Literary thoughts

 You'll have to pardon the lack of new (old?) content. I've been dealing with a lot, my creative well seems to have run dry in this summer heat, and I've been taking some time off to take care of myself because I am very bad at resting. As much as I'd love to just be able to go nonstop and be ultra-productive all the time and write fifty novels a year... humans don't work like that.

One of the things I've been doing while resting is reading (not research papers, surprisingly). There's something emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healing about the power of a story to temporarily take you to a different world, to dredge up fond feelings and nostalgic memories, to allow you to be right there looking over the characters' shoulders, sympathizing with their struggles and celebrating their successes. I've been reading a series of books set in the 1940's that I remember from when I was a kid, and it's been giving me those warm cozy nostalgia vibes. Okay, I'm not quite that old, but it reminds me of my grandparents' neighborhood, of simpler and quieter times, much like the effect of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Anyhow, I guess the whole business has got me thinking about some questionable literary advice I've heard over the years, which then of course makes me want to vent about it on my blog where I'm not actually directly debating with anyone. (I hate arguing. It's so pointless and never gets either party what they want and all you end up with is hurt feelings. I think it's much more sensible to just present your opinion and leave it for people to think about.)

 I was digging through storage, and found something I'd completely forgotten about--the "lore bible" for Tales of Lethe, my attempt in college at coming up with my own tabletop roleplaying game, complete with ridiculous amounts of worldbuilding. The game never really went anywhere (after a few test campaigns with friends, I realized that DMing actually exhausts me, and that was the end of that brilliant idea), but for a few years it was my big project. I even ran a message board dedicated to playing the game over the Internet (that was before I realized that running message boards exhausts me too).

It had some interesting innovations for a tabletop RPG, such as each character being probabilistically assigned an element upon generation (with the odds for each element differing by species), and that was the element the character was stuck with for life. The magic system was also extremely flexible, with less of an emphasis on preexisting spells/techniques, the players instead being encouraged to come up with their own uses for each element and the DM (or Lorekeeper) determining how many magic points a given technique would cost.

It was a pretty ambitious project, and an interesting early foray into worldbuilding, but I had a lot to learn about effective storytelling. I also learned that the success of any multiplayer game is highly dependent on other people actually wanting to play it, and aside from the aforementioned handful of friends, I just couldn't really get anybody else interested.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to revisit what I wrote about Lethe with some scathing critique modern commentary. Read on after the jump if you're interested.

(I also have to apologize in advance for the hideous artwork. I honestly did not get good at drawing until taking art and animation classes in college. I was not one of those people who seriously work on their art since childhood and are amazing by the time they're teenagers. Whenever my nieces get discouraged about their art skills, I remind them that it takes practice and learning to get good at something--I was definitely not born knowing things like human proportions and perspective and color theory.

Also, the style is wonky because after high school, I went through a bit of an artistic crisis phase where I didn't want to draw anime-style art anymore and attempted to make my drawings look more realistic without the appropriate training, and it just turned out awful. I reneged on that quite a bit when I started taking animation classes and realized it was okay to go for a more stylized aesthetic. It's not how photorealistic you can get your art to look--it's having the backbone of fundamental technical skills that makes for effective illustration.)

Waterhole

Time for more nerdy space poetry!

I find SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence) a really fascinating subject, not only because it seeks to answer a very poignant question, but because I think the search may ultimately tell humanity more about themselves than about the beings they're trying to find out there. It's an interesting philosophical exercise.

I've read a lot of literature that runs the speculation spectrum about what ETI might be like and why, after decades of having the technological capability to theoretically detect them, we haven't found any trace of them. One line of thought that I'm not a fan of is the idea that ETI are malevolent, and we should not try to alert them to our presence or else we risk dooming our planet. Stephen Hawking was a proponent of this idea and was against sending intentional messages to ETI (hence the poem's subtitle).

But I really don't think humanity should let pessimism or fear limit us and control our actions. Collectively and individually, we do great things by dreaming big and daring big. I don't see any reason why we should stop reaching for the stars.

(At any rate, I have my serious doubts about the existence of malevolent ETI that could pose a threat to Earth on purely logical grounds. Any civilization advanced enough to be dangerous, with the ability to reach Earth worryingly quickly, would definitely possess the ability to discern that Earth has an industrial civilization on it, with or without us broadcasting our presence. If that sort of ETI existed, we should have been invaded by now.)

retrograde

 On occasion I write poetry!

