Take the Fifth Year

Now that Hell(Home) has frozen over in the worst national snowstorm I've seen in years and my anniversary has come around, I guess it's time to overcome some of the crushing anxiety, depression and awkwardness of having gone quiet for so long to celebrate that... I still exist.

If only for myself and only for posterity, after five years, I still hold my name and work close to heart. I don't really know if anyone else is still out there, heck I can't even see across the street most of the time with the blizzards, but for what it's worth - I am here. I haven't abandoned what I started and what I've built up, though I've often asked myself what I should really do with anything at this point. 

It might be stupid, it might not be right, most of what I do might not be what "should" be done, but you know what? That sort of mentality is what's made getting up such a struggle. Get up? Why are you down? You shouldn't be down, you should always be up, always infallible. You're not? Well you just don't measure up and should stay there if you can't do it.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the superficial expectations born of flippant remarks and fear of people who most likely don't exist. Even now I'm just second-guessing everything to the sound of snide comebacks that probably no one but me will think. Except they probably will, but will never voice it. No one will say anything either way so it's fine to just do what I want anyway, right?

It may be stupid, but whether or not anyone still cares, I'm still here. Suffice to say, the past year got worse before it showed any sign of getting better and I don't want to think about it, so let's forget it happened, yeah? Practically that should have been the entirety of this post but I guess I had venting to do. 

In lieu of Starcraft SCV puns in the title, this video sums things up pretty well.

For anyone still holding out hope, modestly, in earnest or otherwise, there are some stars in my sky. There have been people that defy all expectations and fears, people that keep me together. The video really gets me since at the end of all the depression and loneliness, there really is still a surprise "BOOM, BABY!" Marauder Marine ready to turn things around.

I don't want to talk about them here and now or make it look like I'm just saying the same crap again but there are hopes and plans for the future.

Four Score of Years in the Rear

That's right, it's that time again. The time where I misuse words for titles in a recurring theme relating to but one thing!

Anniversary post!

Yes, as of March 1st, 2017 it has now been four years since I opened up to the world and tried my hand. Four interesting years that have seen highs and lows, new systems rise, spontaneously burst into flames then crash and die. This past year alone saw one of our storefronts go offline entirely, slashing and running with 90% of every author's contractually due royalty payments in broad daylight, because that's a-okay.

Things like this are why Amazon has the monopoly when the alternatives are shady trash like AllRomance eBooks or low effort cashgrab portals trying to mimic a system without considering the actual figures. Sometimes it can't be helped.

So suffice to say it's been an interesting time. It's been a turbulent time for me that I don't really care to talk much about. I ran a post at the end of 2016 to cut and remove most of the year, so I'm not going to drag that in again. Instead, I'm going to try and keep it succinct, in sections!

--- The Past
As mentioned, the past sucks and I'm glad it's in the past where it can stay. Deaths in close family and the financial issues that creates are not something to wish on anyone, but they happen. They're bound to. Having large sums of money and purchased content stolen by a supposedly legitimate storefront isn't something to wish on anyone either and not something that should happen, but does.

The past sucked, let's forget about that.

--- The Present
To reiterate on the past sucking a bit, the recent past has been a bit of a shamble. In short; February was a mistake.

Presently, I have two or three things due to be published soon. At least one to two should have been

published in February, but in the spirit of bad calculations, my expectations have not panned out and instead piled up like a bad train wreck, but that's how we roll. Maybe one day things will be different and I'll have that train drifting along on multiple tracks, but that day is not today. Getting too caught up in those failures and troubles is a surefire way to bury myself in depression again.

Quick note: Depression is not a useful tool of motivation, nor does it aid in understanding how you're supposed to "just do it".

But it's not all bad! As we are in the present, and not the past, which is a pretty bad place as of late, it means there's a lot to look forward to coming "Soon*". March soon. It'll be a great month.
*Copyright 2004-2017 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.

In addition to my standard publications, I have the pleasure of writing for some private commission work, so things are certainly in a state of improvement. It may not be looking down from the top, might not be better than everyone I or you know, but it's what it is. I'm not dead, and still here, so it could be worse?

--- The Future
So after the immediate future, what do I have in store? In the short-term, I have the affirmation that I'm stubborn to a fault, and will be finishing what I've started. Every story deserves a proper ending, proper closure and to fully fit as its part in my world. For the near-future, that means finishing the Hide, Soulflame and Shoes of Glass series'. After those two contemporary and one historic works are finished, it's full focus back to high fantasy, the Daemonique, Umbral Coil and Dhampyre.

