Playing Pokemon Go

Hi all,

Ever since I went to Tenerife, I've really gotten into Pokemon Go.

I didn't download it when it first came out because I knew I would be instantly addicted. I also didn't have the best data plan on my phone, so it wasn't possible to play on my old device.

When I went on holiday, my fiancé downloaded it on his phone for me to try and I absolutely love it! It meant that I didn't get any writing done, but I loved going around and catching various pokemon.

Now I've been playing it for a few months and it's made me move around a lot more. If I ever get the chance to write full time, I think Pokemon Go would be a great way to get me out and about!

If you also play, you can add me below:

My writing won't be effected by playing, I promise. When I was younger I used to write Pokemon FanFiction and a few short stories about my favourite mons. If anything, Pokemon Go is making me more excited to use my phone and makes me feel a lot fresher when it comes to writing.

That's it got this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! If you play, you can add me via my trainer code in this post. See you next week. 

PS; there are plenty of free and discounted books in these bundles:

Dangerous Women: Fantasy and Science Fiction with Women Who Kick Butt! (March)

March Fantasy/Sci-Fi Freebies

Dark Flights of Fantasy

Characters or Plot First?

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about an important part of your book. Do you come up with the characters or the plot first?

Personally, I always have the plot in mind first. Most of the time I know what the characters look like before I name them!

I like to plot the book out and the journey the characters have to take rather than focusing on the characters fist. I like to know where the story is going to before I start worrying about adding characters in the mix.

I know some authors come up with characters first and then plot around them. They come up with their backstories and personalities before knowing what those characters will do.

I don't think there's a wrong option. Some authors feel like characters want their stories told, while others tell the story before the characters get involved.

I've tried to come up with characters first but I can't do it. I need a general idea of the story before I can even dream up what the character will be doing.

For example; with Celestial Plague, I knew the story would be set in a word ravaged by a virus. Where everyone has a magical power of some sort that can help or hinder them in this new world. The four main characters came after this.

If you have a world that you want to write about, start from there. But if there's a character that's been bugging you to write a story about them, you can start there too. There aren't any rules about how you can write your own book. Do what feels best for you and your book.

That's it for this week! I hope you enjoyed reading, see you next Sunday. 

PS; there are plenty of free and discounted books in these bundles:

Dangerous Women: Fantasy and Science Fiction with Women Who Kick Butt! (March)

March Fantasy/Sci-Fi Freebies

Dark Flights of Fantasy

How Do You Name Characters?

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about a crucial part of writing, how to name your characters! Each character needs to have a name that feels right to you. When people read your work, you want them to remember your character and what they went through. So I thought I would discuss a few ways I give my characters first names!

There are several ways to name characters.

Name generators.

I've used name generators for a few of my characters before. I use this method mostly for side characters or antagonists.

Googling names.

With Tahira (Curse of Anubis), I wanted a name that had 'Ra' in it. I googled names that contain those letters and looked down the list until one felt right. This is especially good if you want a character's name to begin with a certain letter, but can't find a name that fits.

Use a celebrity name.

If a name calls out to you that belongs to your favourite celebrities, then go for it! Jenna (Celestial Plague), for example, is named after the actress Jenna Coleman because I absolutely loved her on Doctor Who!

After a place.

So far the only character I've deliberately done this for is Cheyenne (Years). I try not to use this method too much unless the name really suits a character.

A random name you like.

Hazel (Elemental Dragons) and Audra (Mute) are names that I absolutely loved and knew would fit a character one day! This doesn't happen too often but I love when it does.

After a pet!

So far, two of my cats, Rocky and Normie, have been featured in Elemental Dragons. Rocky is a human character while Normie is still a cat. I don't see a problem with naming characters after pets and I think it's adorable!

Surnames.

For surnames, I tend to go with surname generators. I have several ways of coming up with first names but I suck with surnames. I usually go through a list until I find one that I think fits the character. This is usually done after all the main characters have first names.

That's it for this week. I hope this post helps if you're struggling to name characters. See you next week! 

