I’m happy to introduce you to a novel that has been years in the writing, revising, editing, and publishing. Far Patrol is finally here!
Cover by Natasha Snow
Far Patrol is a literary novel about dragons and political upheaval. I originally wrote this novel when I was in the hospital for mental health problems, and I won NaNoWriMo 2015 with this novel. As you can see, it took years for me to get up the energy to get it published. I hope you all enjoy the book!
Official Blurb:
Will war tear their family and their country apart?
Ignius Lockden and their companion Kathely are ready for adventure. Joining Far Patrol was only going to be the beginning—they were right, but in all the wrong ways. Suddenly, there’s a war on the horizon and the two of them are stuck in the middle. Ignius wants to do what’s right, but it isn’t easy to tell what actions will lead to the correct ending. How is one young dragon supposed to change the course of history?
It is time! I am so proud of this work and I am happy to be able to present you all with Weekend Girl, a contemporary romance that takes place in Vancouver, Canada. This novel is my first with a genderfluid main character.
This is the official blurb:
Ashley Kingston is a genderfluid university student with a major crush on attractive and charming Nolan. He seems just too perfect to be true. What happens when Ash meets Nolan while dressed as both a man, and a woman? And even more confusing, what happens when Nolan seems enamoured of both versions of Ash? A twisty-turny romance filled with fun and shenanigans.
Nbi/M pairing, explicit content, TW: transphobia
If you like this novel, please review it! It would mean a lot to me.
As some of you may be aware, Weekend Girl is my very first contemporary romance novel. I am usually a science fiction and fantasy writer, and while I love the genres of SFF, this story was definitely a contemporary romance.
As a person who loves SFF, I can honestly say that the reason I’m drawn to these genres is the world-building I get to do. I love creating new worlds with different systems of government, economics, and culture. Often, I like the sense of adventure that comes with building these places.
So why did I choose to write a contemporary romance?
I could have given Ash magic, or had it set in some dystopian future. But this story was about the romance and only the romance. A lot of my other stories have elements of uprising and rebellion in them. However, Weekend Girl is not really about politics – other than being about a trans protagonist. I wanted to focus on the romance for this story because non-binary people deserve to be able to have a story about just romance without also having to partake in an anti-establishment uprising.
Maybe in another story I will have a genderqueer protagonist fight the powers-that-be. But in this one, the story revolves around Ash and their own problems and adventures. They get to be the star in this meet-cute romance with charming Nolan. I’m really looking forward to hearing about what readers think of my very first contemporary romance. It is, after all, not my forte!
I hate writer’s block. It’s one of the worst things to have to deal with as a writer. I know, a lot of writers have advice on how to deal with writer’s block, and there are a lot of solutions out there.
One of my very favourite ways to try and break out of writer’s block is to imagine the very worst thing that could possibly happen to the main character in the moment and write that. A lot of what happens in my stories comes from exactly that. I have to think of a terrible thing to do to my character, and THEN I have to think of how to get my character out of that situation. It’s fun to write, and hopefully entertaining to the audience.
Another thing I try to remember is that every scene should have a purpose in the story. The purpose can be a lot of different things, but ultimately, a scene should drive the action forward somehow. As a giant nerd in the department of English, I kind of think of writing fiction like writing an essay. You have a thesis or argument, and everything should tie back to that main point. That’s how I think of scenes – if they don’t fit into the main story, then it’s not going to be useful. If I include something cool but useless, than it doesn’t actually help the story.
Sometimes if I’m having writer’s block on one project, I’ll work on another one for a while and let the problem with the other one percolate. Sometimes if I just leave it for a bit, an idea will come to me for how to resolve it. Usually, it’s because I realize that in order to drive the story forward, something has to happen in a certain way.
Of course, other times, my characters just get away from me and do what they like. And I guess that’s fine, but it sure is annoying when you have something plotted out and the character ruins it. Does that ever happen to you? Do characters ever just decide to do something without your input? At least it helps with not having anything written down.
So those are my ideas, but I’m sure there are so many others! Feel free to tell me in the comments.
Happy New Year! Hopefully we’ll have a good year ahead of us. I have some fun plans for the future, and I’ll take the chance now to talk about them.
The first is that I’m writing the sequel to Weekend Girl. If you recall, Weekend Girl is a novel I wrote about a genderfluid student at UBC. They meet a cute guy and commence a confusing and hilarious romance. It’s my first contemporary romance, and this sequel is the second in what I hope will be a series. Anyway, Ashley Kingston returns in this sequel, tentatively titled Not Your Average Lady. So far, I have about a third of the novel finished.
Second, I’m working on the sequel to Far Patrol, which is looking to be a trilogy. The sequel sees Ignius and their friends becoming more world-wise in the face of a civil war. Originally, I was going to have draconic pronouns, but it turns out that it was a little more complicated and hard to understand than I thought. So I changed the pronouns to they/their/them. The pronouns will still exist, just in the rarely used draconic language.
I have quite a few projects on the back burner, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever run out of projects to work on! Right now, I have quite enough on my plate. Apart from being a writer, I’m also a PhD student, which takes up a lot of my time.
I have a Christmas giveaway going on for exactly one month starting today. I will make the draw on December 25th, 2020. The prize for this giveaway is a $25 gift certificate to JMS Books.
So, how do you enter? Easy peasy. I have three different places you can enter by leaving a comment. The first is here on my author webpage on this post. The second is on my Twitter post announcing this giveaway. The third is on my Facebook post announcing the giveaway. I will write your name on a piece of paper and draw it out of a hat, old-school style.