Once things have been sorted out some, I may do some work retouching the blog some more. I think an active log of just what I'm working on and where I'm going next could work out. I may be bad with estimates, but a show of workflow and life like that could work out.

Last year I said there'd be things you might not expect and unfortunately there was never an opportunity to make good on them, so I'm just going to go come out and say this time. Once things have settled down and my backlog isn't as depressing, one thing I'd like to try my hand at is creating an RPG through my world.

It's a big endeavor, certainly, but one I've wanted to apply my love of fiction and writing to for a long time. As I develop my world through stories purely in books, it strikes me more and more as something that just needs to be. I need to have a Meirport and Sarandin Isle that can be walked around in person. I need the Ciras Isles, the Zo'Qeth deserts and frigid Northlands as places on a map that can be visited, with their cultures marked out naturally in the feel of people.

From the start, I've been writing with the intention of creating a big, breathing world with tales that span whole eras of time, and while I may barely know how to start with projecting it into a visual game environment, that's the sort of scope and desire I have to pick this all up and push forward.

That's the sort of passion your support will always give me. For these last four years and from here on, I will always be immensely grateful to my readers and everyone who has supported me. It's for all of you that I want to make things amazing.

Three Years of Gear in the Rear

The time has come once more where I make bad titles out of one of the StarCraft Terran SCV's selection lines. It just works, and StarCraft's global presence is testament to that some things just stand the test of time and continue to work throughout the years. Somehow, I'm one of them.

Yes, it's that time again when I celebrate the day I officially set up and began publishing to the world. It's always a time when I'm reminiscent and thoughtful on the past to the point of being beside myself with more angst than any romance heroine could ever hope to be full of. It's just that time of the mon-year. Year. The turn of the year is often used to reflect on the past and move forward, so that comes doubly and weighs twice for me.

With that in mind, I've been thinking a lot over what to say this year. 2015 was not my best by a long shot, for a number of reasons, it's been a rough stint of ups and downs where the downs make it harder to get back up. This has probably been evident in how quiet I've been, there have been months of no new update and the like. Recently I've been busy with some private commission work that doesn't lend to a publication post, so it hasn't all been bad. Things have been picking up for some months in their own way, but before that, sure, it was rocky.

It's not something I've been happy with, but in the same hand it's not something I'm going to dwell on or let take up much more space than it effectively already has. Done is done, but I'm not out. I'm here. So rather than dwell and harp on that in a blog post for celebrating a milestone of time, I'm going to look more into and celebrate what has kept me going.

With that said, I could barely think of much to say at first and now it's gotten to the sort of length that I'm best off putting the rest behind a pagebreak. So to skip to the closing footnote, I've had a lot to be thankful for over this past year, and a lot to take with me moving forward. I'm going to do what I can and what I know to keep it moving, finish what I've started and start something I don't think anyone would expect.

It'll be an interesting year, and if you're with me for even a few days, thank you for joining me on this journey. Here's to another three years of doubt and passion that wouldn't be traded for anything.

A Second Year Geared in the Rear

Two years...

It's really that time again already. A time to make Starcraft SCV puns of the title and wax lyrical about the history and future of everything that is my world of writing. First and foremost though, it's a time for me to celebrate the way I do, sat at my desk in the low-lit wonder of my evil abode complete with festively decorated floating brain casement.

That's how we roll.

Aw yeah. It's apparently also a time to accidentally scrape my arm with a nail, hm. Well don't say I never bleed for you.

So on a more serious note, I've been thinking about this post all day and, honestly, since January where I decided against doing a new years post. It's that time when everyone reminisces on the year gone by, so I say with the full intent of making it sound rather hipster so I can throw in more fun doodles.

For me, at least from a standpoint of "I should talk about everything that's happened and how awesome people are", the 'new year' really starts on March 1st, but I wouldn't expect you to have heard of the Leona New Year, it's a very obsc-okay, I'll stop.

But yes, this is the day when I took that first full step into publishing. Now here's the part where I argue with the multitude of characters and hats inside my head, since to be fair I did start having a look at writing daily for a purpose in January, and the whole concept was brought to light in December when I was really in a low spot in life.

From there, the pieces all fell into place like the sort of thing people look back on and call fate and destiny because it's more romantic that way and all in all was just a sequence of events that wouldn't have felt the same any other way. Now, would they have happened at all? Most likely yes, but the combination of causes and effects is one reason to not hold so strongly to regrets and the past -- for better or worse, everything that we are shapes everything that we become.

