A Post of Many Things

It's been quite a year so far. Many things have happened, both good and bad, that have kept me very busy lately.

First, I started doing some knitting pattern designs, mainly scarves with dragon motifs. Since they've been popular, I've decided to officially add designing knitting patterns to my repertoire! I'm mainly going to be focusing on these instead of hats during the cooler months

Skoll Scarf WIP

On that note, I'm not doing a lot of fox hats anymore. In fact, I'm going to be publishing the pattern come fall. Why am I doing this? Simply, people weren't willing to pay what they were worth, and it really isn't fun doing the same thing over and over and over again. Plus, I have tendonitis in both wrists, and constantly knitting in a circle was causing it to flare up badly.

What else am I up to? I've been working on Resonance on and off. I had some person stuff happen that broke my ability to write for a while. I'm getting back into the swing of things and am planning on having a Kickstarter for Volume 1 of Resonance this summer, likely in July.

I've also been working on illustrations. Here's the one I just finished, I'm putting it up everywhere and on everything, so expect to see it often. Prints will be available at Convergence, and as soon as Zazzle puts up some coupons for the merchandise I want I'll be testing out a few goodies (messenger bags, laptop cases, and so on.)

A Dream of Flame and Fury

Other than that, that's most of what's happening right now. We've got another massive blizzard on the way, so I'm preparing to hole up indoors for the next day and a half. Hurray for another un-ending winter.

Can it be spring yet?

Divergence Kickstarter

And we're back once more!

Happy Autumn, everyone! I think I can officially call it that now that we've seen the first of the geese migrating north. This summer was a bit of a wild ride, some things I should probably recap before we head onto bigger and better things.

First off, a big thanks to everyone who attended the panels I spoke on at Convergence. All of the panels had a great turnout, especially the panel on Worldbuilding (more on that in a bit). It was great seeing lots of old friends and meeting some awesome new people! Also thanks to all the people who bid on my items in the art show, it meant a lot seeing someone purchase art I put many, many long hours into!

I'm planning on submitting a panel to next year's Convergence focusing on the flora and fauna of fantasy worlds, and I've got a few other panels I'm considering suggesting. They aren't due until December, so I'm letting my ideas percolate as I work on other things.

I just got finished putting up a bunch (see 27) hats on Etsy for any and all who have been waiting for me to sell some not at a convention, you can find them here - https://www.etsy.com/shop/EpicHats.

Finally, onto the keynote of this blog.
Another Kickstarter.
Are you all ready? Because this time, we're going to blow it out of the water.

At the end of October I will be starting off a Kickstarter to back a print run of Divergence, the prelude to my large and at this point somewhat mythical novel Resonance. If all goes well with Divergence, Resonance will have its Kickstarter July 2014.

I'll be releasing exact details on it soon, but the funding goals is going to be much lower and will mainly cover the fees and taxes (yes, the government takes their share, don't listen to the people who say you don't have to pay taxes on Kickstarter), cost of backer rewards, and of course the cost of a small print run of the book.

There aren't going to be many backer rewards, as this Kickstarter is mainly focusing on getting a small print run of the book. There will be the ebook, paperback, and a mug and tea reward, plus one more reward I'm keeping secret until launch.

What does this mean for you? I need all the help I can get. Just by forwarding messages about the Kickstarter and helping get the word out you'll be helping me achieve my dream. I'll have flyers and a pre-written email that will help people get out the word, plus there will be a release of small tidbits of the book leading up to the Kickstarter.

I just want to take a moment and thank all of you for helping support me in my efforts to finally publish something. I've been working on Resonance now for five years, and it will mean the world to me to be able to hold this book in it's completed form and know that people will finally be able to read it.

That's all for this time, expect to hear more from me soon!

Back from Hiatus

Hello dear followers!
I'm finally back from my hiatus. I apologize for the recent silence, life has been pretty busy lately and my writing had to sadly sit to the side for a while.

That has changed.
My plan is to have a book published by the end of the year. I will be revealing which book it is soon, but let's just say that things will be very different this time around. I learned a lot of very valuable lessons during the Vicious Sun Kickstarter, not the least of which is that I need to focus on getting my social media up and running. To that end, I will be posting more things more often. If I don't live up to this, you all have free permission to bug me until I post again!