PS; there are plenty of free and discounted books in these bundles:

Dangerous Women: Fantasy and Science Fiction with Women Who Kick Butt! (March)

March Fantasy/Sci-Fi Freebies

Dark Flights of Fantasy

March 2025 Project Announcement

Hi all,

It's time for my first writing project announcement of the year! This time I'm going back to Original Elementals with book number eight, Turf.

I'm aiming to write 50K for this book.

This time, the main character is Tiegan, the first Earth Elemental. As the title suggests, her dragon companion is Turf.

Her mission to help the Eastern Dragon. But this will be difficult as she's living on the streets on her own. The other originals are currently in Aria, hundreds of miles away from her. She has to help this dragon by herself and isn't aware of what the other originals know about Zmei and Draca.

After Lucia, Tiegan is the most skeptical about her mission. Instead of helping the dragon, she will show it how she lives on the streets and how she's better on her own. The Eastern Dragon will be young, and will see Tiegan as its parent.

I'm so happy to write about dragons again! After this book is done, there are only two more left to write in the Original Elementals series. This is my longest series that I've ever written and I can't wait until it's all done.

My plans for the series are still up in the air, whether I'll eventually put them on Patreon or just publish them outright on Amazon.

After I've done the prequel series I was thinking of doing a sequel series. It depends on what other projects I have that call to me at the time!

That's it for this week, see you next Sunday! 

PS; check out all these book bundles to find your new favourite author:

KINDLE UNLIMITED Must Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy for February 2025

FREE Adventures in Sci-Fi & Fantasy - February

Women in Fantasy

FREE Sci-Fi and Fantasy for February 2025

Round Robin Stories Volume Three

Hi all,

This week I’m going to tell you about a fun little anthology I participated in for Strong Women, Strange Worlds. It’s the third volume of Round Robin stories! This one was really fun to participate in as we each had to write a few paragraphs and then wait for another author to write the next part of the story. I worked on ‘The Wrong Sister’ with several other fabulous authors.

There are five stories in this anthology:

Here There Be Chakras

The Vampire Shoe Diaries

The Wrong Sister

Apples Of The Stars

Taking Flight

Every single one is a different story based on Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror genres and they’re all fantastic! I was only able to read The Wrong Sister while we were working on it and I’m so happy to be able to read the four other stories!

If you would like to read this anthology, you’ll need to sign up to my mailing list, which you can do by clicking here. I’ll be sending out the anthology as a thank you to all my subscribers on March 1st, so make sure you’re signed up before then! In the meantime, you’ll get access to five FREE enovellas based on my books!

This was an amazing opportunity thanks to Strong Women, Strange Worlds. I would really recommend checking them out if you’re looking for new books to read.

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoy reading! See you next week.

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles before you go:

KINDLE UNLIMITED Must Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy for February 2025

FREE Sci-Fi and Fantasy for February 2025

My New Writing Schedule

Hi all,

Now that I'm no longer participating in NaNoWriMo, I'm going to change my writing schedule a bit.

I'm still going to write three big projects year, but I'm going to swap one of the months. Instead of April, I'm instead going to write in March.

So the new schedule will be:

March.

July.

November.

That spaces my writing out a bit more throughout the year and also means I don't have a massive break between November and April that seems to last forever.

I'll still write in between, but it mostly likely won't be full books. The one book that I do want to finish in between though is Cloud's Core. I'm not giving myself a final date to get it done by but the end of the year would be nice.

I haven't figured out what projects I'm going to write for each month yet, but I'm sure at least one Original Elementals books will be in there. I really want to finish the series after all!

November will still be the biggest month as quite a few authors still participate in NaNoWriMo. But I've done it for so many years that it's become a habit. I don't want to change that to any earlier or later as it's part of my routine during the year.

July has always been a nice summer month to write in so I'm sticking to it. It's something to look forward to writing before November and is also fairly distanced from March. I used to panic about the July writing as the April project always seemed too close to it. Hopefully writing in March will reduce some of that anxiety.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out this book bundle before it disappears:

New Year, New Monsters 5: From the Seas

My 2025 Writing Goals

Hi all,

Here are my goals for 2025!

