to bed with me again, because she didn’t have to do that.  Not many people would.  But I appreciated it.  Somewhere around the two hundredth ad for ‘Kilos Muertes’ she dozed off, so I turned the tv off, shimmied down the bed and turned off the light, and I resolved not to wake her for any reason.  Then she stole all of the blankets.  Undeterred, I slithered lower in the bed, where the blankets were tucked under the mattress and wouldn’t move.  By morning I was cuddling with her feet, but I’d succeeded because she slept like the dead. 

When asked if I wanted to take a shower I elected to refuse general hygiene (unsure why) and grumble from bed, but I did agree that I should probably eat something other than bread and joined her for breakfast.  That’s when I discovered that I couldn’t breathe.  She pointed out that I was a smoker, but I hadn’t been smoking much, what with being chained to the bathroom and bed.  Not to mention I’d been able to breathe two days before, so having such a sudden onset of COPD seemed unlikely.  I was gasping for air like a fish out of water by the time we made it to the buffet and guess what?  Nobody would wait on us again!  We waited at least twenty minutes in an uncrowded hall for someone to see if we wanted coffee, tea or water, and nobody came.  We could see them waiting on everyone else, though.  I got myself a plate of honeydew melon and watermelon, then quietly commented that I guess I wasn’t going to have any water with my breakfast since the only fountain drinks available were juices that I wasn’t touching since they could’ve been made with unfiltered water.  I wasn’t taking any more chances: Montezuma’s curse could go fuck itself.  At that exact moment a manager happened to be walking by the window next to us, which I hadn’t even realized was open, and he popped his head inside of it and scared me half to death, checking to see if he’d heard correctly.  I gave him a bewildered nod and within seconds a young man came to our table to pour us water, shaking so badly that I felt like a jackass for saying anything at all.  Once I had fruit in me, I went for an omelette, offered to give Nicole half of it and then proceeded to eat it all anyway.  Thankfully she didn’t seem to care, as she’d foraged and found a plate of sweets that had her name on them. 

At this point I could no longer lift my arms over my head I was so weak, but I’d brought iron supplements with me because I’m anemic and on occasion it helps.  I warned Nicole that they can and often do give me anxiety because they give me energy so fast that it startles me, and we agreed I needed one.  It  was worth the risk and she was prepared to deal with my madness if necessary.  The tv in our room was fucking with me, because no more than fifteen minutes after starting on an episode of House it turned out that the thing that was shutting down the character’s system was that he had too much iron in his blood and it was causing organ failure.  A sign that Nicole knows me well: I only gave her one scared glance and without uttering a word to her about my thoughts she informed me that I was fine and I needed to shut the fuck up.  This was where I started to have a bit of fun, because that got me laughing. 

I’d been trying to stay away from cigarettes since I already couldn’t breathe but my anxiety was getting bad again and I was pretty sure it was withdrawals, so I went on the balcony to have one, and that was probably the most fun we had the entire trip.  Sitting on a balcony and talking about our books.  I told her about my new story idea and she told me about one of hers, we bickered about the Chance Assassin series and Duncan and I reminded her that I wanted Miko in print so that I could cuddle with him after a fashion.  We were having enough fun that we somehow managed to ignore one of her friends knocking on the door for what must’ve been fifteen straight minutes, only to then receive a passive aggressive text about it later on. 

Then came the function that we were there for.  I wasn’t feeling great but I was determined to go even if I passed out, because the event we were supposed to attend was important to her.  We put on our smashing eveningwear and heels while watching batman, then went upstairs, where we both were exhausted by a long wait to go into the ballroom.  To understand why this next part makes me so irate, I need to explain that in Jamaica we attended an event where they brought out four hundred steaming plates of shrimp and I learned I was extremely allergic to it, because my throat closed up instantly and I had to run from the ballroom and wait outside until the entire event was over.  I’d had a mild allergy a few years back but it had apparently gotten so bad that I couldn’t be around the steam from it.  Cold shrimp was fine, but I hadn’t even known that the steam could do that to me.  I’ll give you three guesses what dinner was.  Again. 

So, gasping for air I left her there again and went without dinner for awhile.  When my blood sugar tanked so hard that my vision blurred I asked someone where I could go to get food and they directed me to one of the restaurants that was inclusive for that evening.  I changed back into my Captain America shirt, triple checked that the ‘do not disturb sign’ was on the door, then went downstairs and had more fruit and bread since that was the only thing that didn’t make my body want to expel my fucking bones.  When I returned to the room the sign had been taken and slid under the door, and housekeepers had done a turndown service.  Maids broke into our room to leave us mints, which was a bit puzzling and entertaining, since I can only imagine what they thought.  There were two beds but we’d only been sleeping in one, where all the blankets were piled.  My underwear and bikinis happened to be the clothes that I’d knocked to the floor when getting my eveningwear on and there were balled up tissues and empty water bottles surrounding the bed.  If we also consider the wounded moaning I’d uttered on that first night, I think I now understand why everyone that attends these events assumes we’re lovers.  It probably didn’t help that as soon as she got home, she had an itchy throat, running nose, fever and the inability to breathe.  Yeah, turned out that was a virus.  GO ME!  I can only hope that everyone thinks we were making out because the truth is so embarrassing and disgusting.