In other news, I will have the honor of speaking on 4 panels at CONvergence Con at the DoubleTree in Bloomington July 4-7th! In order of events -

Creating a Character - Crowd-Source Creation -Friday July 5, 2013 8:30-9:30pm in the
Sofitel Bordeaux room
Before Page One - World Building Your Story - Saturday July 6, 2013 12:30pm - 1:30pm in Atrium 3
How to Write an Interesting Hero - Sunday July 7, 2013 11:00am - 12:00pm in Plaza 2
Canines in Fact, Folklore, Fiction, and Film - Sunday July 7, 2013 3:30pm - 4:30pm in the Sofitel Dijon room

I will also be at the Art Show Meetup Friday July 5, 2013 7:00pm - 8:00pm in
Atrium 3

Hope to see you all there!

Kickstarter Kicks Off Tomorrow!

Well folks, we've come a long ways from where I was last year. I had 55,555 words of garbled story, written in 30 days with a full time job. Now, I have a book, beginning to end. There are many words, I cannot tell you exactly how many will be included in the book, but there will be between 55,555 and 100,000 words.

This story has taken over a year and a half of writing, planning, and drawing, and we're just about there.

Starting Friday, November 30th at midnight through December 31st at 11:59 pm, I will be running a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter to fund the production of my illustrated novel, Vicious Sun. The goal is to raise a minimum of $10,000. The more I can raise, the better quality of a book I can produce. In case you're interested, I wrote a few descriptions of things below.

What is Vicious Sun about?

Vicious Sun is  novel that centers around three dragons and their attempts to right the desecration of the true magic system by rogue dragons. This is book one of three, and there is plenty of high-flying action and adventure throughout!

The story takes place on a world called Triskai, and one of the main things to note is that Triskai has no humans. All of the characters in the book are dragons, and it's all from a dragon's point of view.

What is Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website that allows people to create projects (such as novels) that others can choose to fund in return for rewards. Kickstarter is an all or nothing deal, if I don't make the minimum amount ($10,000) I need, I don't receive any funds.

What are you going to do with all that money?

The money I raise from the Kickstarter will be used towards the publication of my book. Here's a basic list of things donations will cover-

Book Printing

Equipment

Purchase of a block of ISBNs

Backer Rewards

Kickstarter Fees
Emergency Buffer

Self-employment taxes

A salary so that I can focus on writing as a full-time occupation

Laying the groundwork to publish the whole series

So, what are these rewards I keep hearing about?

In addition to the ebook, paperback copy, and limited-edition hardcover copy, backers will be able to choose reward tiers that include-

Prints/posters/collectors cards

Signed original art featured in the book

T-shirts 

Original custom art pieces

What do you mean by "illustrated novel"? Are you putting two pictures in and calling it good?

Illustrated novel means that I will be including at least one illustration per chapter, so there will be a bare minimum of 30 internal illustrations. As the amount of money I raise increases, I will be able to include more illustrations per chapter, and one full illustration per section (about 10 pieces). The stretch goals will be listed below.

What are your Stretch Goals? (aka what do you do with all the extra money you've raised?)

I have a long list of stretch goals for this project, and some of the possible upgrades for the book are quite fantastic.

$10,000 - Funded - You guys are awesome. Keep spreading the word!

$12,500 - An extra short story will be added to all versions of the book along with an additional 2 page internal illustration.

$15,000 - This is where the real fun begins. At 15k, I can afford a Wacom Cintiq Tablet http://www.wacom.com/en/products/pen-displays/cintiq/cintiq-22hd which will enable me to more quickly produce digital art. All hardcover books will include 10 black and white full art pages and all backers will receive an additional Kickstarter exclusive art postcard. Backers at the $50 level and above will receive a color version of the eBook with color versions of the new illustrations.

$20,000 - All backers at the $10 and higher will receive both ebooks - one in black and white and the other featuring the color illustrations available in the hardcover version of the book. Backers at the $50 level and above will receive a small print of their choice from the new illustrations, and  2 new reward levels will be unlocked, one including a poster detailing the Marc system of Magic used in the novel and the other containing a surprise reward to be revealed if this stretch goal is hit.

