Category Archives: News

December 23, 2023

New Book–Sun’s Guard: Queen!

By Rebecca M. Horner

Hello everyone! Surprise (or not so surprise if you have been reading Rise of the Lunar Champion) Christmas Eve-Eve post to announce that Sun’s Guard: Queen, the fourth book in the Sun’s Guard series in the Arcana Realms Universe, is officially available for purchase up on Amazon. Here’s the link, and then I’m going to babble for a little bit about the writing process for this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQTS9N9R

So when I looked at my little blurb for this book to start plotting, I realized structurally it was very different from the other three. There wasn’t a lot of lead up to the final villain, so the supporting plot really had to stand on its own. I also knew that while I had a very, very clear image of the climax, it wasn’t going to be enough to help me do long sessions of writing. I decided to try to write a set amount everyday–250 words was my magic number.

Now, I wasn’t STRICT about this. If I had something happening that I knew was going to give me no writing time, I didn’t push myself to work on it. If every word was a struggle and I only got to 100, okay then. Try for 250 next time. (So it didn’t move and start stacking and create a mountain.) The point was just to keep steady work happening because the big drive wasn’t going to be there like it was with prior books, where I could see certain scenes in my head and I desperately wanted to get to them.

That isn’t to say that I don’t love the book or the scenes that happened. I do. I think it is a solid part of the series, and it’s a good read. It just wasn’t a visible thing in my head this time. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn’t, at least in my experience of the plotting process. Reading it is of course very different, and I can now see it playing out and have favorite scenes. (The scene in the kitchen with shipwreck, I felt so deeply, lol.)

Character-wise, this book has a lot of growth that happens, both on screen and off. Things are very rapidly changing for the set up for the final three books. We also get to meet a character who has been mentioned many times but hasn’t made a physical appearance yet who I hope fans are excited to meet. (Caley also gets a Christmas surprise, which is fun.) I also feel like Caley’s dilemmas in this book are things real teenagers face rather than being magic in any nature. Since Knight was more of that then practical, I really felt like I was calling back to Ten and Page which had direct issues like moving in with a new family or dealing with a bad relative.

Queen is also the first book that I really feel like you can’t just jump in. There’s so many references to events of the first three books, it’s just hard to imagine it not being confusing to me. But that’s as the writer, and your mileage can vary. I was careful with the first three, but this time I lost it, so I imagine going forward, it is going to stay about the same as Queen. Not too bad to make it halfway, though, right?

The cover art is really great. I didn’t have as firm of ideas for this one, and Ginny really found something that worked to make it dynamic rather than odd. I really like the new look of the covers, it just took someone with a more visual/art eye to translate my idea into something that is workable. Not one of my strong suits, I’ll admit it. I don’t do well in decorating in video games either, I try too hard not to crowd things and so it looks too sparse, lol.

Hopefully everyone enjoys the fourth book in Caley’s series and the new covers. I, for one, am glad the craziness of the last year is over and I get a couple months peace before I start Sun’s Guard: King, which is tentatively set to release in January of 2025. (Maybe I’ll release it on my birthday? LOL)

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October 31, 2023

News: Status Updates on Projects

By Rebecca M. Horner

Hey everyone, brief break from Rise of the Lunar Champion to give you a progress update of where I’m at in all my stuff, some of it same-old-same-old, but some of it is new and exciting!

So first off, new editions of Sun’s Guard: Ten, Page, and Knight are well underway. Ten has all of the covers redone, and is re-edited and formatted. Page and Knight have their digital covers done, and their paperbacks are just waiting on me to finish with edits and formatting. I’m not expecting them to have drastic page changes, but the way Amazon has set up their templates, I gotta be careful. Page is done with edits and I’m halfway done with formatting, and I’ll be about a third of the way through Knight edits by the end of the day today. Ginny O. is doing me a solid and helping me out with this, and I really appreciate it.

