Rissa Renae

Author of Teen Paranormal Fiction

Tag: Updates (Page 1 of 2)

New Book release news

June 6, 2024 /

… or why a write-a-book-in-a-month challenge isn’t necessarily a good challenge.

Welp, it’s been a while, I know. I wish I could say I’ve been furiously writing, but alas, I have not. In all honesty, the pandemic threw a wrench into my writing. I’ve been trying to re-establish my writing habit, but it’s been hard.

A collection of rejected proofs on my shelf. Photo: Rissa Renae.

That being said, I am happy to report that I am close to publishing my 5th novel! If you’re waiting for the final book in The Rose Cross Academy series, well, sorry, you’ll have to wait a few months longer! My pandemic project, however, is in the final steps of self-publishing. After which I will be working to complete the final novel in the RCA series.

My newest novel, The Gamemasters, is a LitRPG / GameLit sci-fi novel. The high-level premise is gamers beta testing a cutting-edge virtual reality game become stuck in the game. As the game’s storyline kicks off, the game itself starts killing players. As players try to stay alive, they turn on each other. I see this as Lord of the Flies in a virtual reality setting.

The cover I have concocted is a paint-over of an AI-generated artwork. The cover depicts one of the dungeon bosses the players must defeat in the game. I mean, who doesn’t get the heebie-jeebies at seeing a two-story hairy spider?

A screengrab of my Photoshop doc, work in progress! Photo: Rissa Renae.

I started this novel for a certain month-long writing challenge in 2020 (I’m leaving it unnamed since there is some controversy surrounding the entity at the moment) during the pandemic. I managed to get through the month and came out with a 60,000K novel, but after the stress of writing thousands of words every night for a month, I needed a break. Even after the writing break, I found it hard to get back into writing. Just thinking about writing, and sometimes even opening a document sparked a wave of panic.

I had to take a long break. A really long break. What I think happened was that I turned writing—which until November 2020 was a fun escape—into a high-stress project that I had to do no matter what.

Literal Word vomit (from a font encoding error) on my Gamemasters file. Photo: Rissa Renae.

I started to hate writing. Near the end of November 2020, I was already dreading opening a document and writing again. This hobby was no longer fun. Now it was a chore, right up there with cleaning the bathroom. I wrote because I had to, not because I wanted to.

During my ‘break’, I shifted my focus away from writing. I got back into table-top card games. In the 90’s, I used to play Magic: The Gathering with my high school friends. That’s probably hinting at my age right there! I had found my old (and I do mean old) deck from the 90’s and decided to get back into collecting the cards. Now, 10,000+ cards later, I was finally able to open my works in progress and work on them without getting panic attacks.

A collection of my excess Magic: The Gathering cards. Photo: Rissa Renae.

For 2022 to now, I worked on both the final book in The Rose Cross Academy series, as well as polishing up The Gamemasters. At the beginning of June 2024, I had finished two rounds of self-editing of the manuscript, as well as an AI check of the document. I wavered a few times on whether to split this novel into two parts (it comes in at a juicy 158,000 words), but in the end, I thought “Ah, screw it! I’m self-publishing. This novel can be as long as I want it to be!”)

I did briefly think about submitting the novel to a few agents, but there are very few sci-fi agents accepting queries, and even fewer who will take a sci-fi that is not spaceships and alien planets.

Speaking of alien planets… The May 10, 2024 solar storm. Photo: Rissa Renae.

Today, I uploaded the cover and contents to KDP, and have requested a proof copy. Likely, I’ll get the proof within a few days. I was planning on taking the novel on vacation with me and doing an edit while on the plane, but we’ll see where the world takes me. I still have the copyright to finish before publishing, so I still have some busy work to do.

Oh! And I need to update the website. Geesh. I haven’t done that in ages. I hope I still remember my HTML!

As a side note, I have been dabbing in an epic fantasy, the title still unknown (although I have a couple of thoughts). I like the idea M. Night Shyamalan presented in The Village and I am trying to work in a twist like that into this novel, but also keep the setting high fantasy with mythical creatures and magic.

Now as the weather warms and the summer flowers come out I hope to get back into a habit of writing. It doesn’t have to be daily. I think that’s what got me into trouble in the first place. If I can do something creative every day, not just with writing, I think I can get myself back into a good groove.