$25,000 - Extra illustrations unlocked! Each chapter will contain a minimum of 2 illustrations and the 10 black and white illustrations will be printed as color illustrations in the hardcover edition of the book! Paperbacks will receive black and white versions of these illustrations, and will also include the 10 illustrations from the $15,000 level in black and white.

$30,000 - Triple illustration! Each chapter will contain a minimum of 3 illustrations and a full-color section of extras will be added to the hardcover (a total of at least 20 color pages). Paperbacks will receive black and white versions of these illustrations.

If we exceed $30,000, there will be more stretch goals. This project will fly high, and we may even be able 

My thoughts on Black Friday

For those of you who don't know, I worked in retail for over 7 years across a variety of stores. The only time that I did not work a black Friday was my last year in retail, but for those other 6 years I braved the insanity of the retail centers and went off to work. It wasn't really that bad, except some of the customers at the first place I worked at. They were less than fun to deal with, even less so during the holidays.

But to be honest, it wasn't that horrible, back in the days of working at 5 am for the ten people who had been waiting since midnight to get a few items for a couple dollars cheaper.

Nowadays, I'm no longer working retail, but I've seen so many commercials that I felt I had to speak out. When you're working retail for any corporation, there are only a few days during the year that you get off. Thanksgiving is one that is give and take, it depends on the company you are working for. I worked Thanksgiving at my first job, and typically we saw only a couple of people coming out because they needed one or two items for Thanksgiving dinner, or people who just didn't care that it was Thanksgiving. It was a quiet day for the few people working, and typically the company kept hours short so that the workers could go home and spend some time with their families, and they fed us (big thing when you're a high schooler/college student).

Now, with Black Friday now starting Thursday night, those same workers who would normally be getting an easy day are going to be forced to handle hordes of post-Thanksgiving dinner shoppers, and even in some cases pre-Thanksgiving shoppers depending on the store. There are some stores that are posting Black Friday sales at 6 am on Thursday.

In my opinion, this is just wrong. Why do we need 2 full days of "Black Friday"? Why do we even need to have 24 hours of Black Friday? It's fine if it's a retail giant that stays open 24 hours a day normally, but when you start talking about keeping up employees who normally work days having to get up at 11 pm to be to work at midnight, you're not only throwing off their normal schedule even worse than if you had them getting up at 4 to be to work by five. You're taking away whatever "holiday time" they were going to have with their families, or even just digging into the the time off they they need.

The holiday shopping season just keeps getting more and more ridiculous, and all to fuel the consumerist society. I have had more people than I could count come up to me and say they were sorry I was working.

If you feel bad about a retail worker working on a holiday the rest of America has off, don't go out shopping that day. Years and years ago, everyone had these holidays off, but the corporations are destroying what few days everyone should have off.

//rant

But otherwise, I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving, eats lots of turkey and pumpkin pie, and gets to enjoy a little bit of time off.

~Tania

PS BIG ANNOUNCEMENT FRIDAY!

Ah! A Post!

Sorry for the silence for so long! Life has been quite busy, so I'll keep this short and sweet.
First off, the move went well, and we managed not to lose many things, so that was good.
Second, Anime Fusion was a blast. Many hats went to their new homes, and I'm looking forward to seeing some people I met on the convention circuit next year.
Third, it's NaNoWriMo. For those of you new to this blog, it's essentially 30 days of frantic writing to finish a 50,000 word novel. I'm aiming for 100,000 words, so watch out world, here I come!
News about the Kickstarter to publish Vicious Sun is coming soon, I'll have a nice post about that once I've figured out and fine tuned the final pieces to that little game.

A small rant on Perfume and the use thereof

Hi everyone! Long time no post, I apologize for that. Lots of stuff going on, not the least of which is that we're buying a house!

However, today's post is not about houses and the hunting thereof.

It's about Perfume and the use thereof.

As most of you know, I have some pretty nasty allergies. The highest on the list is synthetic scents. Where do synthetic scents lurk? you ask.

Let me give you a small list~

Perfume
Soap
Body Spray
Air Fresheners, especially the plug in types
...you get the idea

Needless to say, synthetic scents are pretty much everywhere. I don't go out a lot, since I now work from home, but I do all of the grocery shopping and I need to occasionally restock my yarn supplies. Unfortunately, grocery stores and craft stores seem to have huge concentrations of people wearing too much perfume.