I'm fascinated by the fact that just because our Solar System looks a certain way right now, doesn't mean things were the same all throughout its history. It's also amazing how in the past few decades of space science, researchers have noticed peculiar little incongruities about our planetary neighborhood, and from them have begun to tease out pieces of an incredible story--tales of wild planetary migrations, moon systems built from the rubble of an earlier satellite catastrophe, and episodes of intense bolide bombardment. It makes our present-day Solar System seem completely tame in comparison. I'm excited to see what other stories we can uncover as we learn more about our little spot of space.

Neptune's moon Triton is a definite oddball in its system. It's the largest Neptunian moon by far, looks completely unlike the others, and has a really unusual retrograde orbit. From this and other bits of evidence, most scientists have reached the consensus that Triton is probably a Kuiper Belt object that was gravitationally captured by Neptune when that planet moved outward during aforementioned planetary migration episode. However, in order for this to work, Triton would have had to have originally been part of a binary system, and the capturing interaction would have to involve its companion being flung away to who-knows-where. 

It's a rather poignant story when you think about it--somewhere out there is a missing twin, wandering the void alone after an unfortunate encounter with a big blue bully. Is there any way to figure out if a given object is Triton's missing companion? Makes you wonder if we'll ever happen upon it someday.

If we do, we should tell Triton.

 I drew this illustration to commemorate a new and updated edition of my unnecessarily long Neopets fanfic Worth Searching For! I had already uploaded the previous version here, but parts of it still weren't sitting quite right with me, and I finally decided to just give it a total overhaul.

The most crucial edits here were to erase all vestiges of Isengrim's narcissistic sociopath personality from the first version, and really help Terra come into her own as a strong heroine whose kindness, wisdom, and courage inspire others to change for the better. In addition, I added a somewhat significant conversation between Isengrim and Suhel to tie Suhel's character development together a bit better than in previous versions; when I originally wrote this fic, I didn't go into much detail with her because I simply wasn't planning on doing anything else with her, but since then she's actually become a main part of the cast, so I figured she needed her due in her introductory story. I also took the opportunity to tighten up the prose, since it had been a few years since I'd last visited this story and I've somehow improved a bit as a writer since then.

If you've never read the fic, there's no better time to do so (but for Sloth's sake don't read the version that got into the Neopian Times, thankfully it's very old and you'd have a difficult time finding it, so just spare me the embarrassment and don't go looking for it).

Scrambled Circuits

Here's some original fiction for once! Sometimes I write short fiction, and then forget about it, and then rediscover it several years later and discover it actually wasn't half bad. Maybe I should post more of it here.

This is one of those. I was just having fun writing from a space probe's point of view. You've got to wonder what a computer experiences during a software glitch--what if it's like digital schizophrenia?

Lo'gaan Shelumiel, princess of the moon elves of Kesh'tame Woodland and master ranger, and her sworn enemy General Noggerath, a mysterious orc warlord whose forces have invaded the peaceful land of Avonell to steal its pixiedust, which powers all the world's magic and technology. This is the plot of Heroes of Avonell, the super-advanced virtual reality MMORPG featured in my cyber fantasy novel Pixeldust.

I did this sketch because I've never drawn Noggerath and wanted to try out some stuff for his character design. Lo'gaan is also fun to draw; I based her outfit off of traditional Korean armor and clothing (the fictional development company who created Heroes of Avonell is based in South Korea).

Also, I wanted to announce that there is a new, revised version of Pixeldust coming out very soon! I recently re-read it and discovered that I wasn't really satisfied with the first edition; the prose is very clunky in spots, and there were some prime character development opportunities I missed out on. I also realized there were a number of parts that I'd altered from the original draft to go along with my editor's recommendations, but actually, ever since I published the first edition I hadn't been able to shake that it wasn't really how I wanted the story to go. And it feels very overwritten at times, like I was trying to solve problems in the original draft that didn't actually exist.

I'm not saying the editor didn't do a good job - she did a great job and really helped me polish the story development - but now I realize there were places where I should have stayed true to my original creative vision, instead of assuming that the editor was always right and that I had no idea what I was doing (I've gained a bit more confidence in my writing since then). So I've given the novel a bit of an overhaul, and I'm much more pleased with it now. I drastically changed some parts, including a big element of the ending, which I mostly did to lead in better to ideas for a sequel I've been tossing around.