Yellow roses resting on a fence. Photo: Rissa Renae.

Don’t forget to get outside and enjoy the world. And drink lots of water!

Until next time.

-Rissa

Meet Our Newest Family Members

March 21, 2024 /

Shortly before we moved house (and moved provinces), our dear Boo passed away. She was with us for ten years and warmed our house in Calgary, warmed our laps on those cold winter days, and warmed our hearts with her inability to properly meow.

Me & the Boo. (photo: Rissa Renae)

I think the loss of Boo affected Mochi the most. Although they weren’t the best of friends, Boo was a companion and kept Mochi company. Throw in a pandemic move to another province and nine months in a tiny apartment, Mochi needed a friend.

Be it ever so tiny, it was home for nine months. (photo: Rissa Renae)

Enter: the local SPCA and two adorable furballs. Ramen and Udon (as named by the foster mum, so the names just stuck) caught our eyes and captured our hearts. Not much is known about them other than that they’re part of a bigger litter.

Udon front & centre, with “big” brother Ramen in the background (photo: Rissa Renae)

Ramen is the bigger cat and has a white stripe down his nose. As cats go, he’s normal on the surface. However, he seems to either get lost often, or he can’t find his brother, and he’ll start howling. It’s awesome at 3AM, and by awesome I mean annoying af.

Ramen takes over Mochi’s bed. (photo: Rissa Renae)

Then there’s Udon. My suspicion is he was the last kitten born, and perhaps had a bit of a difficult birth. He’s small compared to his brother, and he’s . . . well . . . let’s just say he’s special.

He sleeps sitting up, he tries to fight his own reflection, patio doors are magical barriers that he constantly runs into, and bathroom rugs are the most amazing playtoys. Not to mention no toes are safe in his presence. Also awesome at 3AM.

Udon is . . . ‘special’. (photo: Rissa Renae)

Ramen cuddles, Udon doesn’t. Ramen hates kisses, Udon gives kitty kisses like they’re going out of style. Ramen doesn’t like Mochi, but Udon sees Mochi as his best friend. The two couldn’t be more different.

They may be weird but they sure are cute. (photo: Rissa Renae)

The house somehow feels complete now–three humans, three furbabies.

Here’s to the next ten years, and hopefully more, of a house full of hair, toys, and lots of love.

Getting back into the (writing) swing of things

July 11, 2022 /

June was stressful.

The end.

There’s only so much upheaval, change, and spur-of-the-moment this Gold, chaotic-good, INTJ-Architect can handle before she blows her top. And said top t’was blown.

It took me about two weeks to settle in mentally to the new house. It wasn’t the constant beep-beep-beep of construction vehicles, nor the endless boxes, or the equally endless bear sightings that did me in. Nope. It was the fact that I couldn’t (and still can’t) find my UV nail polish.

Well #$%^! How am I supposed to get home now? (photo: author)

I know, right? Even I think it sounds silly to blame my mental health on nail polish. But here we are.

A sample of my nail polish collection. (photo: author)

A long time ago, in a province far, far away, I discovered that the key to wicking away my anxiety was to focus on doing my nails.

Again, I know, right? Anxiety is weird that way.

Not being able to sit down and focus on the one thing I knew could keep my anxiety at bay made me even more anxious. I won’t bore you with the details, but as mentioned earlier, it took me almost two weeks to settle in once we moved summer of 2021.

Truer words have never been spoken. . . or written in chalk. (photo: author)

Once the ‘settle in’ took hold, the writing bug came back. You see, I typically thrive off my daydreaming and imagination to figure out plot points, character development, and world-building. However, mundane tasks such as cleaning or organizing produced nothing during those two weeks. Like, a literal black hole. Even at night when I’d try to dream, I’d be able to focus for a minute or two, then… nothing. It was so frustrating. I wanted to write but I couldn’t.

I knew what was getting in the way, so out of desperation, I went online and bought some nail polish. It took two days to arrive, but once I did, I sat down, did my thing, and came back with a fresh manicure. It mani-cured what blocked my writing.

