Big News!

So, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I haven’t really been posting much here recently. This isn’t to say that I don’t haunt the Internet, just that I’m usually on more casual sites like Facebook and Tumblr. Since last I posted, a lot has changed for me: I have been at my current day-job for almost two years; I bought a house; we moved into said house; friends have come and gone. Perhaps the biggest thing is the state of AMIND.

When I completed the Camp NaNoWriMo in 2014, the rough draft weighed in at about 55,000 words. This was still 25% more than Bodies, but still kind of anemic for a full-length novel. I let the draft rest for probably longer than I should have (about a year), and when I came back to it, I ended up making some major changes. The current draft is almost twice as long (about 95,500 words), with some of the story significantly changed and the entire POV of the novel shifted to be first-person.

Late one night in early April of this year, I decided that I was going to submit my manuscript to a publisher that one of my friends had recommended to me. My friend (whom I have talked to pretty extensively about the plot and development of AMIND) had worked with this publisher before, and they felt that they might be a good fit for me. So, in a fit of insomnia, I stayed up far later than I should have crafting my submission letter.

As of May 18th, 2016, AMIND is under contract to be published by Less Than Three Press! There are still a lot of things that need to get done before I have a firm date, but words cannot express how excited I am about this development.

Additionally, I have also begun work on the rough draft of the sequel to AMIND, whose working title is (oh-so-creatively) Alonso Munich Is Still Dead.

In the coming weeks, I’m hoping to revitalize this space with more information about AMIND as it makes its way through the publishing process, as well as some thoughts on the process that got me from Camp NaNoWriMo to here.

The next weeks/months are shaping up to be really exciting, and I’m so excited to share it with you all!

Post-Camp Nanowrimo Post

Well, after taking a day to kind of recover (both from Camp Nano and my first week at my new day-job), I just wanted to let you all know that I am stoked as heck and ready to celebrate!

First, as those of you who have been keeping up with my stats may have noticed: I successfully completed my Camp Nano challenge! I had a lot of fun and it taught me a lot about ways to improve my personal writing process, as well as what proper expectations for myself can be given different circumstances. It was a great learning experience all around, and that brings me to…

Second, the first rough draft for AMIND is finished! There’s still a lot of work to be done on it, but the skeleton of the story and a lot of the flesh are all there, and it is definitely going to be a full-length novel once I’m done with revisions/rewrites. Considering that it took me over two years to finish the first draft of Bodies, having finished the first draft of AMIND (a more ambitious project, in my mind) in a little over a year is absolutely astonishing to me. And, speaking of Bodies, that brings me to…

Third, I’m running a celebratory sale! Until August 15th, you can use coupon code DF87K when you purchase Bodies Are Disgusting on Smashwords to get the book for $.99!

Thank all of you for your encouragement and support! Regular Music Monday, Fiction Friday, and art posts will be resuming a little later this month. :D

Camp NaNoWriMo

Sorry for being so quiet lately. Unfortunately, I’m probably not going to get much more talkative this month because I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo! I’m using the event as a way to kick my butt into gear when it comes to finishing AMIND, and it’s been working pretty well so far. I’m finally over two-thirds of the way through and coming into the final stretch. I’m estimating that it’ll come in at around 60,000 words once all is said and done (so it will definitely be a full-length novel rather than a novella like Bodies), maybe a little more.

If you want to keep track of my progress, check out my stats page. I’m really excited to hopefully get this story finished because I can’t wait to share it with the world at large.

An Announcement and Some Silliness

So, CorgiHat went live while I was at MomoCon, which is why the announcement for this is a little belated. You’re still completely welcome to sign up for the CorgiHat Beta group, as we’re going to be improving the app and launching other apps over the next several months. For now, though, we’re taking a bit of a break to get caught up on personal stuff and plan the next iteration of the product.

I also completely forgot to mention that Bodies Are Disgusting is now available on Google Play! It took a little while for me to iron everything out, and to celebrate, the book is free until 6/6/14 on Google Play only!