Let's face it, this has become something of an epidemic. If you want to wear perfume, don't flood yourself in an ocean of perfume. Keep it light. The people around you, especially those of use with synthetic scent issues, will really appreciate. So will the people without issues.

~TR

Vicious Sun Status Updated

So, some of you may have noticed that I haven't been posting much. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I've been house hunting for a permanent house for myself and my boyfriend. This will be quite fantastic once we've gotten a house, however, I have spent a large amount of time digging through houses and looking at them in real life. We have to move apartments pretty soon, and hopefully move into a new house after that. Still, we're looking at 2 moves in 2 months, which luckily one of the moves is to another part of our current complex, but there is a lot to do between now and then. 

Vicious Sun is still active and being worked on, and the estimated publishing date of the ebook in March 2013 and the hard copies in April 2013 has not changed. The Kickstarter, however, is being moved back. It will still happen in 2012, but most likely in late October/early November, meaning it will end around the end of the year. This is a good thing, since there should now only be about 3-4 months between the Kickstarter and when everyone receives their goodies (as long as things stay on their schedules!) I will let everyone know as soon as things are put in motion!

For now, I thank all of my watchers for backing me! Exciting times are ahead, just with a minor detour.

Fair winds~

Tania

Summer of the Mosquitoes!

...I've been eaten alive!
Not quite, but leave us just say that my legs are quite covered in bites, in excess of 25 on each leg, especially around my ankles.
Constant itching makes quite the distraction from writing, drawing, knitting and other things, so I haven't been horribly productive. Also, househunting sometimes gets in the way of productivity, but man, have I found some really nice houses!

For those of you keeping track of the timeframe on Vicious Sun-
Beta Read starts this weekend.
Kickstarter start is somewhat in limbo with the house deal, but it will begin sometime in the month of September, and there will be many awesome backer rewards.
Cover is coming closer to completion. Yay cover art. Yay.

Um, in other non-mosquito-ey news, non book news, Epic Hats will be making an appearance at many conventions in the Midwest next year, if all works out. We're looking at about 10-15 conventions, so I foresee many hats in my future. Including the half completed Shiranui Okami hat, which will be finished and hopefully have a few partners for the convention circuit. I'm also planning a design for a Wolf Link hat, and many more, including some awesome patterned kool aid hat.

Cue epic lack of sleep soon, hehe.

Tania out.

Cover Art, Rough Draft, Fun Times for All!

Hi folks! You probably haven't heard too much from me lately, sorry for that. Life has been super busy. We finally tracked down the source of my allergies and allergy attacks, and I've got medications that are going to help me exist in the living world once more!

This means that luckily, I have had time to accomplish many things. I just got done at CONvergence selling hats in their art show, and for the first time ever selling my hats to the public, the event was fantastic! Everyone seemed really happy with their hats, and a few of them had multiple bids and one even made it to the live auction! I can't wait for next year, I'll be bringing a full 20 hats with me.

However, now the focus is on Vicious Sun. While doing hats, I also did a bit of the rough draft, and I got a good start on the cover art, which features the main character Kemi. I'll be posting pics of it once I have all of the flat colors done, which should hopefully be before the end of July.

Onto the rough draft.

I've discovered this wonderful little web application called Write or Die. If you're a NaNo veteran, you've probably heard of it. The idea is to make you write words. Many, many words. If you don't accomplish your set goal, there are punishments. The worst that I've had is that I paused for too long, and it started deleting my words. Slight panic attack ensued, and I made sure to not stop after that.

Along with the draft, I'm beginning to work on illustrations. I changed over the anatomy of the Skyborne (formerly Sparkfur, Neisti'kegawa, etc) and am very pleased with the results.

Kickstarter stuff.

The Kickstarter for Vicious Sun will begin either at the end of August or the beginning of September. This will be your chance to preorder the book in ebook, paperback, and hardcover, and get some pretty awesome goodies, including original signed art from the novel, tshirts, and a few other things. There is also a chance I will be doing a full color hardcover version of the book as a special edition limited run, but we'll have to see how things go first.

I'll have more information in the coming weeks including details of the novel, and maybe even a sneak peek at the current version of the prologue.