What should your comment be about? I have a list of questions for you. Choose one and answer it in the comments of whatever platform you like. You can enter up to five times by answering different questions in separate comments. Please don’t cheat and leave more than five answers on different platforms. I have no way of making sure this doesn’t happen, so I’m appealing to your sense of fairness.
Here are the questions!
Who is your favourite LGBTQ+ author?
What is your favourite LGBTQ+ book (with LGBTQ+ MC)?
When did you start reading LGBTQ+ books?
Do you have a favourite romance trope? (ie “there’s only one bed” or “pretend relationship”
Where’s your favourite place to read?
Okay! Make sure to share with friends!
Merry start of the Christmas season everyone! (And other winter holidays too)
Recently got my sales report for this quarter. I’ve been keeping track of my most popular books, and it looks like All the King’s Men has come out on top!
Book cover
I think I’ve mentioned before, but this novel was originally published with Less Than Three Press and was republished with JMS Books in 2019.
I do wonder sometimes what makes a book popular, and what makes it less popular. I know one aspect is the pairing. All the King’s Men is a M/M pairing, and that type of pairing tends to sell more. I think genre probably also has something to do with it. All the King’s Men is a sci-fi/cyberpunk novel as well as a romance novel. I really enjoy writing sci-fi and fantasy, but I know contemporary genres also tend to sell more. Not that this fact will stop me from writing sci-fi and fantasy novels.
I wonder what about All the King’s Men has made it the most popular. It might be the cover, which is one of my favourites of all of them. It might also be the blurb is exciting, or maybe people have read some goodread reviews about it. Ultimately, I’m not really sure; all I can really say is why I liked writing it.
All the King’s Men is a cyberpunk novel heavily influenced by my love of the movie The Matrix. The Cerebrum in my novel functions a little differently than the matrix of the movie, but some of the aesthetics are similar, particularly some of the outfits that the characters wear. The titular King of the novel is a little bit similar to Morpheus as well.
I started writing this novel mostly because I was particularly interested in exploring the theme of identity when it comes to cyberspace. If any of you have read the novel, you know (SPOILER) that the agents of the Cerebrum are not programs, but actual humans who have been brainwashed into thinking they’re all the same, from appearance to purpose. (END SPOILER) There is also the fact that appearance varies in the Cerebrum, and that various governments have attempted to limit the ways in which people can appear in cyberspace, but no one really listens to the law, and it’s not really enforced. So can one really know who’s who in the Cerebrum?
I love chatting with people about themes in books, mostly because I have two degrees in English literature. I was honestly wondering if readers would be interested in hearing some of the themes that I purposefully put in my novels and novellas, or would that be going against Death of the Author too much? To be clear, I wouldn’t be adding post-canon material at all in a blog post.
On the other hand, if anyone is interested in more material from any of my novels, writing a short story to accompany the novel is always a possibility. However, I generally don’t do these types of things unless there’s genuine interest in it.
Anyway, let me know what you think, and as always, happy reading and writing!
I’m just tuning in to let you all know of the progress happening with my WIPs.
Unfortunately, a lot of stuff is being put on hold because I’ve been focused on the Black Lives Matters movement. I think this issue is of great importance. I’m so so worried about my Black siblings who have been put in the line of fire simply for asking people not to kill them. It’s devastating to me that their lives are not held as precious as any other. I will not be taking comments against this movement on my page. If you don’t agree, the unfollow button is right there.
I’ve submitted Far Patrol and am awaiting a response. I’m really excited to hear back. As I said before, a LBGTQ+ beta reader helped me with this work and does amazing work in the community. That is Siobhan Crosslin (@siobhancrosslin on Twitter) who made sure that all my plotholes were covered beforesubmitting.
I have finished and gotten feedback on Weekend Girl and am just giving it a little time before revising my draft. I’m really excited to also submit this work for publication. It will be my first novel-length story with a genderfluidprotagonist.
I will be starting to write on both the sequel for Far Patrol and the sequel for Weekend Girl in the coming months. I hope to be able to update you all with further progress on theseprojects.
I’m just updating everyone on the status of some of my works in progress.
First, Weekend Girl is currently 8 chapters finished and needs two more to be complete. I am really excited about this one because it’s my first full length novel about a genderfluid character. Their name is Ash, and they are a student in Vancouver, Canada. They are 20 years old and just wrapping up their third year at UBC when they meet fellow student Nolan on the bus. It’s fun and light-hearted, and my first try at a contemporary novel. I will be getting it beta’d soon, so I’m very excited about that!
Second, I’m still awaiting feedback on my novel Far Patrol, which is about dragons and politics. Not certain where this one will end up, as it’s not really about romance at all. My dragon character Ignius is ace/aro and hsyr rider Kathely is agender pansexual. It’s a more introspective novel, and is very much fantasy.
Lastly, still on the backburner is my novella about a post-apocalyptic society that lives underground. I hope that this one will be next up on my list to finish after Weekend Girl. My main character is bi, and his love interest is a trans gay man.
Just before I go, I’m going to share some news not related to my writing. I have received and accepted a PhD offer from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. I will be joining the English and Cultural Studies department there. I’m really excited about this offer and hope to continue writing while I study and teach!
I’m happy to be able to announce that my third re-release with JMS Books is coming out soon! Hakusan Angelwill be released on December 28, 2019.
Here is the marvelous new cover for Hakusan Angel.
Here’s a quick blurb for the book:
Kaede is a Source, capable of powering a machine with her own energy, but she has been hiding the full extent of her abilities. Given the tenuous relations between her country and their rivals, she fears discovery of her full power would provoke the war that hangs over them. But others disagree, and firmly believe that power like Kaede’s is far too valuable to be hidden away…
Hakusan Angel is a f/f lesbian romance, 26 000 words
alex powell 