In Which Summer Is A Busy Time

We're into summer now, and man, am I busy. I think I pretty much have something going on every weekend for the next two months. I mean, it's good, and filled with fun things like cabin trips and residency and baby showers and friends visiting, but still. It's going to be a while before I can catch my breath.

If you missed it last week, my cover was revealed on Epic Reads, which was awesome and wonderful and crazy! And I'm so glad its out in the world now.

Soon there will be things like arcs, and pre-orders and all that crazy stuff that really cements how real all of this is. Because there are plenty of times where it still doesn't feel real. But I'm betting once I'm holding the arc or book in my hands, it will really hit me. That I wrote a book, and it sold and someday soon people I don't even know will be reading it.
Someday soon, really.

Crazy.

In Which MY COVER IS REVEALED!!!!

Today is the day! THE DAY!

THE DAY OF COVER REVEAL FOR ASSASSIN'S HEART!!!

But, as I mentioned yesterday, it is not here, here, but instead at the awesome, wonderful Epic Reads Blog!

So please, click that little button and head on over to see my cover! Because I love it and I hope you will too.

CLICK HERE!!

you know you want to

In Which My Cover Will Be Revealed . . .

Guys. GUYS!!!

It's happening. We've reached a point of awesomeness, a point many authors dream about (I know I did and still do)

The cover reveal. THE COVER REVEAL!!!!

I, of course, have seen the cover (Spoiler: I love it) but now, now we are alllllmost to the point where I get to share it to the world.

And no, I'm not going to make you wait long.

Because my cover will be revealed TOMORROW!!!!


AAAAH!

And where will this cover reveal take place?


On EPIC READS!!!


DOUBLE AAAAH!!!

I'm so, so SO excited that they're going to be revealing my cover tomorrow. I hope you see it and love it as much as I do.

So please stop by Epic Reads tomorrow, (or stop by here, where I will have a link to the cover reveal) and check out my cover. I'm so excited and I hope you'll be there to be excited with me. Because we're pals.

 

Friday Fun

Woooo! Friday! Friday is here, ape-friends! Which means it's time to start the fun!

Wrestles for everyone!!

Let's do this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Which I Got A New, Fancy (Standing) Desk

I love my desk. It has three drawers which holds a ton, and a lot of surface space for all my junk. It's fantastic.

So shiny. So chrome. (also, I love Mad Max Fury Road, in case that's not clear)

But I spend a lot of time sitting.

So much time, guys. All day, pretty much. Especially on days where it's raining so there's no dog walk in the morning, or on days where I miss my morning workout for whatever reason.

And then I was like "What id I bought a standing desk?"

But I didn't want to stand all the time. I knew that would just frustrate me. I'd have to do some research.

And as soon as I had that thought, I saw a Lifehacker article listing the top standing desks.

There were some cheap options, which mostly consisted of buying a little stand to put on your existing desk. That wouldn't work for me. I wasn't using a laptop (well, actually I am. But it's a laptop plugged into a docking station and attached to a stand so my monitor sits on top. It would be a PITA to move my existing stand onto another stand anytime I wanted to stand. Also, I wanted the desktop to be at standing height. I take a lot of notes in notebooks)

So I knew the cheaper options were out. Enter the Uplift Desk, which was great because the starting price was literally just for the legs. Then you could buy a top if you wanted or get one yourself. And they offered so many customization options.
Since my goal was to try and recreate my existing desk but also make it so I could stand, Uplift Desks it was!

Last week it finally arrived. I put it together, gave my old desk to Twin and we moved my new desk into the office.

And it's awesome.

normal desk

Standing desk!!

I've only used it for a short time, but I love how, when I'm feeling sleepy after lunch, I just press a button and it raises up so I can stand. And when I need to sit down for some brainstorming, I just press another button and it drops right down to my preset height.

How about you? Do you use a standing desk? Ever considered one?

Friday Fun

Woo!

We made it through another week, ape-friends! Which means it's time for some Friday Fun!

Yep. This is grass

Here we go!

 

 

 

dogs in pantyhose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Weird: The Drowning Of Ludwig II

Ludwig II was the king of Bavaria in the mid 1800s (1845-1866 for anyone who wants the exact years (you know who you are)).

Good for him, right? Ludwig II loved being king. He loved it so, so much that he took all the money in Bavaria and used it to buy fun things like swan boats. And building an outrageous fairytale castle.



You thought I was kidding about the castle, didn't you? This is Neuschwanstein, the inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle

He loved this castle SO MUCH that he thought, hell, why don't I build two more?

He was king, after all, and could do what he wanted. He had no intention of living in them, he just wanted to build them. And in fact would send servants out every day to check on them.

Ludwig II also suffered from OCD and schizophrenia, so after he built his castles and bankrupted the whole country, the nobles decided to finally do something. They stepped in, declared Ludwig II unfit to rule (even gave him a fun nickname: The Mad King (I didn't say it was overly unique or clever)) and took him off the throne.

The end.

And then things get weird.

Three days later, Ludwig II is found dead in a lake near Munich.

Okay, well, sometimes people drown. It happens.

But it doesn't often happen in lakes that are only waist deep.
Or to people (like Ludwig II) who are excellent swimmers.
Or when their royal physicians are in the water next to them.

Why didn't the physician just save him you ask? Oh, because he was dead, too. The good doctor had marks and bruises that looked like someone had strangled him, but Ludwig's body was unmarked.

So, what do you do with a mystery like this? Nothing. You say the former king drowned and wash your hands of it.

