It's been a decent while since I've made a blog...about four or five months? Who remembers. But I don't want to let this blog die completely so I figure I should update and let those who care about me know what I've been up to these past few months and what I'm going to be doing in the future.
So for those who don't know (and I didn't exactly broadcast it) my fiance and myself decided to leave our apartment behind and go stay with friends so we could save up money for a bigger place. Unfortunately, due to a few factors I don't wish to mention (nothing nefarious I just don't like bad talking anyone) the living arrangement didn't work out. But there was no getting our apartment back...so we were kinda out of a home. Luckily, we were able to stay with my family but it was far from an ideal situation us having been used to being on our own for years.
This whole scenario resulted in me losing drive and general enthusiasm for most of the things I wanted to do during the late spring/summer seasons and as a result I fell behind of my personal plans.
Anyway, fast forward a few months later and we're now back into our own space which is a load of stress/anxiety off of my shoulders. And I've been able to gain back all the enthusiasm/drive I lost and channel it properly.
Before I jump into what I am doing this year I need to talk about what I'm not doing.
I've thought long and hard about this but I've decided to extend my previous hiatus from the M/M community. For those who don't remember, I made a Facebook status (link) talking about how I was taking a leave from writing for an "indefinite" amount of time and not going to any conferences for 2015...which also extended to 2016.
Even though I said I was going to be done with writing in general...I was still writing stories just not M/M specific stories. And this made me realize something that I was denying to myself for a long time which was the fact that I wasn't happy in the m/m genre.
I hope it doesn't sound like I'm being ungrateful or anything. I love all the true friends I've made and the people who have enjoyed my writing but it wasn't fun for me. Three years ago I was young and ignorant (still young, less ignorant now) and I allowed people to fill my head with illusions of grandeur.
I was force-fed the mantra that cute gay boys sell books. I was made to believe that I should go into a genre because that's where I would do the best and achieve the best success. And who doesn't want to be successful doing something they love to do? If someone says they don't want to be successful at something they love - they're a liar. Plain and simple.
So after being told this over and over I decided to "sell-out" and write M/M novels/short stories when it's never what I wanted for myself or for my work. I wanted to write meaningful stories filled with lots of adventure, mystery, and just a sense of wonder.
I never wanted to have my character's sexuality be the whole point of the story or have my character defined by their sexuality. I don't think anyone should be defined by their sexuality. People are more than who they fall in love with / who they sleep with.
I thought that the M/M community would be the perfect place for me...I mean it's a community which is built around the idea of love/acceptance of LGBT how would that not be the place for me? But, unfortunately, the love/acceptance isn't as thriving as you'd believe/like. I say this with no disrespect or malice intended to the people who have supported/loved me for the past three years but there's a dark side to the M/M community and it just seems to be getting worse, not better.
And the point where it becomes more about the drama, politics, and cliques and less about the stories, acceptance, and love is when I have to step back and say I want no part of it. That doesn't mean I'm not going to talk to my friends in the community...just that I need to do what's best for me mentally and unfortunately, the M/M community stopped being that months ago.
That being said I'm not ending my writing career. I'm going to just go to where my heart belongs and where it always has: YA / Young Adult. I need to focus on the genre I always loved and I've already met so many people from the YA community and they're so accepting and just it's refreshing.
I'm currently writing again and making such good progress. 20k words in under a week...which is more than I achieved from June 2015 to June 2016. Why? Because my passion has been invigorated. For once I feel like I'm writing for me and not for people who either don't understand me or seek to put me in a box or put my work in a box of what it should/shouldn't be.
I hope that the fans/people who enjoyed my previous books will check out the new ones when they come out because even though I'm constantly growing and learning my writing style remains the same so I hope you enjoy the new ones too.
Otherwise, I'm deeply sorry to those of you who love my M/M work and are waiting for Red Rose's completion. I'm just not in the proper head-space to give Alex the respect he deserves. I've honestly tried to write White Rose many times and it just...it doesn't have the spark it's supposed to, the spark I felt the first novel have.
I know some people would be okay with just pushing out the novel / half-assing it but I'm not that person and I respect my readers way too much to just throw out something that isn't my 100% best. It's just how I am. Hopefully one day I'll be able to revisit Alex and his world.
Besides the writing I have two other things I'm working on. I've been working on a Fantasy TCG (Trading Card Game) since 2012 and I'm finally ready to start taking steps in order to release it. If you're interested or want to find out more you can like the page on Facebook (TCG Page)
I'm really excited about that project as I've been working with a few artists and I love TCGs so I'm hoping it'll do well. I plan on making a Kickstarter for it in the coming months.
Lastly, I've been pursing my love of baking. I've been making a lot of stuff from scratch, working with fondant, and different designs. I dream of opening a bakery one day. For now, I just plan on doing parties and stuff like that. I'm doing a project in November/December a 60 day anime/video game cupcake project where I design cupcakes based off of anime/video game characters. A different one a day. There will be more information on that in the near future.
I want to take this time to thank those of you who stuck through until the end. I hope that this blog didn't upset anyone but I didn't want to filter myself as blogs are supposed to be cathartic and editing that would deviate from the whole purpose.
I'll end it here.
Lots of love and applesauce <3
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