So spread the word! Vicious Sun is getting ready to take to the skies!

Advice on Writing I

Well, any of you who read this blog know that I am a writer. I do quite a bit of writing in my free time, and I figured that I would share with you the fruits of my adventures.

Tip #1- Avoid the internet!

The internet is one of the greatest time-wasters on the planet. There is so much information, you can always find some way or another to procrastinate. That's why, when writing, try to avoid the internet unless you are looking up information for your book.

Tip #2- Youtube.
I listen to a lot of music while I'm writing. Considering that I've been working on Resonance for well over three years now, I have gone through quite a few playlists. We're talking hundreds of songs. There are a very few that manage to make it through the run and continue to be on my playlist, so I am always looking for new music. Youtube makes life much easier with song recommendations, not to mention it has a huge library of the dramatic and epic music I typically listen to. I work mostly on a dual-screen computer setup, so I have on screen with music playing and the other for all of my book items.

Tip #3- Playlist

As much as I love going through Youtube and seeing what all is new, I've found that once I start messing around with different songs, I never stop. That's why I always write with a playlist going. It saves me from flipping between screens and breaking out of my writing to find the right song.

Stay tuned for next post, I should have some exciting news about a new project (no, it isn't another novel!)

TR

Of Pokemon Music and a Bit of Warm Weather

Hello all! As many of you who watch this blog may have noted, the weather has been abnormally mild this winter. I'm from the upper midwest, land of snow, sleet, hail, and general gloominess during the winter months. This winter, we've only had maybe two decent snow events, as compared to last year with at least two single events with over ten inches of snow and impossible driving conditions. For the last two weeks, we've been in the seventies and gorgeous. Talk about weather confusion.

On a completely different tack, I've been switching up my normal music playlists for writing. Somehow, Pokemon managed to creep in there. Not really sure how that happened, but now I keep getting battle songs stuck in my head.

And now on a really different route, I've got a few friends of mine that are trying to get their book printed and are running a kickstarter to fund its production - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2017848943/cellar-door-anthology-0?ref=live. You should all go check it out! Because I said so! And give them money!

It's still a bit too early in the morning for coherent thought, so look for a longer post (with awesome worldbuilding content) sometime soon!

Checkpoint

So, it has been a while since I last posted, mostly due to real-life business and computer issues. However, don't expect extended hiatuses anymore! I have finally managed to pull the money together for a new computer, a machine that can actually handle the Adobe Suite without overheating. It also has other perks, such as being able to play video games, which I promise will not get in the way of my writing (much).

To celebrate this new machine, I thought that I would give a general update on Resonance. I have the first two of seven parts completed, and the rest of it is coming together quite well. My wordcount goal is to be around 87,500 words, or 350 pages, for the full novel. Parts one and two, which are going to be gone over yet again, are already accounting for nearly 25,000 words of that, and by the end of today I will have hit the 30,000 word mark. My 350 page book may be expanding somewhat, and I am not completely set on having Resonance broken into 7 parts, it may instead be 10. That's some of the logistics I'm working out.

Another part of the puzzle I'm working on is how to publish this. There is a reason I needed to have access to my Adobe programs, simply because Resonance will have some illustrations. I'm not going all out, as humans are my weakest point in drawing, however, each human character has a symbol that represents that character. You can see Estevan's (the main character) symbol as the background of the blog. I'm not sure how many publishers will be willing to let me do the illustrations and cover for the book, which is something that I am set on doing. As such, I'm looking into doing self publishing as a legitimate option, and running a Kickstarter to fund it, much like I originally planned to do with Vicious Sun before Resonance took hold of my writing ideas again. To accomplish this, I would need to be able to raise enough funds to cover a professional editor and printing costs, which tends to add up quite a bit.

This is something that I want to make a professional career out of. The first third of Resonance has taken me over three years to write, mainly due to issues with time management during college and real life interference. However, this first section is now nearly polished, and the rest of the book is falling into place quite nicely. I plan to have the entire draft completed within the next month to month and a half. Originally, I was planning on sending out my draft over the last few days, but I'll be honest, having a working computer somewhat distracted me ^^;

For now, I'm going to sit back, drink my chocolate tea, and write.