As for Lo'gaan and Noggerath, I realized that their character arcs needed more substance and closure. In the revised edition (spoilers) Lo'gaan goes along with General Orsamus's descent into control-freak megalomania because she's distraught over being just an AI in a video game instead of a real special snowflake princess. But the protagonists - including Noggerath, who's not a bad guy and was only invading Avonell in a misguided attempt to save his own kingdom - help her understand that her true merit comes from her strength of character and honorable deeds, not a fake title of royalty and a fictional backstory. Noggerath saves her life after she helps them escape from Orsamus's forces, and offers her sanctuary at his home kingdom of Caed Dhraos. The two work together to protect Caed Dhraos from Orsamus, who has gone on a self-righteous power trip, and eventually end up a couple in a twist of irony. 

All of this was something I vaguely hinted at in the first edition, but in reading it again I felt like their character arcs just weren't coming through clearly enough and weren't emotionally satisfying, just hints of character development that seemed to be lurking under the surface but never properly manifested. I think my revisions soundly fixed that issue, however, as well as a lot of others.

The revised edition is not up for sale yet, but it should be soon. I'm very grateful for all the nice reviews the book has gotten, and I hope that this new edition will live up to those compliments even more than the previous one.

The tired myth of the "Mary Sue"

Today, I'd like to discuss a notion that's been on my mind for a while now: the concept of the "Mary Sue" and why writers need to just let it go. I'd been trying to wait for a good opportunity to appropriately soapbox, but then I figured, there's no better place to soapbox than one's own blog. And yes, I look at the visitor statistics, so I know people are seeing this. Time for another essayrant (new portmanteau I just invented).

As someone who regrettably grew up doing a lot of writing networking over the Internet (I feel like no one should ever spend their youth doing any sort of networking over the Internet), I was quickly exposed to the world of fanfiction, and the world of people who read and discuss fanfiction. Both are equally terrifying in their own ways.

Fanfiction is exactly what it claims to be: original fiction pieces written by fans of a fictional work, purely for fun (or sometimes more for social clout in the fan community). There is no quality control much like independent publishing. I have read some very, very good fanfiction by talented writers that could easily be turned into licensed novels. I have also read some fanfiction that would only make the publishing cut with a lot of editing and much more skill development on the part of the writer.

But you know what? In fanfiction, an amateur labor of love for something you're emotionally invested in, writing skill doesn't actually matter all that much, in my opinion. What I really think is a bigger problem is when other fans read said fanfiction and proceed to critically tear it apart unsolicited--or worse, publicly denounce it and make fun of it. And nowhere have I seen more of this than attacks on what are perceived as "Mary Sues"--or, to put the issue in its real light, character shaming.

Big news! I'm visiting the Idaho Falls Public Library on January 13 and I'd love to see you there! I will be discussing some of the themes in my science fiction disabilities novel On Borrowed Wings, as well as introducing my other books. Come ask me questions, get books signed, and exchange Pokémon GO friend codes with me!

I'm hoping to have paperbacks on sale at the event, but no guarantees, so if you want a book signed, I advise buying it from Amazon ahead of time.

I'm very excited to share my work with the Idaho Falls community and I'm very grateful to the library for letting me put on this event. I hope everyone has a great time!

The Holly and the Ivy, Chapter 1

Time for a little holiday cheer!

I really enjoyed writing the Caxton Bank chapters of Worth Searching For, and it made me want to do more with the characters. I thought it would be fun to write a Christmas Giving Day story that draws less from the Victorian Christmas traditions that much of modern celebration is based on, and more from medieval British customs and folklore, as befitting the Meridell region. "The Holly and the Ivy" (the carol) is based on very old English Christmas traditions, so it seemed suitable as the inspiration for this tale.

I also wanted to follow up on what was established about Caxton Bank in Worth Searching For, and show that although the Werelupes started off on the wrong foot with their vassals, their relationship has grown and improved, and it's making everyone's lives better.

I admit I was pleasantly surprised by how little I actually had to edit this one to bring it up to speed with my newer writing. Aside from just a handful of minor prose fixes, I also slightly altered a few details to fall in line with what I later established as canon.

Have a happy and blessed holiday season, everybody!

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

“Don’t go outside in winter,” Nan’s mother always told her. “There’s a reason most Techos are born on Mystery Island instead of the woods of Meridell.”

“But Mum!” Nan would say, tracing pictures on their fogged-up windows with her blue reptilian fingers. “All the other children get to play in the snow!”