Except for the fact that Ludwig had no water in his lungs at all.
Complicating things even more (I know) Ludwig and the doctor had forbidden Ludwig's aides to follow them while they went off to do . . . something. Presumably whatever it was that got them killed. And Ludwig had been known to say, more than once, that he wished to become an eternal enigma to himself and others.

Thoughts or theories?

In Which I Display My Steampunk Hats

So, if you've followed this blog for any length of time (or even just glanced at the sidebar) you're aware that I have a small collection of steampunk hats. Only three (though I still want a top hat) but still, three hats is three hats you have to put somewhere.

My first hat was easy. I just hung it on the wall from the strap for it's goggles.

But the second hat didn't have a strap, and couldn't easily hang on anything because it was a bowler.

And the third one was even harder.

So my first hat rested, hanging on the wall, while my other two just sat on my dresser, stacked together. Not that great to look at, and also taking up space on my dresser.

A few years ago I saw a post on Epbot about how she made a hat stand for her steampunk Mickey Mouse ears and I was like "yesss. I can do that too"

But then it took me forever to actually get around to doing it. Mostly because I had troubles finding candlesticks I liked. Finally, though, I realized I could just find ones that had the right shape and height and adjust anything else accordingly.

So that's what I did. I bought three candlesticks from Ikea, an unfinished shelf, and then some spray paint and other supplies. And I began.

I spray-painted the candlesticks and the hardware for the shelf a hammered nickel color, which I liked a lot. Then I stained and polyurethaned my shelf.

When the sticks were dry, I began some crafting (with Twin's help)

We took some foam balls, cut them in half and then layered some cotton over them. We'd gone to the fabric store and found a pretty fabric that I lurved. We attached the fabric to the ball and then used ref push pins to add some decoration.
Then we just attached them to the candlesticks with some hot glue and Voila! Hat stands.

 

obligatory dog butt

Once the shelf was done curing, I hung it in my room and displayed my hats proudly.

This is the kind of crafting that I love. I wish I had more time to make fun things like this, but alas. Adulting must be done.

 

Friday Fun

Hello, ape-friends!

It's been awhile, but here we are, in June, which means it's even more important to start your weekend off right because now it's summer! And the weather is warm and just waiting for some fun.

Ahhh. Smell that summer wind

Let's go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group

Here we are, the first Wednesday in June which means it's time for IWSG

Co-hosts for today's post are  M. Pax, Tracy Jo, Patricia Lynne, Rachna Chhabria, Feather Stone, and Randi Lee

I'm really excited for June. Well, maybe excited is the wrong word. June is the first month in a while where I'll be able to feel like I can breath again.

My semester is over, which means no more homework until July (except for my critical thesis presentation. I have to work on that and have it ready to go for my presentation in early July.) So because the semester is over, it means I don't have to work on more than one manuscript at a time. Which means I can completely focus on my sequel. Which also means I will be pulling out all the stops on it this month and pumping through it as hard and as fast as I can.

Finishing it is the goal. And by goal, I mean THIS IS A THING I MUST DO. Preferably finishing it as fast as possible so I can immediately jump into the revisions I know it desperately needs. The first 80 pages need to be pretty much rewritten. I mean, not from scratch, but my MC completely changed after that, as did a villain, as did her motivations and goals, so all existing scenes need to be changed to reflect those changes, though the bones of the scenes, I think, can stay.

So, yeah. I mean, maybe I should be worried about the amount of work I'm facing, and I am a bit worried, but mostly, it looks easier from where I'm standing since I've been facing this work for a few months now, it's just that before I also had schoolwork to accomplish as well.

Anyway, that's what's up with me. How about you?

In Which We're Forced To Remodel

So here we are, in June. Once again the year kind of sneaks up on us and then zooms past when we're not looking. The good thing about June, though, is it's kind of officially summer, which is great. We've had a few nice days so far this year, but we've only had to turn on the air conditioner once, which is kind of nice in a money sense, but also just goes to show that we've had plenty of rainy, cold days too.

Anyway, had my week staycayation. It was supposed to be awesome, filled with a few days of house fixing and then a bunch of days of doing fun stuff like hitting the zoo or whatever.
But instead it was 8 days of home fixing. Sighs for 15 minutes

We were going to do a quick update on our bathroom. Put in a new vanity, a new light fixture, paint and then done!
But when we pulled up the old vanity we found the previous owners decided not to tile under it, and since our new vanity had legs, and was smaller than the old one, we couldn't leave it the way it was.

thanks a lot, jerky previous owners

Which mean we had to do a new floor. Which meant pulling up the toilet and all that jazz.
We tried to get some simple, constructed flooring that just snaps in, but SURPRISE, any of the ones that looked good aren't sold in store and you have to order them and they take 10 days to show up. Well, we needed the flooring in less than one day, so new tile it was.

We've never tiled before. It wasn't hard or anything, but I'd rather not do it again in the future. And our bathroom is small, too. Tiling just involves so much waiting and not using the space (which mean no showers for us because it's our only full bathroom)

But finally things were finally (mostly) complete. So our vacation was used up, but the bathroom does look a lot nicer.



Before (the bright light was a reading light we'd had to move into the bathroom since the old light fixture broke. Which is why we needed this update in the first place)



After

 

 

 

Old vanity and broken light fixture


 

.

New vanity

New light fixture

 

New tile

We still have a few finishing touches and, like, new towels to buy, but at the least it's way better than it was before.

So, that was my vacation (sighs again). What have you been doing while I was away? Fill me in!