New books time, Sun’s Guard: Autumn has at least the front of the cover done, it’s waiting to be finished because I need to be done editing all three of the books going in it and then I can get a template to Ginny (see the above statuses, lol). Sun’s Guard: Queen also has its digital cover completed, and I’m about halfway through its content edit. This is a bit of a more intensive content edit than Page or Knight got (though still no where near what Ten went through), so while in theory that part will be done this weekend, I also know that it needs the most work on the back half, so it may surprise me. Then it will need a structure edit and then a grammar, and it will be ready.

My current plan, if scheduling allows, is I am going to do a staggered release with all of these updates. So tentatively, Queen is going to be released December 22nd, with Autumn coming out a few weeks before on December 1st. Then November will see the releases of all these new editions, starting with Ten on November 10th. This relies on everything going to schedule, and I finish formatting Knight on the 10th. If I don’t finish on the 10th and it looks to me that I have too far left to go, then I will definitely delay something somewhere and give you all another update.

Swan’s Azalea is still in hibernation. I did some puttering with filling in some names for fun Easter eggs in the appendix (assuming I’m allowed to keep it), started building up some genealogies because I want to be sure I don’t say something contradictory, and I’ve made extensive notes on stuff I want to add. I’m thinking I’ll take two weeks off once I finish Queen, poke at some game stuff, then I’ll let myself work on editing it a little early. As the longest thing I’ve written, I feel like it has the most potential to actually get traditionally published, so I want to really give it the work over.

I’m just wrapping up working on some more Rise of the Lunar Champion shorts, so we should be safe for another year. I hope everyone is enjoying this, it’s been a hard challenge for me but also fun to follow a character as they grow up. I know some people are at least enjoying Eira’s relationship with her aunt. XD I’ve also finally made some progress in Pokemon X, if I sit down to do some playing tonight like planned, I should be ready to face the gym this week and we’ll be 6 gyms down! I did get some good story ideas on this route, which makes me glad I decided to wait and work on the story after I finished the game.

That’s all for now, let me know if there’s anything else you want updates on, or if you have ideas for me and social media. I’ve got the Facebook but I hardly know what to do with it, I’m refusing to use Twitter/X, and I don’t think I have enough picture-stuff (or bravery) to do Instagram? But social media isn’t my thing and I’m willing to listen to input from those who read through all this.

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September 4, 2023

Review Wrap Up

By Rebecca M. Horner

Hey folks, sorry for the delay–I could not catch a break in August between illness/migraines, unexpected projects at work, and my work with the community theater. Good news is most of that should be mostly wrapped up. I say should, work could still explode again and we have one last weather shift for fall, but the timing doesn’t look as poorly this month.

On to what this is actually about–my first-ever review month as a “special event.” Overall, it worked! You all got a month of reviews of fairly recent YA books, I got to see what the market was doing, albeit to be disgruntled (LOL), and if I hadn’t immediately caught a horrible cold at the end of the month, we probably wouldn’t have had snags transitioning from it to back to Rise of the Lunar Champion posts.

That doesn’t mean that I am satisfied with it, or that I didn’t learn anything. Fun fact, I had three or four other books checked out and at least tried to read through. But I didn’t review them. One was the one that slowed me down so badly because I kept hoping for it to work out, but then I got to the end and realized I could not write a good, kind review of it. Two of the others I didn’t make it past the first chapter for the same reason. I almost didn’t do Six Crimson Cranes, but then told myself that since it was reading easily, to give it more of a chance (and I’m glad I did). So what did I learn about all of that for next year?

For one, I need to check out double what I think I need, which is what I did on accident this year to catch up since some of my books on the list were sequels. I’ll probably do Grimrose Girls‘ sequel next year, so that’s one guaranteed good one, but my point stands. I need to have that cushion. Especially so I can give a book three chapters, and if it is a complete slog to read and I’m not enjoying it, put it aside. If I was being critical still of books, that wouldn’t be as big of a problem, but now? No, put the book aside and move on. This also means I can’t do what I thought of doing, which was announcing the week before the posts started what books to look forward to for the month. I might be able to do a partial list, but I can’t do the full list, which is annoying but oh well. It’s honest.