As a friend of mine says, perseverance is what gets you published. So I'm going to persevere until Resonance sits happily on bookshelves across the nation.

The difficulties of writing and working full time

Hello all!
As you have probably guessed from the title, the main reason you haven't seen a lot of updates to either my website or my blog recently is due to a lack of time. The clock keeps ticking, no matter how much you wish it would stop, at least for a little while.
But yes, to the topic at hand.
Writing while working is a difficult beast. I currently work at a bookstore. It is a fantastic place that spurs me to want to write more. I get ideas. Lots and lots and lots of them. They crowd my head, spill onto the floor, and then sit up and stare at me, all saying, "Write me, write me!"
For anyone who has known me for a while, I tend to come up with way more stories than I could ever write in any period of time. I have stacks of notebooks, tons of simple story ideas, and yet, only one really completed draft. A draft that is not the book I want to finish.
Because, yes, I went back to working on Resonance. Why, you ask, when you finally decided to go with the Triskai Project? Why go back to Resonance, the novel you've fought with for the last three years?
Because, dear reader, it called me back. Honestly, I opened up my old web document when I was in the middle of a tough part of Vicious Sun, and started to get inspired. You know that feeling, the one that tells you to get off your butt and go do something? Bake a cake, read a book, fly a kite, that kind of stuff. Stuff you can't do every day.
And it hit me. I suddenly knew where I wanted the story to go. Because, as most of you don't know, I hit a couple of huge plot issues. I made the story too complicated. It was getting worse and worse, like a wound bleeding out and I couldn't manage to find a decent heal spell. I ran away for a while to play with Vicious Sun. I won NaNoWriMo with 55,555 words this year, beating last year's score by over 5,000. And I felt that bite of inspiration. I could do it.
And I can do it. I just hit 23 pages on the tenth *gulp* draft of the first section of Resonance. The story is divided into four parts, which means I have just about fifty pages in double space terms. That is enough for me to start sending out snippets to agents. Before then, I do have a pool of readers to tell me if I did write anything horrible, or type things backwards (yep, I have a habit of doing that), along with planning to send it into critters.org, a site where you can critique and get critiques on your stories.
Fortunately, I do get an hour long lunch where I work, which is about enough time for me to write a page or two on my tenth draft, which is a bonus I didn't have before. I also have insurance now that I'm full time, which is really good considering my ability to randomly injure myself/get pneumonia/bronchitis and stuff.
In other news, still trying to figure out a budget for a computer. Mine can no longer handle music and video without frying. Which means no art programs for more than an hour at a stretch. Tis sad, but at least I can still work on MS Word.
Trying to stay warm, and keeping fingers crossed for no snow,
Tania

What's Up???

Well, long time no post! We're into December, meaning that NaNoWriMo has been and gone. I succeeded with 55,555 words, beating last year's 50,059 words.
So, what am I working on now? Resonance.
Yep, that's right. I went back to Resonance, the story that has been kicking my butt for years due to too convoluted of a plot line. I've gone back to the beginning, and am reworking the introduction. Yet again. For the ninth time. I think...
So anyhow, just a quick update to let the world know I'm still alive, and still working.

Secret Project

Some of you are wondering about this "secret project" of mine. Sorry folks, you'll have to wait a while to find out what it is!
In other news, not too much is going on. Mainly a blog post to prove that I'm still alive and active.
That's really all for now...
I suppose.

Job hunting and a website overhaul

I'm pretty surprised with mother nature this year. Not only did we end up staying in the fifties almost the entire month of May, but now that we're into July, we can't seem to get out of the nineties! A bit of an odd change in such a short period of time... at least we can't complain about the lack of storms this year.

So, as many of you have probably heard, I'm on the hunt for a job, and to help with that I am finishing my website, taniarichter.com. I've got a decent amount of work to do on it, mainly writing the content for the novels in progress, getting my pdf resume up there, and sprucing it up a bit more. 

Woo...

More soon...

Okay, about this whole "sparkle-wolf" deal...