Write three books.

Although I haven’t decided what books I’m going to write yet, I still want to write three. At least one will be in the Original Elementals series.

Publish two books.

This year I’m going to publish Curse of Anubis #2: The Blazing Serpent in April and Curse of Anubis #3: The Frozen Eye in October.

Get two covers designed.

Deranged Doctor Design will be designing my next two covers, both in the Curse of Anubis series.

Self-edit two books.

The last two books in the Curse of Anubis series will be self-edited this year and both will be sent to my editor.

Send all my reader magnets to my editor.

I’d like to get all of my reader magnets edited again so I’ll be sending them to my editor to look through. I want to make sure that they are the best they can be for you!

Read 100 books.

I love reading so I’ve set my goal for another 100!

Write the Game of Air and Lightning reader magnet.

Game of Air and Lightning is the next book I want to publish after Curse of Anubis, so I would like to get the reader magnet done this year. It will probably be about the backstory of the two gods, Aerus and Bolt.

Change my writing schedule.

Due to the fact that I’m no longer doing NaNoWriMo, I thought I would change up my writing schedule a bit. At the beginning of the year, the gap between two of the writing months is a lot smaller which I think creates more pressure for me. I’ll write a blog post when I’ve decided what months I’m going to do instead.

Write 12 short stories.

I’d like to write 12 short stories this year, as I’ve been neglecting my shorter works a bit. A few of them might even get submitted to anthologies!

Research different kinds of mythology.

I’d like to look into otehr kinds of mythology, such as Japanese and Celtic. I love writing mythology books and want to expand my knowledge.

Last year my goals were still attainable while having a challenge to them, which I want to keep this year, I don’t want to stretch myself too much. I love writing and want to keep that love as I go through the year.

Do you have any goals for 2025? Let me know in the comments!

PS; don’t forget to check this book bundle before it disappears!

New Year, New Monsters 5: From the Seas

2024 Year in Review

Hi all,

It’s once again time for my year in review! I tried not to be so hard on myself this year as I wanted to be kinder to myself. I also wanted to make my goals more achievable, but also giving me time to do things other than writing. Without further ado…

Write three books.

This year I wrote:

Empty Skies #2: Freezing Constellations

Empty Skies #3: Burning Constellations

Game of Air and Lightning

Not quite the books that I originally planned to write this year, but I was getting a bit burned out by Original Elementals.

Publish two books.

Celestial Plague #4: Hell was published in April and Curse of Anubis #1: The Plague’s Hope was published in October.

Re-name the Curse of Anubis books.

This one I’m pretty proud of! It took me a while to come up with new names for all the books, but I’m so glad that I did. For those who don’t remember, the new names are:

The Plague’s Hope

The Blazing Serpent

The Frozen Eye

The Dead Kingdom

Get two book covers designed.

I actually managed five this year! Two you’ve already seen but you’ll have to wait to see the other three.

Self-edit two books in the Curse of Anubis series.

The first two books have not only been self-edited, but have also been through my editor.

Finish the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection and make it available to my subscribers.

This collection is now available to anyone who signs up to my mailing list!

Read 100 books.

This year I read 190! I almost hit 200, but didn’t want to push myself too much.

Work on my book sales.

I’ve changed a lot of my blurbs, categories and descriptions on Amazon. I’ve also started running more ads to generate more sales. I’m hoping to scale this up in 2025.

Create a Patreon.

I’ve created an account and I’m proud of myself for getting that far! This one has been so hard for me to do and I have such a block when it comes to it. I think I’m just worried that I’ll pour all this work into something that no-one wants. I’ll see if I go any further with this in 2025.

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

Due to the controversy this year, I didn’t participate in NaNoWriMo. Instead I’m now writing using TrackBear, and I will continue to use that going forward.

That’s it for this week! Next week make sure you check back to check out my goals for 2025. See you next Sunday.