As for the reviews themselves, I think I still got overly critical at times. Best guess, it’s a hold out from English undergrad, then going into the PW grad school, and then as a writer, I’m also studying these books to learn from for my own style as well as breaking down market trends. The books I read for true enjoyment are from (predominantly) two writers with established fan bases, so for those it’s easier for me to turn that part of my brain off. Maybe if I toss a couple of those in there when applicable, it’ll help give me the break I need to remind me to be kind to these newer writers. I just worry it’ll actually do the opposite and make me harsher. It’s worth considering next year if Misty or Tammy has anything out. (OR if I bit the bullet and start buying Ranger books again. But Ranger’s Apprentice takes up so much room on my shelves as it is…)

Using the library though was the best decision I made. Slightly more work because the branch nearest to my house has like, no parking, it’s inconvenient, but I loved getting to try books and not having to purchase them. As much as I am a book wyrm with a hoard, I acknowledge before I add more than necessities to the hoard, I need to move and rescue the slightly-over-half of my hoard that is in my mother’s garage. (2025, that is the hope! To a house with a dedicated study!) I’m sure if I ever deeply love a book, I will take the library’s theirs back and buy my own copy, but so far, I’m good. Nice way to stretch my literary horizons without hurting my wallet or overfilling my head.

So what’s next? Well, we’re back to doing RotLC posts every week, twice a week, for a bit. I’m gonna take the DS with me on a couple trips I’m taking this fall, I’ll try to wrap up Pokemon X. (I learned with Violet a way to make my way of box-management easier, we’re gonna try to implement it and see if I can make some fast progress.) If so, I can sit down and figure out what’s happening with Nuzlocke to make it more my own besides the ending, and then start poking at that again in November. Maybe not this year, but next year sounds doable.

I also need to do a quick website update. WordPress’s latest update broke at least one page, I need to see if it broke any others. May do that around Christmas time since theoretically I’ll have Queen ready to go around that time. I’ve got a new artist, so we’re working on all the covers, not just Queen, so there may be a slight delay? We’ll see. I’ve gotta finish a light edit (because I’m doing new editions, might as well edit), get her the new page counts, and go from there.

For now, enjoy more Eira, and I’ll let you all know as things change! ^_^

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March 2, 2023

Tornado Check In

By Rebecca M. Horner

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I’m okay from the tornado that hit my town, an EF2. I was probably about 750-1000 ft away from it, and my place is one of very few with no damage. However, they shut down the road getting into our lane because of downed power lines, and I (obviously) had no power or heat.

My mother and aunt were able to evacuate me and both cats on Monday morning at 7 AM. I got to work both of my days before my planned vacation to work on the house (and Queen), the cats were terrified but at least ate enough that their livers didn’t make them throw up and kept drinking. (Okay, we used a syringe on Karu twice a day, I was paranoid. Kari was less tolerant of it and I have the massive scratch to prove it.)

Power was returned at 8 PM on Tuesday, obviously too late for me to go home. Also, road was still closed. Thankfully, I’m friends with a neighbor. She let us walk across her fence to bring the cats home with a shorter walk, all my things I took with us, and groceries. The roads opened up Wednesday night at 10 PM, and I woke up this morning to my WiFi restored. For reference, the fiber company had to wait for electricity to be back since in this case, that meant replacing 50+ poles. The fact 50+ poles were replaced in 48 hours is absolutely amazing.

I’m a bit shaken up by how close it all was. I only have to walk to the end of my block to see how bad it was. And this is just the beginning of storm season.

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October 29, 2022

Soft Reboot, Ish?

By Rebecca M. Horner

Yeah, that’s what we’ll call this. Obviously the pandemic, new work, and cat drama made it hard for me to focus on the blog. I also don’t know if I have enough to talk about on a regular basis? I don’t want to bore anyone who reads this blog, I also don’t want to make this a bundle of stress for me to manage. This led to me deeply considering what I’m doing. I’m not going to take anything down at this point, but sort of change what is going on when. I did publish more, but updating the website just didn’t happen. (And then WordPress updated and I’m not 100% sure my theme is fully supported anymore, so if you see something broken, please yell.)