Her yellow Uni mother would then pause from her mending and stoke the fire. “That’s because they’re warm-blooded, love. If you get too cold you’ll fall into torpor, and you won’t wake up ‘til Running.”

“Running?! But I’ll sleep right through Giving Day!” That was all the incentive Nan needed to stay in their cottage until the snows stopped. And that was how winter went in the little hamlet of Caxton Bank, nestled in the foothills of the Werelupe Woods.

Most years, anyway.

The Spirit of Black Keep, Chapter 1

Rather typically, it seems, for my story construction process, this tale came together from several originally separate ideas that I realized would work really well in a plotline together. 

Pharazon had gone through some very interesting character development during Worth Searching For, which also introduced the idea of him starting to use magic. The fact that his unlocking his magical potential came about during a traumatic experience begged for some follow-up. What to do when you're a budding wizard whose first experience with magic went horribly wrong? Get sent on a quest of self-discovery, of course!

I'd also been writing quite a bit about Terra, Hyren, Blynn, and Isengrim, so I wanted to challenge myself to write a story where they don't appear at all in-person, so I could focus on giving Pharazon some overdue development. I admit I was feeling a bit bad about basically giving him the short end of the stick in Worth Searching For as an utter liability of a protagonist (turned accidental antagonist), so I wanted to write about him overcoming some of his weaknesses, not repeating past mistakes, and becoming the hero of his tale. It was also nice to give Celice a bit more development, as well as being able to write her and Pharazon actually palling around, since in her debut story they got off to a quite rocky start, while they were separated for most of Worth Searching For.

I had also been wanting to try my hand at writing Jhudora; I like the idea of her not being an evil faerie, just a rather grouchy and solitary one. I thought that sort of personality would play nicely against Pharazon, as well as giving him a sketchy mentor figure to offer him vague and frustrating - but ultimately helpful - advice. And no spoilers about the other member of the main cast, but his appearance and character arc came from some musings I had about the Battle for Meridell plot, the abilities of The Three, and what exactly happened to Lord Darigan between Champions of Meridell and Battle for Meridell. I felt like these characters and what I wanted to do with them worked really well in this particular adventure.

I should mention that this fic was nominated for Most Heartwarming in the 2016 Neopian Times Awards. I'm very pleased that people enjoyed it!

As far as revisions go, there wasn't a whole lot I drastically changed about this one from what got into the Neopian Times. Besides the usual prose fixes, I toned down Celice's personality a little in the beginning chapters to make her less snide (she's still plenty bossy, though), and I also slightly altered a few conversations and inner monologues to better bring home the points I was trying to get across.

 Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11

The reason he’d gotten himself into this, Pharazon decided, was because he could never say “no” to anything.

The faerie Draik perched on the edge of the bed in his cabin in a Shenkuuvian sky-ship, staring at the letter in his claws, not really seeing the words so much as coming to the realisation that he was hopelessly wishy-washy.

He’d go along with anyone just to avoid a quarrel—and even then he’d peter out somewhere along the way, retreating to the safety of merely existing. Really, he just wanted to sit and read all day. No adventures for him. The world was so much safer from the library of his family’s Neohome.

Six Things Indie Authors Should Actually (Probably) Never Do

This post is going to be a bit rantier than usual, but as I've reflected on my best and my most stressful times as an independent author, I've realized that there were some key activities that stressed me out tremendously--but that I was told were absolutely necessary to "make it big" in what is, let's face it, a completely insane and unpredictable market where success is never guaranteed.

So I've composed this list as an attempt to help my fellow indie authors who may be feeling as stressed and confused as I once was. If anything on this list sticks out to you as something that's causing you a lot of grief, you may want to seriously reexamine how much good it's actually doing you. 

And if you skim this list and just think "What a load of rubbish! All of these things work great for me!", read number six and all will be made clear. (Hence the "probably" part of the post title.)

 

I went ahead and used Canva to make a version of the cover of Earthkeepers with some cleaner text design! This version will go live for both ebook and print versions very soon.

This coincides with some minor revisions I made on Earthkeepers that also should go live soon. It's nothing majorly plot-changing--mostly it's just a bit of fixing the prose and a few added conversations to clarify some things. 

