Shout Out - Diabolic Shrimp

If you're constantly on the look for books to read, I'd recommend checking out Diabolic Shrimp. Joshua Grant, the creator, is constantly collaborating with authors to release books to the public. The purchase of his novels sends revenue to great causes, and once a month he'll give away another author's book for free. Check out the author pages at the bottom of his Avid4 tab!

Author Interview

The lovely Arvenig has conducted an interview featuring me! Here is a link to the site. This interview also involves a book giveaway, so follow the steps at the end of the interview for a chance to win a copy of The Battle for Liberty!

Liberty Giveaway

If you haven't had a chance to purchase The Battle for Liberty yet, you can enter for a chance to win a free copy! All you need to do is follow this link to my book's Goodreads page, scroll down to the section labeled "Win a Copy of this Book," then click "Enter Giveaway". It's free to join!

Distribution

The Battle for Liberty is now available on Barnesandnoble.com, Amazon.com, and Lulu.com! Although I will be eternally grateful no matter where you buy my book (or ebook), Lulu.com does give me the greatest profit. The other two keep most of my earnings.

And when you do read and enjoy my book (here's to hoping), please review it! All three sites have review capabilities, and you can also review Liberty on Goodreads.

Liberty Publication

MY BOOK IS READY FOR THE WORLD! Right now it's only available on Lulu.com; distribution is slow in catching up. Let me tell you why that's a good thing. 1. You don't need to make an account in order to buy my book. 2. Buying my book through Lulu means that I get a much bigger profit (Amazon takes almost all my earnings) without you having to spend any more money. Both the ebook and the paperback are available through their site. The ebook is $6.99. The book is $25, and I'm sorry for that. There's a minimum sale fee by which I must abide. But if you get the paperback, you also get my wonderful drawings! Unfortunately, the ebook format doesn't work well with photos. Anyway, thank you for making it through this excessive post, and happy reading!

The Battle for Liberty Finalization

Almost six months later, and we are just about there! The Battle for Liberty has her ISBN. She has been sent out for copyright approval. The first printed version of her 470 pages has been requested for approval. And the ebook has been formatted and uploaded, pending approval from distribution sites. Start getting excited! Here is a teaser of the book: the fully completed cover, front to back. Enjoy!

Colorized Photos

Hello everyone! It's been a while, I know, but that's because I've been working very hard on my book. I really want it to be ready by the end of the year. That's the issue with having no deadline; it takes forever to publish.

I wanted to share with you a few colorized versions of my drawings. I've been trying to solidify the settings used in my novel, creating their own separate identities and giving you the best possible product. I am a visual person, so in order to complete this in full I colorized my photos. Some of them looked awful, I'll admit, but the color helped anyway. Some of them, however, turned out rather brilliant. Here are my five favorites. Enjoy!

Kāinga

 Moana Pāpura

 Pūtoto

 Rore 1

Rore 2

Final Map for Liberty

Hello Everyone! I have finalized my map for The Battle for Liberty. Now, I'll be honest. This has been a thorn in my side. I love maps, especially those of fantasy worlds, and I wanted to make my own. The biggest issue is keeping it from looking kitschy yet having it match the rest of my illustrations. I believe I have finally come to that conclusion. Without further ado, I present to you the map of Whenua.

Interim Brainstorming

I've completed my 4th draft of The Battle for Liberty! While my wonderful editors are reviewing it for me, I started working on another book. Some of my best brainstorming is done through drawing. Here's my most recent batch of sketches for your enjoyment.

My Writing Process

I'm sure you've come to this conclusion already, but authors all have differing writing processes. Some work with pen and paper. Others, like myself, write on their laptops. When it comes to editing, the possibilities are endless. I find my process is more...colorful than most. Every time I edit my books I utilize a different color. This assists my wonderful editors, because they can tell what they've already read and what I've added since their last revision. Since my editors largely consist of my mother, you can see how this (probably unprofessional) method helps. As you can see from the picture below, we've been busy. In addition to the original black text, I've also added in green, red, and purple. That is also the order of progression. We are over 110,000 words and have reached 436 pages, people! Any month now and I'll be releasing my new baby. As always, I will keep you posted on my progress.

Puget Sound Lighthouses

My husband and I rode our Kawasaki Concours around the Puget Sound before the Super Bowl (Yay Broncos!) and stopped to take some pictures at a few lighthouses: Point Robinson, Alki Point, and West Point. Unfortunately the one at Alki was temporarily inaccessible, but a blue sky beautiful day made for some pretty pictures of the other two.

We also stopped by the Jimi Hendrix Memorial in Renton and Stadium High School in Tacoma, which you may recognize as the high school from Ten Thing I Hate About You.

West Point Lighthouse

Point Robinson Lighthouse

Ferry to Vashon Island

Stadium High School

Jimi Hendrix Memorial

First Author Interview

Good news! I just completed my first author interview ever. It was conducted by the lovely Mercedes Fox for her author blog. To read the full post, please follow this link.

New Drawing

Hello, followers! I bring you updates in regards to The Battle for Liberty. My editing has spilled over the boundaries of my chapters, so I've had to create new ones. This means, friends, that I have new drawings to create. Here's the latest one. This is Mōhū. She is a tarn-wyvern, which is Liberty speak for water dragon. Here's a brief description of her from my book.

He had a lady wife, a beautiful white gold tarn-wyvern, the First Lady Mōhū. Amethyst jewels sparkled in her eyes and emeralds frosted her scales while a cerulean gemstone, dazzling upon her forehead, held in place a single sea feather plume. Together the cool tinges twisted into a single supple antler whose tines swept down her back as a headdress. Her translucent fins were so large and so light that they fell around her body in the way of royal robes, reaching to the tip of her tail. Even so, she was slim enow to slip through crags merely two feet wide; unheard of among the tarn-wyverns. Yet for all that, she was vain as she was lovely.

What do you think of her?

Hawai'i

My husband and I recently took a trip to Hawaii with some friends. We went to the islands of Oahu and Kauai, and these are my favorite photos from that trip. Enjoy!