In terms of blog posts, it is going to be pretty quiet here until after the new year. I’m going to use that time to build up a buffer. There will be a post in December I hope because I’m doing a hardback anthology for the first three books in Sun’s Guard, but I need to hear back from Johnny about cover art to set that date in stone. There’s not a huge rush, I’ll get the text formatted and then once he’s good, we’ll go, so putting a pin in that.

I’m going to try to do some things seasonally so I can kinda work ahead in some regards. There would basically just be an update from me whenever something is confirmed going to be out. So like I’m starting Sun’s Guard: Queen this month, I’d post when I finished the rough draft to confirm the publish date, and then obviously a post when it does come out announcing it’s available. (And updating the various pages to show it.)

So summer I am going to do a month where there’s a review once a week for a month (so 4-5 reviews depending on which month I do it in, I haven’t decided yet, and the calendar), so I can borrow books from the local library in support of that service, as well as try and be positive? I want to be more positive about my review process. So we’re going to try for that.

Autumn is going to eventually be Nuzlocke updating in November, I am hoping to get back into that game in the spring so I can pick it up again. We’ll see. I don’t want to over extend myself, which is obviously where so many of my problems are coming from. I do have a very rough idea of where I want elements to happen, but finishing the game first is my best bet to know when to weave those in.

Spring is going to seem like a dead season because that is my busiest time at work. Right now, I do not see me having time to do anything extra on the blog unless I also manage to finish a book in the spring. That may change as programs shuffle around and if we get to add new positions, but I’m not going to count on it with this plan. If it does happen, I also don’t know what I’d do. It depresses me to build DnD characters I’ll never get to play, so that’s out. I’ll think about it.

The only thing that isn’t going to be annual is what I’ve been working on to build up a buffer. I’m getting inspired by Lord Mettlebright’s Man over on forthright’s blog, only I know I don’t want to do that with Sun’s Guard. That’s part of a bigger universe that could become a tangled mess if I let it. No, I’m going to do something with my swan maidens, especially to celebrate that Hurrocks Fardel is posting again, albeit it’s having to build up the backlog again and the creator has decided to redo the earlier pages so it all matches where it left off better.

So twice a week there will be a 100-word drabble posted featuring Eira and the swan maidens. There will be time skips, but so far the first 100 are set in Eira’s childhood, I think the next 100 will be her adolescence, etc. If something else happens that week, such as my update post or it’s time for summer reviews, then there will only be one drabble that week. Update days are probably going to line up with my work from home days, that just seems like it will be easiest.

Hopefully this new schedule will make sense and be something everyone can enjoy. I’ll see you either with an update on the anthology or the first swan maiden drabble, which ever happens first.

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May 17, 2020

News: Back from Quarantine and Book Signing!

By Rebecca M. Horner

Thank you all for being understanding as I dealt with my various levels of stress, anxiety, and the various fall outs lately (among them involving a lot of my hair going into a fast shed, it was awful). I did okay with the whole shutting myself up in the house part, I’ve been sick the least amount I’ve been in the last few years actually, so you know, small bonuses. Karu and Kari are loving me being home, less so that they are being switched to pure-adult food because it is time they got off the combo kitten/adult food. Once I got a Switch and Animal Crossing: New Horizon (yes, I am one of those people) to be a stress relief and calming mechanism, things leveled out.

Originally, I had a book signing scheduled for April which canceled for…obvious reasons. Thankfully, Full Circle Books offered those of us in April first-dibs at slot for the June New Ink signings, and I jumped on it. I will hopefully be there in June (with a mask!!!) if things don’t spike outrageously here in the metro. I have the box of Sun’s Guard: Ten copies ready and everything… Oh shoot. Dara still has my good pens. I will buy new pens, and then I’ll be ready, lol. I’ll post announcements on Twitter and details on the homepage once I get them, right now I don’t know anything besides…June.

Speaking of book signings though, I am available for those and school visits if anyone wants to drop me a line at rebeccamhorner@yahoo.com to discuss details in the future once Covid isn’t making everything a nightmare. I’ll post that in the FAQ section at some point along with those details. We might even try some virtual meet ups!