It's kinda funny how you can publish a novel and think it's pretty much perfect, and then you come back to it two years later and think "wow this is a mess". #authorproblems

Farewell to Lynwood

Suhel originated as a supporting character in Worth Searching For, and I had no plans for her beyond needing someone to be Isengrim's second-in-command and to fulfill her role in the plot. However, as I continued to write about the cast, I couldn't stop wondering about Suhel's past. In my headcanon, Werelupes usually happen as a result of normal Lupes going "feral", and I wanted to explore another case of that and give Suhel a bit of a different past than Isengrim, but one that still explains her attitude toward the outside world, and why she so highly values being a member of Isengrim's pack.

What I didn't anticipate was that this story would lead to further developments later down the road, but I'll have more to say about that when the time comes.

When revising this story for posting on the blog, I took the opportunity to greatly expand upon just what it was about Lynwood that made Suhel hate it so much, and her evolving relationship with Lexora. Working under the constraints of 4,000 words for a Neopian Times short story, I couldn't go into many details then.

For the record, Suhel has a Glaswegian accent, because I can get oddly specific about my characters.

From the moment Suhel Caradoc laid eyes on the Lynwood School for Girls, she knew she did not belong there.

The little Christmas-coloured Lupe poked out her snout from the window of her carriage, eyeing the grounds with distaste. The low-cut lawns stood behind signs saying “KEEP OFF THE GRASS”. The stately trees had been expertly trimmed to remove all low-hanging branches that might facilitate climbing. The school building itself was the most boring grey monolith Suhel had ever seen, as if not a single Neopoint of the construction budget had gone into trying to make it interesting or beautiful. At least Suhel’s parents’ house contained the expensive things they had bought to show off, but Lynwood seemed to scream dullness—or rather, to whisper it politely.

Suhel’s dark green ears drooped. Barring holidays, this was to be her home for the next seven years of her education, and she felt a pit of dread well up in her stomach.

Create Your Own Adventure

This is definitely one of the less serious entries in my Neopets fanfic corpus, but I'm including it here because it just plain amuses me. I also think it's a good bit of character development for Hyren, lest anyone think he went soft after defecting from Virtupets to save two socially awkward children. :) (There is also a teeny, tiny bit of lore in here that comes into play in a future fic, but my main reason for including this one is that I just think it's funny.)

As for how it came about, well, one day I was feeling nostalgic and was looking at stuff about Neoadventures, a whole sub-segment of the Neopets website dedicated to allowing users to create their own choose-your-own stories. That got me thinking about how they might actually work in-universe. And then for some reason, my next thought was "what would happen if Hyren decided to write one". Maybe because he's chock-full of old war stories.

Hyren may allegedly play the straight man to the rest of his kooky family, but he is quite weird in his own special way. :)

Edits made to this fic from the version that got into the Neopian Times are just a few minor technical fixes. I think I'm getting better at this crazy writing thing!

I always suspected that my Grundo had a sadistic streak. Years of serving as a commander in Dr. Sloth’s galactic marine corps will probably do that to you. But my hunch was confirmed the day Hyren brought home an Adventure Generator.

I was sprawled on one of the library couches in our Neohome, reading, when the little blue guy walked in and spread a scroll of parchment across the table. He looked it up and down and nodded satisfactorily, and uncorked a bottle of ink.

Hyren prefers to let his swords do the talking, so his sudden interest in writing piqued my interest. “What are you doing?” I asked from behind my copy of Destruct-O-Match Basics—that fiendish avatar keeps eluding me.

“Making a Neoadventure,” he said, dipping his pen.

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s new.”

Wildsong

Yes, but do you have a Gnarfas backstory? :)

If you'll remember, Gnarfas makes an appearance in Worth Fighting For, and it got me to wondering just how he ended up with the Werelupes, anyhow (Neopian canon says nothing about it). I decided to combine these ponderings with my weighing in on whether or not Balthazar is a Werelupe. While there's nothing in canon that says he is, multiple Neopian Times authors have written him as a Werelupe, and I decided to go with a little bit of both for an answer. :)

This is the story where I firmly establish the idea that Lupes can turn into Werelupes by doing something called "letting in the wild", which basically makes them into a more bestial version of their species. In my headcanon, this was the original method by which Lupes became Werelupes, and once the Werelupe condition was discovered, it became the object of curses and the like. Thus, while many Werelupes are "natural" Werelupes who just went feral, it is also possible for a Lupe to become a Werelupe by magical means. 