For me, that meant picking up a new way of life that had been a part of my life since childhood... wait, writing, the erotic disposition was something very adolescent and beyond. There's no dark past here, only dark humour. I'm still not very good at talking like this, huh.

So perhaps I could write something in the New Years, but March 1st was the day it really became a real, official name in Author highlights thing, and when I first appeared on the scene. I still have my 2013 calendar laying around with the first few books and sales marked on it. I still remember back then when a new sale would prompt loading the celebratory M. Bison clip.

Two years later and the more things change, the more they stay the same. Most importantly; I'm still here, and still ecstatic over the show of support and success that's come with it. I make a point of this in the Author Note of every book but really none of it would be possible without such a wealth of awesome readers out there who take an interest in what I do. I know not everyone finds success or happiness in their writing, but I really do in thanks to the people it reaches. There's not a day I'm not thankful for every one of you changing the life I have to what it is now. It's for sharing in that love and passion that I'm still here.

Thank you.

So on the coat-tails of being heartwarming, I should talk some about what's happened during this past year and what's happening going forward. It's been an interesting year full of ups and downs, of constant experiments and iterations. One reason for the tangent on time is exactly because of those experiments and diversions, and whether any were great ideas or wholly efficient.

At the end of the day, has it been good? Has it been for the best? Could it have been better? Answers to reflections are very transient things that can't be held down for weight on their own. What's done is done and all you can do in life is take the hits and keep moving forward. That's how I'm still here, and that's how I'm going to keep moving forward. It may not be perfect, it may not keep everyone running alongside, but it's how I've walked this path and where I go with it is on my own shoulders.

The very first cover.

So the important thing to take from any reflective answer is painting a picture of just how I'm going to be moving forward with the lessons learned. To start with, I'll admit I still have a lot of ends to tie up. So before really starting anything new, I'm going to be tying those up. This includes Huntsman, Lusty Maid, Shoes of Glass, Hide, and to some extents my big flagship in Daemonique. When I start something, it will be seen through to the end.

Daemonique is where it all really started and serves as a sort of core for my fantasy world that's constantly expanding and changing. I have flash cards and books going on two years old full of notes and lofty musings about how big it could be, and I've never lost any of that scope and scale for intensity.

The fine details change a lot -- even my recent Huntsman volume was near wholly different from the original concepts I had for that installment -- but the end goals, the backing lore, language and visions remain. Being able to create those is really what makes this special.

Going forward from here is going to be stronger, bigger and better. I'm past the crushing weights of doubts and fears, the dragging and gnawing that I touched on in the previous year's post. I still may not be very good with social media like twitter, but that's a beast of its own nature that clashes ideas of what I imagine people expect to see and what I would post being entirely different and potentially alienating things. I still don't know if I should really care to be drawing those lines in the sand at all.

Everything works itself out at its own pace, though, and the moral of all this is that two years in is still really just the start of this journey for me. Where I take it from here is something for us all to really sit back and see, but if it's anything like what I have in mind, it's going to be great.

Best of all, two years from now, I'll still be here, building, expanding, binding and perfecting it all. Here's to you, who makes it possible, and here's to moving forward with everything learned. Thank you for making a great first two years, and ensuring there can be many more to come.

A Year in the Rear with the Gear - One Year of Publishing Erotic Fiction

First image in my gallery.

A year ago to the day, Leona D. Reish appeared with Daemonique I: The Darkest Desire. Back then it was ‘vol.1’, a mess of formatting and with a different cover piece. Not to imply I know what I'm doing now, but my blog posts back then sure a mess, too.

A day later, Smashwords’ read an ebook week kicked off, so I pushed to release a second book that got in on the 7^th. Seeing that come around again now brings back a lot of memories. I was really very easily disheartened back then when nothing really happened through that first week with its sale event going.

In some senses, I’m just as easily disheartened now, and certainly still learning. I'm aiming to tie up current projects before I really start on anything new, since now I've a better understanding of things, I don't have to be so scattered about it. So we'll see how things go. As much as they change, I think they're going to stay the same.

Sat in a different corner of the room, at a different desk, though, things have really come a long way. It's really been a year, huh...

For sake of index-browsing scroll fingers, the rest of this post is pretty long and getting put behind a pagebreak. First year anniversary though, should probably celebrate or something. 

Christmas at a military base with a disembodied brain.
My kind of fun.