I’ve also started to work on an audio reading of Sun’s Guard: Ten, which got waylaid because my desk chair revolted after working from home started with my day job. (I had to sit on a pillow to avoid splinters while tracking down a replacement.) But I have a new chair, so I’ll use this weekend to catch up on that, start getting some recording going on, and then hopefully we’ll have that ready to come out this fall. I’m excited to do a full-cast reading, inspired by Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce because I am trash like that. And also theater trash, because I want all the characters to have different voices, drat it!

(I can’t get a braille copy going, but by golly, there will be an audio version going. Though if I spot typos in the original text, I might be updating the print copies to correct those because they may drive me nuts…)

Otherwise, I am poking away at a few projects. Right now my focus is on a fanfic that Ginny has outed me for writing on Twitter for Sly Cooper and getting an installment of that out, and then I’ll probably either work on the game or on Black Lark. Page is still on stand by, I believe I’ll start editing work in July…which means fixing my printer, joy. I also found the Ginny box! I need to pick a book and review it for you all, or watch a new movie instead of rewatching things. Sigh, that means making room for new characters. I think I’m still suffering from such high disappointment from Miraculous Ladybug turning sour after season one that it’s hard for me to make that leap again. But I’ll look!

In the meantime, I’ll see you all next weekend. Stay safe, stay inside if you can, and if you can’t, wear a mask and wash your hands.

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January 1, 2020

2019, Year in Review

By Rebecca M. Horner

It’s New Year’s Eve. Time to reflect on our struggles, our accomplishments, and celebrate that we’re still here, and what all we’re going to do in the coming year. So yes, I decided to be THAT level of extra and publish this post right at midnight, my time, about my feelings.

Ugh, what do I have to say about the start of 2019? I was coming off of a bad year, losing 75% of my pets. I was also in a horrible place because of drama within my medieval group coming to a head, stretched beyond measure between projects, and work was just not helping. Add in my health deciding to revolt, and there’s just no where to go but up.

(Ironic that I’m writing this while home with an upper respiratory virus, but you know, I digress.)

So how did it go? Well, I survived getting out from under my medieval fair group, which was a huge stress relief. To help process that stress relief, I started going through stuff in the house that summer, which…unbelievable helped and I’ll probably do it this summer too, get through all these tubs of stuff and shredding in the office. It just helped me organize my head space after that organization being a good eightyish percent of my life and social circle. I didn’t feel tired all the time, both physically and emotionally.

Which is about when Kari started having separation anxiety from being home alone without me or Tsuki…bad. Thankfully we caught the bald spots before she was completely down to the skin, but it still wasn’t good. So she went on meds, and I went on a kitten/young cat hunt, which is how we got Karu in our lives. I think he was more than just healing for Kari, he also helped me remember that yes, I do know how to be a responsible pet parent, it was just a whole lot of bad timing. Also, he’s the little ambassador of the house which means Kari can hide from people while he accepts their offerings of affection. He’s a joy in both of our lives.

The blog has gone up and down a lot, but I think I had to sit down and think about it. I don’t consume books or movies like I used to. Oh, I go to Marvel movies and Fast and the Furious franchise films and the occasional Disney movie, but I don’t go out nearly as much. I am fed up with a lot of anime and female characters in them. I don’t have time for tons of video games. I’ve talked about everything about RP as I can unless something new comes up.

Work has also eased up. I’m still keeping a look out for work more in the direction I want to be going or uses my skill set better, but I no longer feel like it’s me or this job. Really, I have to stick with the university or the state until my student loans are forgiven. They are just growing too fast for me to keep up with, and I know it’s what makes the most financial sense for me to do. It’ll give me a lot of freedom to sit back at 35 and go, “Okay, I forgave my loans, I’m a third of the way to paying off my mortgage, what do I want to do with the rest of my life?” Some of this is going to depend on where I am with my projects, but I like having a loose plan to play with.