It's established in later stories of mine that Kyrii can also let in the wild and become Werekyrii (i.e. Halloween Kyrii), and that other species, while unable to become full Were-pets, also have the ability to turn feral to a certain extent, explaining Lord Darigan's transformation into the Bat-Thing during the Battle for Meridell plot, as well as the condition of a certain Eyrie in one of my future stories.

Because my inspiration likes to surprise me like this, it turned out that in my headcanon, Gnarfas and Balthazar both have ties to the wild. I also mentioned in Worth Fighting For that Balthazar paid tribute to Isengrim during Isengrim's pack's time in the Haunted Woods, and I really wanted to write a story about them palling around in the Woods, and about the nature of their friendship. (Being a former villain himself, Isengrim has a lot of ties with other canon villains that I find fun to explore.)

Another big element introduced in this story was Isengrim's current, "correct" personality. As I have mentioned several times in previous blog posts about my Neopets writing, in the original version of Worth Searching For, I established a personality and character development for him that, after writing a few more stories with that personality, I realized just wasn't what I wanted for his character. It made him a rather unlikeable person in Worth Searching For, and also someone that I found I didn't enjoy writing.

So I decided his personality needed a major rehaul, and introduced my new take on the Werelupe King in this story, which worked well because I got to portray him among friends and as the protagonist the whole way through. This Isengrim is friendly, compassionate, generous, and deeply concerned with protecting and taking care of his friends and anyone he feels is in need of help. He is much more capable of being a caring, committed, reciprocal friend and family member to his owner and adoptive siblings. And I think he is a much more likable character--I certainly ended up enjoying writing him a whole lot more, and he ended up becoming an integral part of my core Neopets cast. So I'm really glad I decided to make the personality change, even if it necessitated drastically altering a few previous fics.

This story received a nomination for Best Descriptions in the 2016 fan-voted Neopian Times Awards, which I'm really grateful for. I still think it holds up extremely well six years later, and I only made a few minor edits - technical fixes and a few tweaks here and there to line up better with later headcanon - from the version that originally got into the Neopian Times.

Night in the Haunted Woods falls with swiftness upon its victims.

It is not as many stories say—the forest is not rife with yowling spooks and ghoulish spectres at every turn. It is not a scaled-up version of a Neopia Central home’s Halloween decorations, which brashly proclaim frightfulness in the most colourful of fashions.

The terror of the Haunted Woods is quieter, more cunning than that. It lies in wait, never fully asleep, a brooding heaviness of barely-heard echoes and strange feelings in the air that taunt the mind until the Woods decides to reveal its darkest secrets. Something is out there – perhaps many somethings – that makes even the bravest and hardiest Neopet return from the Woods forever shaken.

Unless they are a Werelupe—and then at one time it was home.

Unbreakable Bonds

After spending some time exploring Hyren's past, my thoughts turned to Blynn. I wanted to write something in her point of view for a change and see what was really going on in that kooky little head of hers. Turns out Blynn is a surprisingly deep person, and this story explains the nature of her relationship with her owner, and that of Neopets and owners in general (see: Isengrim's backstory). 

I also had a lot of fun coming up with my own unique interpretation of how creating a Neopet might work. On the website, Neopet creation is extremely nondescript, consisting of just checking boxes and filling out information. Other Neopian Times authors have put their own creative spin on the process over the years, and I wanted to do something kind of cosmic that really hammers home the powerful bond between a created Neopet and its creator.

Terra is inspired by my own experiences as a painfully shy and anxious teenager who had a hard time making friends. For people like that, it's especially important to have friends who unconditionally love you and take you as you are. Blynn is a goofball not just because it's her nature, but because as Terra's original bestie, Blynn has made it her life's mission to make Terra laugh. On Terra's end of things, she learns an important lesson here that friendships aren't supposed to be one-sided, and a true friend won't place all of the responsibility for the relationship on your shoulders.

The revisions I made to this story before putting it up here are mostly minor prose fixes. I did expand Terra's and Blynn's conversation at the park to better explain aspects of Terra's personality and her social struggles. I would have liked to have done this originally, but the story was pushing the 4,000-word limit for Neopian Times short stories, so rather than have to break it up into a two-parter, I opted to try to make it more concise. (Now that I'm no longer working with a word count limit, I can expand things as I see fit!)

Dedicated to all members of the Neopets Team, past and present, whose hard work and creative genius have made Neopia a safe haven and source of joy for so many. Thank you.

Even back in Year 4, Neopia Central was a busy place.