I like wolves.
This is a well and commonly known fact. I've been writing about winged wolves since I was in sixth grade.
However, in most cases, they still have the typical anatomy and coloration of wolves. You don't see bright green wolves with emo tattoos and piercings running around in my books.
But they are invading. Everywhere I look in the younger generation (what am I saying, I'm only 23!), sparkle-wolves, emo-wolves, wolves that are representations of our souls are appearing.
And that makes me very sad. Because of this, people are starting to view wolves in a bad light. Oh, look, someone else who put wings on wolves. How original. Look, there is another wolf character. Great.
This is the response that people are having to this sudden outburst that everyone was a wolf in a past life, everyone's soul is represented by a wolf, la de da de da. Forgive this rant, but seriously, there are plenty of awesome creatures out there. I think that Twilight may have a bit to do with this phenomena (Sparkle-wolves, sparklepires, same difference) but I also think that hive-mind is rearing its head with the youth of the world.
Seriously, explore other animals. Wolves are great (as previously stated, I really like them). However, they are not the only animals in the world. There are plenty of other great creatures.

Advancing

So, it has been a while since I posted. This would mostly be due to graduation and wrapping everything up. Now, though I am finally graduated, and in the middle of unpacking all of my stuff.


Over the next few weeks, I get to work on Resonance.
Scrap that.

Starting this week, I'm working on Resonance as much as I can, diving face first into the story. First order of business is to finish typing the last couple of pages of what I have handwritten. Getting that out of the way, I will move on to the "cheat sheet" which will contain all of the character biographies, Spirit Shadow information, world maps, languages, and the ever important where-the-hell-am-I timeline sheet. Because even I keep getting lost, hehe.

Don't worry, I'll get it worked out so that it will only be at Inception level of having to read through the book 2-3 times to fully figure it out.

In other news, the move went well. We are in quite desperate need of another bookshelf, as mine is not enough for all of my books, let alone the combined might of mine and Andy's books. There are still approximately 6 boxes of books in need of a bookshelf, and that is most of the rest of what I have to unpack.

The critters all made the trip well and have settled in comfortably, except I'm having issues finding poor Kana's food in the Cities. Anyone know anyplace that actually sells Arugula? And I swear, the geckos are quite insane, they were all in happy colors by the end of the 2 hour car ride here.

Also, my computer is starting to go, meaning that the graphics card is overheating any time I try to do anything more advanced than playing a flash game :(

In an effort to get enough money to buy a new one while still being able to pay for other expenses (such as student loans), I am making and selling custom hats. This link - http://aetherfang.deviantart.com/#/d3izcx4  is my flagship hat, the tri-color double knit wolf hat. Pricey, because they take freaking forever to do. Awesome, because, well, it is awesome.
This is a regular hat, which can be done in any color you want -http://aetherfang.deviantart.com/art/Neon-Pink-Fox-Hat-213281986. Not nearly as pricey but still awesome.

Still working on a dragon hood, and then I get to dive into my custom dyed batch of glow-in-the-dark yarn. Still not fully waterproof, but this is the first test batch so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Going to pick up some more glow paint this week and try dying another batch this weekend.

Erm, I think that is it for now.
Time to go work on Resonance and finish a hat.

Neisti'Kegawa

Well, hello all my readers! It has been a while since the last post, now hasn't it? For that I do apologize, last semester of college and all that jazz. However, I figured that I should actually give you all an update.
First off, Resonance is not dead. It is on hiatus until I graduate and actually have the time to go over everything and make sure that there are no plot holes and that sort of deal. The final date that I have to have a working rough draft of it is June 30th so I can get my free proof copy from winning NaNoWriMo.
Second, I'm starting to do actual freelance web design, which is making me a bit busier, as I am now working somewhere around 4 part time jobs if you include being a student as a job. I am also in the middle of redesigning my two personal websites, as I managed to pick up taniarichter.com for my book stuff and also aetherfangdesign.com for my freelance work. There is nothing there, so don't bother visiting it just yet! I'll be sure to post an update when that time comes.
And last but not least, I am working on a bit of a project for one of my classes. If you were wondering where the title for this blog post came from, wonder no more! Neisti'Kegawa, or Dragons of the Vicious Sun, is worldbuilding and species building exercise that began from a dragonology contest on DeviantArt. I have about two weeks left to finish at least the basics, so I will be posting more information on that soon.
Sorry for the short post, but I should have been in bed over an hour ago... lots to do tomorrow!