Speaking of projects, I am so proud of what I’ve accomplished this year and yay, the rest of this gets to blab. Sun’s Guard Ten is out and did better than I expected upon release. (I had a low bar, lol, still do because it’s easier when there are three of a series to suggest purchase to Amazon.) I’m super excited to be getting this world started and available to you all. I also got Sun’s Guard: Page started, though it hit a couple hiccups. Note to self, don’t expect to write around the holidays anymore. But it is shaping up really well, and I like that I don’t have to introduce these characters again, but instead I get to delve more into my core group for this book.

I’m going to continue working with Johnny for the book covers, and I will stay on him a little bit more this year, starting next weekend. At least unlike a sword, the next cover is more up his wheelhouse, so it shouldn’t take as long. I felt bad about that, since swords are trickier than they look, but we managed to collaborate really well I think. I’ve done a little spot editing–mostly formatting and changing colors/fonts on the back cover to make it readable–but Ten shouldn’t be touched anymore and it’s going to be my template for when I get to Page. I have a timeline laid out and I know that it’s publication date is in October of 2020, specific day going to depend on art.

Other projects of this last year include Mystic Riders. Ginny and I have put a lot of time and effort into this project already, and I thought we were ready to start the blog, which was a lot more my baby. It was a bit of a give and take, and eventually we figured out that the game mechanic blog posts are hard to write when you weren’t the one who figured them out/understand them as deeply. I know a lot, but there are some elements in video games that I don’t where Ginny had more experience. In the end, it made a lot more sense for us to divide and conquer again. We have a good plan now that makes me confident that the blog part is only going to grow.

On the flip side, we’ve also started getting some artwork in, so we’re getting more that we can present to potential studios or computer programmers. Our tentative “business plan” is to finish getting some of this artwork, work towards me getting a computer that can run Unreal, and then we can get a demo built. After that, we’ll start option one, which is finding a production studio who will hire us for working on this game–it works a lot like querying a book. Most statistics I’ve seen don’t rate the odds of success on this very high, just because neither Ginny or I have ever marketed games before. (I’ve made one, but you know, it was for class so it doesn’t count.) The other option is to build a game company ourselves. I’m hoping when I’m 35 and out of debt, I’ll be brave enough to run with that idea. In the meantime, I have plotting, writing, mapping, and all sorts of other work to do.

I started a stand alone book, which I’m hoping I’ll put out sometime within the next couple of years, but I’m not rushing it at this point. Same for these short stories Ginny recently tweeted about. They are meant more to be my, “I don’t want to throw Caley out the window, what can I do instead?” works, less on a schedule. I do have a schedule of deadlines now to try and hold myself too, though I had to give myself an extension already on Page since I had a learning curve with the holidays, lol. Hopefully everything else stays on target into 2020.

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September 3, 2019

It’s heeeeeere!!!!! Sun’s Guard: Ten

By Rebecca M. Horner

I know I kept saying it was coming, and the artist got back to me over this weekend. As a result, I burned the midnight oil and got everything formatted and hit the button.

That’s right. Sun’s Guard: Ten is now available.

I’m going to be editing the part of my menu under My Project, basically getting everything regrouped and Sun’s Guard starting a separate universe page so the rest of the series and future books set in the same universe have a landing page. (I had a name for it at one point, and now I’ve forgotten it. Oh well. I’ll make up something.) That should be done if not just after this post, than tomorrow.

For now, I’m going to post the ad here that I made to be a pinned post on Twitter, and some price info. Reminder that Sun’s Guard: Ten is a clean read, YA, LGBTQA *emphasis on the A*, urban fantasy with unicorns. The pricing is $7.99 for a glossy paperback, and then $2.99 for an ebook, unless you also purchased the paperback. If you buy the paperback first/at the same time, you are supposed to get it at $0.99 instead.

Paperback

Ebook

(Linking should be done by the end of the week.)