Bustling crowds of shoppers hurried from one store to the next, or stopped to eat, or unfolded that week’s copy of the Neopian Times to read the conclusion to their favourite series. All of them had a Neopet or several by their side, crowded around their owners with enthusiasm, admiration, and sometimes a good-natured snarky comment.

Amid the throng, a young human girl strode with purpose. She was a simple pale-skinned teen, with her long copper hair tied back and her blue eyes hidden shyly behind glasses. Certainly, she did not stand out among her fellow owners.

But one thing made her different.

She was alone.

Never Again, Spiced Apple Pie, Chapter 1

I have this incurable problem where I come up with minor, incidental characters for stories, and then start wanting to know more about them. Virtupets officer Dothan Reebitz from Worth Fighting For was supposed to be little more than a connection between Hyren and Virtupets at a critical juncture in Hyren's character arc, and a personified reminder to Hyren of everything he grew to find distasteful about his position after his adventure with Terra and Blynn. Dothan also ended up helping save the day during the climax because I wanted to give him a little bit of follow-up. But it left me wondering how he was so familiar with Hyren and why Hyren didn't really seem reciprocal.

In addition - for those who have never played Neopets - the site's programming has an intentional quirk where you cannot feed a Neopet a food item that contains the same number of characters in its name as the pet does (much to the frustration of people going for the Gourmet Club high score). For the real (virtual?) Hyren, one of those items is Spiced Apple Pie, a space food from the Virtupets Space Station. I found this a little ironic, and I figured there was probably some sort of hilarious in-universe story behind why Hyren, a veteran space marine, refuses to touch spiced apple pie.

And you know those times when two initially separate concepts click together in your head and you realize they'd be awesome woven together into a plotline?

I enjoyed writing more about Hyren's time at Virtupets and as a mutant, and coming up with ways to effectively challenge a guy who's eight feet tall, a thousand pounds of muscle, commands his own entire branch of the military, and can beat anyone in a swordfight. Turns out Hyren is very susceptible to both food poisoning and emotional turmoil. :) This story also serves as a good lead-up to Worth Fighting For and explains why Hyren reacted the way he did in that story.

It's a testament to Hyren's toughness that he's able to do what he does in this story while also suffering from severe nausea. I experienced some chronic stomach issues for a few years before writing this story, so I guess part of what inspired it was knowing how it feels to have to function while constantly feeling sick to your stomach, and wanting to portray someone who has the willpower to do what needs to be done despite his own body fighting him.

As far as edits go, I didn't actually have to change much here. I think it was a pretty solid story to begin with, and it just needed a few minor technical fix-ups.

I should also mention that this story actually won a Neopian Times Award in 2016 for Favorite Protagonist (Hyren). The NTAs were (maybe they're still going?) annual awards given by members of the Neopets fan community for outstanding Neopian Times publications. I still feel deeply honored and grateful for that award. It was really satisfying to know that the stuff I was submitting to the Times was being enjoyed by others.

Fair warning, this story does contain a few mentions of throwing up, but I tried really really hard to keep it as non-graphic as possible.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Grundo’s Café was as busy as ever. The canteen on the recreation deck of the Virtupets Space Station held a myriad of Neopets unwrapping their rehydrated chicken dumplings and carefully nibbling their electric nachos. Wall-mounted screens showed the latest in news and entertainment from around the galaxy, including an interview with some Alien Aisha musicians and the latest strike on Sloth’s forces on some far-flung world.

“Order up!” Gargarox, the chef-proprietor, hollered. A light blinked on the overhang above the kitchen, and the mutant Grundo slid a tray of food to a waiting Stopngo 400. The squat robot Petpet extended its mechanical arms to receive the tray, stomping off with it to one of the tables in the expansive diner. Gargarox turned back to the food synthesisers and picked up another dish, lumbering over to the long counter surrounding the kitchen to serve a patron sitting there.

It was at this counter that Hyren the blue Grundo and his owner Terra were perched, enjoying lunch.

“I can never finish these milkyway shakes,” Terra said, swinging her legs as they dangled from her stool. The copper-haired human woman set down a cup still half-full of a glittering dark beverage. “They’re so good… but so filling. Somehow.” She slid the shake over to the Grundo. “Want the rest?”

Hyren looked up from his beef rouladen and smiled. “Sure.”

It had been a good stay on the Space Station with his family. Relaxing, with the occasional chaotic hijinks, and a healthy dose of snark mixed in. It was what made his family the best in the universe.

