OUUROBOROS

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I'm now back from uni and I spent the holiday with my family. It was great :v got some nice presents. Mostly clothes, 'cause I didn't know what I wanted (oops). My main present was a super-nice dress from my parents (I was in charge of my present getting, they gave me a budget and I online shopped the lot. No need to go into town, right? Just as I was about to order I saw it had been reduced from £60 to just £30! Pleased to the max. I probably should have got the size smaller than I chose to be safe, but it still fits fine.
I also got this gorgeously fluffy white faux fur snood, which I have become one with and wear all the time - even indoors. It's so fluffy, I might die.

Update on the story situation - my main proof reader has been utterly useless and hasn't even looked at the last three shorts (???) I know, right? Yes, my dad has work that pays for our house, but clearly this is more important! Tch.
He says he will get to it soon. If he doesn't, I'll threaten him some more.

So, the whole thing is delayed. Some more.
Disappointing.

However, my main project comes along in leaps and bounds :v The final plan is written, everything is worked out, and I'm hemming and hawing over beginning it. I will - eventually. ;__;

But, I thought I'd write (read: complain) about something else in this post today. Obviously, as an aspiring writer, I have a miniature love-affair with words. I love words. I love the words that have multiple different meanings, I love the colours words make on the page when you put them together. The English language is great! We have some beautiful words. Celestial, pelagic, xanthochroic, solar, feather, glimmer, machine, luminescence - all so soft and pretty.
However, it also follows that there are words I hate. Here are some, along with some fairly garbled reasons as to why.

Folk. I hate the word folk, or folks. I especially hate it when applied to a group of people. It makes me physically cringe when someone says it. It's just so ugly! Cannot stand it. This is one of the words I would never use in writing, never, not under any circumstance. Objectively there's no reason for me to hate this word, just like there's no logical reason that the smell of baked beans makes me want to be sick - I just do. The sad thing is it's not an offensive word or a word many people are bothered by, so I can't really demand that it be banned from human speech.
BUT IT BLOODY WELL SHOULD BE.

Next, warmth. I've always hated this word, right from when I was a kid. Once again, no particular reason, besides it has my least favourite letter right at the start. I've never liked 'w' - it's an ugly letter, with an ugly feel to it. Although, normally my dislike for words with 'w' in is confined to those that start with 'wi', so warmth is a strange one. I just try to avoid using these words unless I have to. The other letters in it aren't offensive to my by themselves, but I don't like the combination of rm or mth. It looks like someone's being gagged. Th on it's own is fine though. I guess I'm just a pedantic freak.
Plus, and this is more a personal thing, I don't connect 'warmth' with a nice kind of heat like lying on a beach in the Mediterranean. I think of it as more the uncomfortable kind of heat, like when you're stuck under a blanket and can't really move. It just makes my skin crawl.

I don't think this post will be doing much to convince you of my sanity, but I promise I'm not a lunatic. I just have an irrational hatred of certain words.

'Wi' words in general. 'With' is okay because the 'th' softens it. 'Wind' is okay depending on the words I use it with, perhaps its connotations spare it. Otherwise, I don't like them at all.

Words spelt the American way. I'm sorry, people of the USA! It might be the most logical way to spell things, but it's damn ugly. Colour versus color. Favourite versus favorite. The 'ou' way makes the word seem softer, smoother. 'o' is harsh, abrupt, and hurried. I guess you could compare it to cheap wine versus pricier wine on your palate - the more expensive wine is smoother and the taste lasts longer. Sorry!
Hahaha, I bet that's offended someone somewhere. Helpful hint : take things less seriously.
Pet peeve - when the British spellings are underlined as spelling errors. Nope, they might make less sense from a logical standpoint, but they look nicer in a paragraph. They leave a nicer taste when I write them, and give a sentence a more subtle, rounded colour and flavour.
'Ou' words are are awesome. And 's' is better than 'z'.

Whoever made this image, it's never been more appropriate.

There are probably more words I hate out there, but they don't spring to mind at this current time. This has been a long post anyway, so I'll sign off and bully my dad some more.