Ad for Ten

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July 15, 2019

News: Kari the Anxious Heathen

By Rebecca M. Horner

So for those who are curious about why there are long stretches of me being gone (besides the usual illness that I seem to attract), well, the currently ruling queen of the household, Kari, has developed anxiety. The DumDum has been chewing her back claws and trying to yank them out, licked parts of her legs bald, and of course is her usual clingy self the rest of the time, only with a higher hunger and not sleeping enough. We’re not sure if me going on a trip aggravated it, or if this has just been steadily building to the current crescendo. The vet has put her on some anti-depressants (topical compound gel too, so less likely I’ll get bit), and they seem to be doing her a lot of good.

Now, part of what is possibly leading to her high anxiety is her being the only cat in the household. She went from her mama and siblings to me and Tsuki, but it’s been a year since we lost Tsuki. She may not be adjusting well to being alone a lot during the day. So, cue Operation Sibling. We had a couple of good candidates, but after review, I went with Charlie, who seemed the most laid-back and yet energetic, which is the combo I needed. They seemed to be working out…except Kari just goes and goes and goes like a demented Energizer Bunny who instigates the lashing out, and then is too rough. Charlie put up with her nonsense for a couple of days, and then enough was enough, and I took him back to his foster mom.

(Note: I am well aware that you are supposed to do the closed-door thing when introducing cats. However, Kari can’t be locked away from me with her anxiety, and Charlie was too social to be locked away from the only human to interact with, which may have been the problem and I need an independent, energetic yet mellow cat.)

Current plan is to put her on her meds for a full six months, then after her next check in at the vet and her calming down from that, we can take a look around again and see if there’s anything like what I’m needing in the right age range. Right now it’s currently kitten explosion, and I can’t go under six months old, so I kinda need to wait until those kittens have had a chance to grow up. (I was told six months to two years old, I took a risk with Charlie and never again.)

I haven’t been completely without work, however. Mystic Riders is plugging along, now with some maps and more spreadsheets. I’m also trying to get my notes organized and put in the right places for it, so when I go back to working on demo weeks I haven’t completely confused myself. In addition I am working on maps, of the camps and the topography of the districts as I write them. This means Amethyst needs a topography update (and oops, I need to finish Ruby, just remembered I didn’t do town placement), and Sphalerite needs both, but then I’m caught up.

Right now, besides the organizing of all my various folders, I am editing one of Ginny’s books so she can get it out to market. There’s a few fanfics in progress that kinda get rotated around, but I am working on a stand-alone book while I wait on cover art for Sun’s Guard, which I’ll touch on first. It will still hopefully be published in September, I am hoping to have cover art by the end of the month come hail or high water so I can start advertising it here, on Twitter, and possibly start an Instagram account for what little art/photography I do if anyone would be interested. Lots of Kari pictures, so you know, there’s that. Everything for MR though will be cropped to smithereens or watermarked from here to Sunday.

The stand alone was meant to be short and then exploded on me. It’s based on the princess in the tower trope mixed with Beauty and the Beast, plus… a lot of nonsense that I blame Tumblr, Ginny, and my DnD character Hekate for. It’s a hardcore romance in fantasy robes, edging towards NA more than YA but I think I can get away with it as YA still? Ah well. I’m pretty excited about it, and I’ve been slowly working on it. Right now it’s on pause for the data organization and then August is inevitably going to be eaten by Descendants-mania because the third movie comes out and I stole a fanfic idea from Ginny to work on in relation to keep me from screaming at the TV. September is probably going to go towards seeing if I can get prepped for Nano, but that won’t take the whole month, so I might come back to Lyall and Armelle then. (Yes, those are the main couple, I love their names as much as I love them, they are GREAT.)

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January 1, 2019

News: Self-Publishing and Mystic Riders!

By Rebecca M. Horner

Thought I’d give you all an update this week to start off the new year with my plans! Thus why the delay till the 1st. (And then this time next year I can wonder what happened, right? lol)

So first bit of exciting news: GinnyZero and I have launched a blog for our MMORPG! Mystic Riders MMO is our baby project, a non-combative P vs E RPG that we are approaching from a narrative-first direction. It is a game for girls, with lots of options for customization and story paths (okay, not Detroit: Become Human levels, but paths!) that is for horse lovers and adventurers who may or may not have secretly creative/girly sides…or not, the choice is literally yours. All you have to have is a love of horses and exploring an open world and ranging series of stories that will all make sense in the end. (I hope, I will have a lot of pans in that fire!)