Author Thoughts: Marketing (or lack thereof)

As I'm between projects right now, I thought maybe I would take some time to discuss authorly topics that have been on my mind lately, in the hopes that what I have to say might help my fellow authors and aspiring authors. I'm sure my opinions won't be for everyone, but maybe they'll mean something to someone who really needs it. I've had some unusual experiences as a professional author, and maybe there are a few other folks like me out there who need to feel validated.

Today I want to talk about marketing, and why I don't do it. I used to try. Check the "opinions" tag for my series of blog posts about why it didn't work well for me. My miserable experiences with marketing also helped launch me on the path to discovering that not only was marketing not one of my strong suits, but I also just plain do not want to market my work. Some of what I have to say here may be repetitive of some of what I've said in those previous posts, but I feel that it's well worth reiterating.

(Please note that if you are an author who is finding fulfillment in marketing, this post is not meant to criticize how you run your career. This post is for those of us who do not have your skillset, find marketing a horrible experience, and wonder if there's any alternative for the modern independent author. So if you're sitting there reading this like "but marketing has done wonders for my books!" then probably this post isn't for you.)

(This post is also expressly not for people who concern themselves with making a living off of their books. I'm grateful to be in a position where I do not need to write for a living, so I don't have to pay attention to how much money my books are making. This post is for people who have the means to write for the sake of writing, but I'll talk a little bit more about that later.)

I'm very pleased to announce that my revision of The Voyage of the Kaus Media is done! I actually ended up whacking off about 10,000 words, so I wanted to talk a little bit about what's changed this time around.

Most of my edits are strictly prose-related. The book came out in 2019, and it turns out I've actually improved as an author since then (go figure). I'm not trying to be OCD about revising my work, but when I re-read something and just start cringing, I know I need to take action. I want my books to be the absolute best they can be, and I would feel ashamed of offering something for sale that wasn't the highest quality I can manage.

One of the big things I did with this revision is to take out a lot of Angela's inner monologue. When I was revising the manuscript the first time around, I tried to be extra conscientious of making sure the reader constantly knew what Angela was thinking and feeling about everything. Turns out, not only is that not actually strictly necessary, but in reading the novel again, I felt that all of this discussing her thoughts and feelings was really bogging down the pacing for me. Plus, there were numerous times when it just became repetitive to the point of redundancy--do we really need to be reminded in every chapter that Angela misses her family, is grateful for her friends, etc.?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I got rid of all the inner monologue. But there is definitely such a thing as too much of it. Angela is a complex character who undergoes a great deal of personal growth over the course of the plot, so there are definitely times when I needed to discuss what was going on in her head. But the rest of the time, I can let her dialogue and her actions do the talking for her, and trust that the reader can fill in the blanks. Plus, I think it helps that I made sure to really establish at the beginning of the book what kind of person she is and what her background is, so that her actions and reactions are not as enigmatic to the reader.

Another thing I did was carefully reexamine my use of dialogue tags, and remove them when necessary. It's my rule of thumb that if a paragraph starts talking about one character, and doesn't mention any other characters, I generally don't need a dialogue tag in that paragraph; it's understood that everything in the paragraph is pertaining to that character. So that probably got rid of about 7,000 words right there.

For the most part, the story is exactly the same; I did slightly alter some tidbits here and there, but it was mostly for increased plot clarity. The plot did get one major alteration (mild spoilers ahead): during the battle at Viper's Pass, in the previous version, Captain Saixaphas asked Angela to stay on the command bridge because her powers might be useful in the battle. In this new version, Saixaphas wants her to go back to her cabin, but Angela insists on staying in case she's needed. I really wanted to hammer home just how much she changed after her experiences in Elrath, how it became the turning point for her being more proactive and really believing she could make a difference.

I've handed the manuscript over to my editor, and hopefully very soon it'll be up on Amazon. I'm looking forward to bringing VotKM up to speed with my more recent work!

Also, now's about a good a time as any to mention that updates may be a little scarce for a while. I have a lot going on, and I'm just plain tuckered out from Blue Diver, so I think I need a vacation. I'm still hoping to get started on my next novel sometime this year, but for now I need some R&R. Catch you later!

NEXT-DAY EDIT: Okay, I added one more substantial change to the plot that I think a) really makes a lot of sense and b) gives the Ulo part of the plot some nice closure. I won't give away any spoilers, but if you're a fan of Ohmi, now she gets her due. :)