Remember that lady from my flight to Los Cabos?  The one who was going to bury her brother?  She was sitting next to me on the flight back to Chicago.  I was able to tell her that if it had come to it I would’ve had her back and I made another friend out of it.  Then came my breathless gasping dash through O’Hare, which wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected.  I beeped again.  This time the guy who was there saw me chuckle and listened when I explained that on this trip the machines had been out to get me, and he had me go in again but advised me to relax.  I passed fine.  He concluded that I was inadvertently so tense that I was throwing the machine off.  Thighs of steel, evidently.

Bonus: the flight attendants on both flights home also did not wait on me, pissing off the people next to me in my row.

I went to Los Cabos weighing 124 pounds.  I came home at 112.  Four days.  Nicole says that nobody waited on me because I’ve become so thin that they can’t see me anymore. 

I’m not entirely sure how this post got so long, but I guess I have some thoughts here.  I mean, going on a vacation with a friend where everything goes perfectly makes some good memories, but not always good stories.  We’re writers, Nicole and me.  We like stories, and most of ours come from a shred of reality.  Oddly this time I mirrored fiction, living a scene that one of her characters experienced in CA3.  Don’t think for a moment that I’d want to relive this trip, but at the very least, I got a good story out of it.  A friend that can take you at your best is still a friend, but a friend that can take you at your hysterical pants-shitting worst?  That’s one hell of a friend.  Not that many people do this sort of thing for me, so I guess what I’m saying is that I often jokingly tell Nicole that she’s lucky we’re ‘bro’s.’  I never really admit how lucky that makes me.  If it had been almost anybody else, I would’ve had an even worse time. 

Also, Los Cabos can just fall into the ocean for all I care. 

 Work updates to follow after Easter  ;)  
S. K. <3

Monday, January 4, 2016

New year, new work!

Oh hello, 2016.  You probably thought you had the jump on me, didn’t you?  Well guess again!  Because of fireworks set off in a packed parking lot directly next to my house a bit prematurely, I was wide awake and adrenaline packed when you reared your head!  And this year?  Oh, it’s on. 

I’m sure many of my fans and readers have noticed, I haven’t published lately.  Since Duncan, actually, which was at the end of May in 2014.  I can provide excuses, but they’re really just that, and as much as I’d like to blame the insane amount of stress on my inability to finish my many drafts, that has literally never stopped me before.  As a matter of fact, it often used to make books come faster because that was how I coped.  For example, the Cat & the Crow was written, from the first idea to published, in a little more than two months.  The book coincided with the worst thing that I’d had to endure, so it seems that if we look at my history, I am a very prolific author if I’m going crazy and need to work some shit out on my own.   

So let’s just be honest here, why haven’t I finished anything?  I think part of my problem is that I worry people may be expecting another 777 page tome like Duncan, or a short but emotional performance like the Cat & the Crow.  And that’s stupid of me, because although there are a few things that I prefer to write about, I will never write the same book twice.  Since I’ve never given that impression I have no idea why I had this belief that everyone would expect that of me, and now I feel like a fool for procrastinating so long lol

I have a lot of books in the works, and I often change my mind regarding which one I want to finish.  Because I write on so many projects simultaneously, I now have enough written on at least four of them that I could push myself to get them done, and I feel like a coward for finding excuses to start on new ones instead of finish any of the ones I have started, so this is what I have so far.

At long last, here’s an update on my writing –

The Swordmaster Dasan series is my most popular.  I’d like to think because it’s good but the fact that the first book is free probably helps since it lets people get a sample of my crazy characters.  Anybody who had downloaded the original Swordmaster Dasan 2 from Smashwords also got a teaser for their (at that time) next book, but that book was also the very first that my beta readers gave me a red light on, because they wanted more to happen before the series ended.  That final book is still here, still completed and will be changed as needed to fit into the insane shitstorm that is my plot.  I now have at least one more book that will go between Swordmaster Dasan two and the last book, here’s a breakdown of the beginning

Swordmaster Dasan 3 –
When Loki hears that Kyo has taken a new student he risks everything for a chance to go and investigate the relationship between his sadistic Swordmaster and the seemingly perfect Prince Nikira.  He’s unsurprised that Kyo disapproves of his sudden and uninvited presence, but as the days pass, something starts to feel a bit off. 