Hallo everyone. :v
First of all, sorry for the (mostly) unexplained hiatus! As I mentioned in the last post, I am now at university (and typing this on my phone, so sorry for any errors.) I thought I'd be able to blog easily, but I am constantly busy here. So much work, a stupid number of lectures a week... I've hardly had time to finish my work due to hanging out with everyone.
The downside of this is, NO WRITING. None at all. Not even an edit. I didn't think it'd be this hard to balance everything OTL
So, you can expect the final chapter (and the complete collection) of City of the Damned some time in the Christmas holidays.

At this moment, I'm sitting in the most boring lecture of the week, and I've got approx five hours to go before I can eat any food, so I feel justified in not paying any attention. But besides working, uni is fantastic. In the month or so I've been here, I have...
•Met many new friends
•Broke my ipod. And phone.
•Begun a new martial art (kempo~)
•Visited most of the college bars
•Visited the worst nightclub in Europe and ironically (drunkenly?) enjoyed it
•Developed a taste for vodka tea... We ran out of mixer. Don't ask.

I had so many ideas for blogposts these last few weeks, and if I have time I'll try and write them up. So that this one isn't completely useless, I figure I'll post some of the photos I took of the Shard when I was in London. I always think photography is a great way to be inspired/develop ideas for writing, as you have the images to flick through and develop a feeling for a scene or character :v Do it!
The Shard was amazing, incidentally. If you get the chance, definitely climb it, and go all the way to the top (or what was the point? Don't be a chicken like my Uncle was, tchh.)

♥‿♥ It's up! Download the next set of shorts here!
Thanks for all the support and downloads so far today, before I even posted! It'll be free for the next couple of days only. Please enjoy :>

I'm quite pleased with this set overall,  and I hope people like them. Good luck, little ebook!

I'll post a couple of more times before I go to uni, I imagine - I've got a couple of posts backed up that I want to do before I leave, and then I guess I can tell you guys about my new city and things :> Sorry for being a useless blogger/writer over the last couple of weeks.

Hello hello ♥‿♥
Not only is today a Breaking Bad marathon kind of day, I've also finished editing/formatting the next set of shorts! I've uploaded them to Amazon and am now just waiting on them to be published. Should happen tomorrow, and they'll be free for a couple of days around a day afterwards. Exciting! If you want to know the extent of the Government's plans for the city, be sure to download and have a read :>

I suppose this is also an apology, in a way - the start of uni's been coming up fast, and everything's gone a bit insane. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to not expect the final set of shorts for at least several more weeks. I've got a new city to settle in to (and not get lost in), Fresher's week to deal with (ew, for antisocial gits like me),  and hopefully I'll make some new friends. I will try to publish them before the end of my first term at uni, however. I'll have my dad email me any edits and I'll go through them again, but it will very much be in my spare time. I mistimed this a little bit :/ But I hope you can understand that my studies (which are about to clean me out financially for several years at least) should probably take priority over this.

But, it will definitely be out eventually! I've come too far to abandon it now, and I desperately want to start writing my novel! The plan and characters are all coming together, and it's going to be something infinitely more exciting than the shorts (although, I like to think these are pretty exciting too!) And I've decided, hopefully around Christmas or maybe sooner, to also release the short stories in a full set - exactly as they were intended to be read. Maybe you can gift someone for Christmas? ;>

Wait for me! I really hope the stories are worth it.

I spent the day with my writing friend ArtemisTimms today, and alongside general nerdery and flapjacks we made what is, in my opinion, true beauty. We attempted to create characters from our books from Fimo clay, but after various trials and tribulations (including the fact that the Fimo was about seven years old and wouldn't really mould) we made something far more profound.

Click here to read the full review of this culturally important piece of art, courtesy of Arty :>

To be fair, my 'attempt' was even worse, and consisted of an uneven sphere of foil partially covered in clay. It won't be posted.