In silly news, I realized that yesterday was the third anniversary of Alonso Munich’s death! Happy death day to him. :D I’m very excited about his story and hope that I can share some more of it with you all soon.

CorgiHat Beta Sign-Ups

So, the first cut of the application is available now for our beta testers, and we’re planning a full release by Friday! This is a really exciting development, and we can’t wait until we can show our hard work to the world. :D

If you’d like to sign up to be part of the CorgiHat Beta, you can do so here: Beta Tester Sign-Up Please allow a few hours for your Google ID to be added, as we have to do manually add each group member.

(Cross-posted from the CorgiHat Development Blog.)

MomoCon 2014 AA Seating

Well, the seating chart for the MomoCon 2014 Artists Alley is done, and now I can share with you all where I’m going to be in about a month!

Artist Alley Seating ChartThis year, the AA will be in the Mariott, separate from the Dealer’s Room. I will be sharing a table with the fine folk of Crystal Dreams Studios, and we will be in Blue-6! Please feel free to stop by and say hello!

MomoCon Preparations

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted; I hope you all enjoyed Read an E-book Week! I know I picked up some cool stuff.

Anyway, my next big event coming up is MomoCon 2014! I’m very excited, as I will once again be both vending and helping run things as Assistant Director. We’ve got a new venue, which is very exciting, and I will be providing details about my exact location in the coming weeks. I will be sharing my table with Crystal Dreams this year, and we’ve got a lot of cool stuff in store that I’m really excited about. I’ll also have physical copies of Bodies Are Disgusting as well as some Bodies-related prints.

In the interim, for the rest of the month of April, I’m doing a special: if you purchase a physical copy of Bodies Are Disgusting on Amazon.com, you can download the Kindle version for free!

I’m really looking forward to seeing folks at MomoCon!

Read an E-book Week (March 2 – March 8)

RAEW2014

Read an E-book Week is coming, and here at Harpy’s Nest Designs we’ve chosen to celebrate it by enrolling Bodies Are Disgusting in Smashwords’s RAEW catalog! From March 2 to March 8, Bodies will be available free of charge with the coupon code RW100. You can also check out the rest of the catalog when it goes live and choose from a wide selection of e-books to read and enjoy at a discount.

CorgiHat Development Blog Now Open!

CorgiHat

I am pleased to announce the opening of the CorgiHat Development Blog! I have been working on this project for several months with my father, and we are finally to the point where we’ve begun development. To quote our first post:

“Corgi Hat Development is working on a suite of Android applications that work together to help independent artists, craftspersons, and small business folk. The initial offering will be a project tracker that will help coordinate the process of delivering contracted pieces.”

We’re really excited to be working on this project and I hope that you will join us on our journey to create a wonderful suite of applications.

Limited-Time Offer: Free Reviewer Copy of ‘Bodies Are Disgusting!’

Bodies Are Disgusting

So, kind internet, I have a favor to ask of you. This link leads to the Smashwords page of my novel, Bodies Are Disgusting. It is a horror novel heavily influenced by Lovecraftian themes, Japanese horror games, and the guro genre. The main character is a trans person (I wrote them to be genderfluid but I’ve had several folks say they read them differently, and that’s cool too), and most of the supporting cast is queer as well. I hesitate to say that it’s “queer horror” because the characters’ queerness isn’t the point of the story, but it definitely has an affect on the way the story progresses.

If you’re still with me, here’s the favor. If you follow this link, you can use this coupon code and get it for free: LN66G The only thing that I ask in return is that, if you read and enjoy it, you leave a review/rating at your favorite retailer. It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and a couple of other places too. It’d also be cool if you told your friends about it.

Now, the story does come with a few warnings for: body horror, cannibalism, gore, violence, some sexual situations, and attempted rape. I have also seen a couple of people say that it should have a warning for scopophobia, and I’ll defer to their judgement on that one.

You can download the story in just about any format you like from the Smashwords page. Once you’ve read it (and hopefully enjoyed it), all I ask is that you leave a review somewhere and share the story with anyone you think might also enjoy it. This is a limited-time offer, though, as the coupon code will expire March 17th, 2014.