That’s a breakdown of the first few chapters, I don’t want to give much more away.  Anyone who read Playing with Tigers may recall a mention by Kura where Loki wanted time off and, rather impressively, stole her job long enough to grant himself leave and take a vacation.  In the second Playing with Tigers, he claims that he’s the reason that the Arketh hate them, and I decided that this story really did need to make it into a book after all, so there you have it

Playing with Tigers 3-
Keel and Kaji have been trying to recover from the events that they’d suffered when Keel gets a worrisome letter from his sister, and they reluctantly decide to head north to visit his family.  Their journey coincides with the appointment of a new Headmistress and the Sahrketh’s very first Headmaster at the Palace, which leads them to the news that Kaji’s estranged sibling has been incarcerated overseas. 

That’s not an official blurb by any means, just a basic gist of the very start.  Worry not – there’s plenty of everything that was in the first two, from sex to intrigue, Sahrketh violence and Yunan humor.  The first two books are mostly done with heavy re-edits (I still missed some stuff, I’m sure…  Sorry!  -_-) but I currently plan to make the first one free after I implement updated documents, and possibly the second one as well.  No point in writing the third book if nobody’s read the first two, right? 

Duncan 2 –
The surviving cast from the first book returns in its entirety for another round of madness, starting with Duncan’s discovery that his former house isn’t as vacant as he remembered and that he’s being brought up on charges for the events that transpired in Crush. 

I had some trouble finding an appropriate villain for this one because even in a fantasy setting, everyone would have a bone to pick with Duncan, so for once my problem was that there were too many people who would want to ruin his life.  I think I picked properly, and I’m very proud to say that I even found a way for a certain someone to realistically refuse to be involved (as the involvement of a murdering sociopath who can’t die is just taking the cheap way out) that works so well I laugh and raise my cup of tea to my own cleverness.  It’s not ready for human eyes yet, as my opponent for Duncan does not give me the chills and that just won’t do.  But it’s coming along splendidly. 

Then there’s this –

Untitled book for a certain villain.





Need I say more?  ;)  He’s a bitch to write but damn, if he doesn’t end up making me proud at the end of the day. 

This picture is actually FAN ART!  Can you believe that?  That’s art from one of my amazing fans!  You can find her here, and she takes commissions!  I have dibbs on this pic though, ladies and gentlemen!  That’s actually going to be the cover for his book, since I keep staring at it and smiling.  Do not use that picture without my permission or the permission of Cheri, please and thank you. 

Annnnnd then there’s also this untitled book that I’ve been working on that I’m not sure where to start with.  It’s good?  That seems like a decent start, but as with all of my books, if I try to explain it I sound as normal as Willy Wonka.  (This is NOT an official blurb!) Here, I’ll give it a try:

Swordmaster Iyren Caro is Sahrketh, which means that when he’s really pissed off or his adrenaline spikes, he may start to show some tiger attributes.  Thankfully that hasn’t happened yet, since Sahrketh men are known to take much longer after they turn to calm down than their female counterparts.  He’s offered a mating contract by a woman so abrasive towards him that, should she spontaneously explode in his kitchen, he would be more upset that he would need to mop than by her sudden demise.  But she has gold and they both know how badly he needs it if he ever wants to do more than break up bar fights and scold the locals for traipsing over the border to cause trouble for their longest standing enemies. 
Ranger Warren Elborough is Kyathe and has spent a few years defending his community of wolf shifters from the barbaric and savage Sahrketh that they unfortunately share a border with.  While trying to prove something to one of his friends he stumbles into some trouble and ends up being abducted by slavers in the most embarrassingly simple way he’d ever heard of.  His captors thankfully don’t realize that he’s Kyathe, but every chance he has to shift and escape is thwarted until he finally comes to the realization that he’d have more luck getting back home once he’s been sold.  Only, the woman who buys him knows what he is, what that means.  To make matters worse, she’s Sahrketh, and she clearly already has a plan for him.

See what I did there?  I took two characters who can’t speak a language between them that are trained to kill each other on sight and would both be eager to do so, and then I rubbed my hands together, chuckled evilly and said, “Now touch him a little a bit.”  If you want to see how I accomplished that, it’s super fun and it’ll be ready for beta readers in a few months!  :D  I’m actually sort of proud of this one because the way that they interact… NAILED IT!  Not sure when it will be completed but it’s the closest of the bunch that have been mentioned and the draft only needs a few more chapters, some editing and ironing and then it will be ready for betas.

I think that’s about everything for this post!  As always, I adore feedback from ‘loved it!’ to ‘It’s bad and you should feel bad!’ and I can be reached through goodreads or on facebook 

Happy New Year!

S. K. <3