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles before they disappear:

Winter Nights Fantasy and Sci-Fi

New Year, New Monsters 5: From the Seas

The Old Elemental Dragons Prequel

Hi all,

Before I started writing the Original Elementals series, I was planning a different prequel. This one would have been a standalone, set around twenty years before Elemental Dragons.

It would feature the parents of the elementals. Mainly focusing on Hazel's and Rocky's mother and father - Silva and Trey.

Silva just tries to keep her head down and get through school, but she's currently with Trey. He's a serial womaniser who dumps women when he has enough of them. His worst nightmare is having children as that would interfere with his dream of doing whatever he wants.

They would have been eighteen, just a few years away from graduating and going into the real world. Across a few weeks, they would have spotted something moving through the school at night. Upon further investigation, it would be a Hydra.

At first the group would try to report the dragon but they wouldn't be believed or listened to. A teacher and their dragon goes missing but no-one bats an eyelid. That's when the group decides to investigate themselves.

After a few disastrous tries, they manage to capture it. Instead of being hailed as heroes, they are instead scolded for capturing it as it would curse them and the school. Each of the group would then be cursed in various ways. A few would have been:

Silva would be destined to lose everything.

Trey would be destined to impregnate every woman he sleeps with.

Tran, Wes' mother, would have everyone always take the credit for her work.

Daynah, Marco and Mason's mother, would always want what everyone else has.

David, Melia and Violet's father, would lose his dragon due to his own laziness.

After cursing them, the Hydra moves on. But none of them believe that their curses will come true. It's only when David refuses to take his dragon, Amelia, to the vet that it all starts to unravel. He couldn't be bothered to take her, so her minor wounds got infected and she died.

Tran reports the group to the headmaster but he takes the credit for discovering what they've done.

Over the years, Trey impregnates four women, one of which is Silva. He has Rocky and Hazel with her. He manages to find a woman who is infertile, but even she manages to get pregnant. He eventually leaves Silva, which makes her curse come true. He takes the money they made from the experiments on their children too.

Ultimately this was discarded when I made the elementals clones rather than the biological children of their parents. I liked the idea, but I wasn't quite sure if I could ever tie it together properly with the main series. Hence why it was scrapped and I came up with Original Elementals instead.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out this book bundle before it expires:

Winter Nights Fantasy and Sci-Fi

November 2024 Project Wrap-Up

Hi all,

The first project that I've done since the last NaNoWriMo is now complete!

The final word count for Game of Air and Lightning is...

76,726 words!

I used TrackBear for the first time with this book, and I couldn't be happier with it. It displays all of my word counts for the day and how much I need to get done to hit my goal. I'm going to use it to track all of my future books.

This project has been sat in my ideas folder for years and I'm so glad that I've finally managed to write it. The characters have finally been brought to life and I'm so glad for it.

The main character, Reema, is dropped onto a new planet with one goal: survive. Her soul has been separated from her in the form of a cat, Smokey. The two of them have to navigate through the planet to the one safe zone, where they meet with others.

The factions of Aerus and Bolt fight against each other to win their god’s favour. But Reema hasn't been brought up with that lifestyle, so she doesn't feel like she fits in with the others.

The story has been written exactly how I planned which makes me so happy! I managed to write everything I wanted to and included a few extras as well. Reema's soul, Smokey, wasn't originally in the plan but I'm so glad that I gave the characters souls. I loved writing about the different animals that people had and how they interacted with each other.

This book is like Hunger Games, so there is a lot of death. I quite liked having so many characters that needed to be killed off in order to propel the story forward. After all, only one faction could survive!

This book probably won't be edited for a while as I have several other projects that I want to edit before that. But when I get to it, I can't wait to get it published! It was an absolute joy to write and a breath of fresh air from the series that I've been working on.

I still haven't decided what I'm going to write next, but I'm not going to worry about that until next year.

That's it for this week! See you next Sunday. 

PS; don’t forget to check out this book bundle before you go!

Winter Nights Fantasy and Sci-Fi