Once again, to be fair, I did art A-level at college and did rather well. What we have produced today, especially with the eloquent description and interpretation, was worthy of anything I actually submitted for my project (I used to splatter whole pages of sketchbooks with ink and call it a day. It worked, 'cause I got full marks.)

That is Actual Art, as I'm sure you can all agree. Here, I have some Modern Art, for your entertainment.
 
In all seriousness, this is the second drawing I did in the style of my previous picture as a character reference. Say hello to Sayka Lanner. 

Oi oi.  ♥‿♥
Not writing related, but I've been in a doodly mood in my spare time. I found this older sketch of the character Lilia Parell (lead character of the Light Age) and decided to finish it up. I probably could have painted the clothing and hair in a more detailed way, but I wanted to keep to a more simplistic style. I was thinking of doing more of my novel characters in this kind of style,  so I could have a little concept art for more of them than just Lilia. However, I'll probably focus on drawing the girls, since guys are boring to draw. Sorry! I like flowy hair and cute faces! (Hence I draw Lilia with long hair... even though she has extremely short hair for 75% of the series.)
(Also I am terrible at drawing men. How do you do it?)
I should maybe do the short story characters, too. Machaon, anyone?

You may also have noticed that this image appears in the new background for this blog. I got tired of the last one, and thought this was a good replacement.

The song lyrics are, of course, Marina and the Diamonds 'Oh No!'
For this character, they're kind of appropriate.
Drawn and coloured in SAI.

Hallo, everyone! I'm sorry for being a lazy blogger this month. I decided today to write another informational post, for anyone looking to publish an ebook themselves. I've already finished my formatting ebooks post - check it here!

This post isn't very long. But I found it a little confusing to know what to do when I needed ISBNs, so this should help save other people the trouble.
Note - ISBNs are quite expensive, you'll need around £120 for a block of 10. Get saving! I cleaned the house every week for a couple of months, as well as cleaned the car. However, it's good to have them.

.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.

What is an ISBN?
 It is an international standard book number. It's a unique number for your publication that identifies it, and is used in marketing/selling. Your book essentially gets registered on a big old database as your book, so it's quite a useful thing to have. It also makes it feel a little more official!

As to how to get an ISBN - you have to go to your country/region's ISBN agency.  A google search will help you find yours easily. The one for the UK is Nielsen. Therefore, this is the one that I used.

You need to download the application form, print it out, complete it, scan it and then email it to their address they provide (Click on 'services for new publishers' and you'll get the information, as well as links to the form.) Alternatively you can post it to their address.

The service from this company was really great. I'd managed to make a little mistake in my form, and they immediately emailed me and we sorted it out. It does take a little while to come through, however, so be prepared!

Also, another thing to note. If you're self publishing, on the form where it asks for the publisher of the book, you can either put your own name or make up your own 'publishing company' name - I chose Baytree Publishing. I suppose this can be done for superficial reasons;  so people don't at first glance write your book off as vanity published, but it's not necessary. I did it because it felt official and proper to have a 'real' publishing name ♥‿♥. You will have to register one of the ISBNs to your book when you apply, and provide a sample title page and title page verso - the site has a clear explanation of this, you can essentially mock one up in Word or Open Office (for poor people like me :> )

You will get a paper booklet in the post with a list of your ISBNs, and space for you to assign the rest of them to your future publications. You will need to register these on their site at some point, but it doesn't seem to need to be done immediately.

So, it's not actually that hard! Even so, be sure to do it in plenty of time before you intend to publish your book.

I'm afraid I'm not sure how other countries are different to the UK, but I imagine they're pretty similar.

.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.•´¯`♥.¸¸.•´¯`♡.¸¸.

As far as book-writing goes, the reason number three isn't published yet is that I'm still working on 8 - Original Sin. I felt as though I didn't characterise quite correctly in it, so I'm tweaking it, and I won't publish until I am 100% happy with it.

I am also really pleased with how 4-6 has gone - I've also received a really good review on Amazon.com for it! Five stars ;__; Thank you, reviewer! It was rather flattering. So far, I've only had five star reviews on my stories (touch-wood.) This pleases me.