We’ve gotten a large chunk of the story concept and mechanics figured out, so while we are in the middle of writing everything and getting an organized list what’s left that we can’t do on our own, we can be stirring up interest! Right now it’s just the blog, I’m hoping in the next couple of months to get us set up with a bank account so we can do a tip-jar sort of thing so if you all want to throw us five bucks here or there, we can commission concept art. There’s also a twitter, @MysticRidersMMO, that is retweeting all of the various game thoughts in one place (because that is required, jeebus), tweeting whenever the blog updates, and (yes, AND) will be participating in writer games once they get out of the holiday slush because…well, we keep learning new things about our characters while doing it, and isn’t it fun to learn that with us?

Unlike here, where it is basically me babbling at you once a week, there’s a little bit more going on over at Mystic Riders MMO because Ginny and I aren’t just writing for writers and readers, we’re appealing to players and developers and parents. (Apparently I have good instinct for informative carrot talks to parents…? Who knew?) So while my awkward self is providing blog posts on Saturdays, with editing and additions from Ginny, Ginny is posting on random Tuesdays with quotes, pictures of what is inspiring us, and maybe some links to music or videos as needed. We have lists and piles of inspiration stuff, we want you all to see it and get an image of what we want this game to be so hopefully we can convince others to help us make it a reality.

Another plan is for Sun’s Guard: Ten. I am out of people to query, and honestly, I’m rather annoyed at the whole agency view anyway. So I am withdrawing my last one (because lack of communication is my biggest pet peeve ever) tomorrow morning, because I’m taking the holiday at least halfway off. As for self-publishing, I have a coworker who has very generously volunteered to do my book covers, and he is honestly very good, I’m ecstatic to have him helping. If I can get his work back on my personal time track, what I will probably do is release Sun’s Guard: Ten on Amazon on either the rough-date I have the book taking place at, or on Caley’s birthday, whichever lines up best with his own schedule.

I really just need a week before the release to run it through spell check and reread for typo purposes again, as well as edit one section for questionable copyright purposes, and it is ready to go without someone giving me a concrete critique of the current draft. (And I have tried.) Once we’ve got the book cover done and I figure out how I want the summary to go, we should be in good standings. I am planning doing a digital release AND a printed release through Amazon…I’ll probably buy it and Ginny’s books to sit on my self at the same time, not gonna lie. Though lordy do the shelves need organized at some point this year… My twitter will be a few weeks of promoting the book, and then the blog will have a few writing posts that are as non-spoilery as possible (definitely for later books….questionable for the first book) about my process with Ten that I haven’t already talked about. Then it’ll return to normal until the next book, lol.

Speaking of next books, Ginny has given me a side project by accident via me getting a writer’s block on Caley’s next book, probably caused due to the stress of querying, so until I’m unstuck later and not drowning in getting other stuff for Mystic Riders set up so going back to my list of things to do for it, I am poking at a stand-alone book. My monsters-of-the-world book idea fell apart on me, showing that not all fanfic can make the leap to original pretty obviously, but this one is a lot more self contained. It might actually be pretty short, even for me, so more of a novella, but I am hoping to get it out to you all at some point too, because I’m pretty excited about it.

(Ginny says she can see one of my DnD characters and her current love interest in it, I am arguing back that there is only so much fluff the DM can give me before it gets awkward for both of us, this is how I get my fluff! And then there was digging for play-bys to use as my models, which was harder than I expected for my knight…)

So besides an MMORPG, Sun’s Guard: Ten, and possible future novella shenanigans, the blog is going to continue the same. I have a stack of new books to read, though I don’t think I’ll be reviewing all of them, I FOUND THE GINNY BOX by unpacking the closet so I have plenty of fodder that way though, and I have thoughts and feelings on several RPG characters to continue to talk about. It’s going to be a great year, if a busy one!

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