You don’t actually want to see a picture of my nails, do you? (photo: author)

Here I sit, shaking my head. My mental health is all in my head, and I know what, but what’s even worse, is that my brain is more stubborn than I am. Who knew. Paint nails equals creative block lifted.

Camp NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, and what better way to firm up that writing need with a goal to meet. I tend to work best when there’s a goal to hit, rather than just sitting at my computer and pounding away at the keys like some deranged woodpecker until a story comes out. Although I don’t plan to work on a single novel, I do plan to crank out another 50,000 words to make up for writing almost nothing for June.

The urge to write is once again coming out of hiding. The ideas are flowing. Between the boxes and the mess, I’m carving out my writing time and creating a few new habits and routines. Being in my own place and having my own space definitely put a cramp in my writing style. I look forward to pounding away at the keyboard again!

Until next time,

  • Rissa

Cherry Blossoms and NaNo Prep

March 28, 2022 /

April is Camp NaNoWriMo time.

Here in the Lower Mainland, it’s also cherry blossom time.

Sakura trees line a small park in Burnaby (Photo: Author)

If I were to tell you that self-publishing my 4th novel, Blood & Water, book #4 in my Rose Cross Academy series, was a slog, it would be an understatement. Although enormous self-publishing success stories can give us indie authors hope, the process is unnecessarily complicated, riddled with pitfalls, and stacked against us smaller indie authors.

Amazon and KDP. I’m looking at you.

But that’s for another post.

This post is all about prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo under the canopy of sakura that’s currently covering my new home-city.

If you’re unfamiliar with either NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) or Camp NaNo, think of it as an online community for indie writers and those looking to publish their first or next novel. NaNo offers a place to connect with fellow writers, discover local or online writing communities, and find the motivation you need to write and grow your novels and writing habits.

Fallen cherry blossoms on a brick sidewalk. (Photo: Author)

Camp NaNo is a less structured and more open version of NaNoWriMo. Think of Camp as a place for you to set your own goals and work towards them at your own pace without the stress of meeting a daily word count goal.

I use Camp NaNo as another tool in my motivational toolbox, aside from my Discord groups (which I discovered during NaNoWriMo 2021), and my Zoom group.

For April, I’m aiming to flesh out a gaslamp/low-steampunk fantasy I’m just calling “Four Crows” right now. For this story, I have a beginning, middle, and end figured out, but I haven’t decided if this will be a stand-alone or a series yet.

Morning raindrops clinging to blossoms. (Photo: Author)

Now, I’m a pantser, 100%. Sure, I can create a novel plan, but heck if I can stick with it. I’ve tried. Oh, I’ve tried to stick to an outline. The writing comes out forced, boring, and reads like I’m just going through the motions of moving characters through a story line. My pantsing brain knows that Character A needs to escape City A, hide in the forest, then travel to City B, but if I have to constrain myself to the how’s and why’s of that journey, my writing and my creativity suffers.

That being said, when I say I’m ‘prepping’ for Camp NaNo, what I mean is that I’m developing a writing strategy similar to that which I’d follow during November’s NaNoWriMo. I have a list of scenes I’d like to write in order to connect parts I’ve already written. I don’t always know how those scenes will go, but this is part of my creative process.

The tools I use may seem very rudimentary for prepping–my writing notebook and several coloured pens. I have notes on ideas, what scenes need to be written, bullet points of what I think should happen, and a list of transitions between scenes I need to figure out. During Camp NaNo, I’ll go through my notebook and check off items as they grab my interest.

A typical page in my novel notebook, blurred since all my projects are listed. (Photo: Author)

As for my other projects, I mentioned earlier I managed to self-publish my 4th novel, after much hair pulling and spew-age of expletives. That’s one book down of two I plan to publish this year! For the remainder of this year, I’m thinking three projects will be occupying my writing time.

Project #1 – This is the second book I’m planning to publish, and it is tickling the 200K word mark. Ouch. The complete manuscript is about 85% done, and I may end up splitting this book into Part 1 and Part 2, then publishing them with months of each other. I’m still going to count this as a single release since this is a single, yet massive, story. And as per my brain (since I can’t seem to write in stand-alone novel mode), I’ve already written a good amount of a sequel to this novel.

This will be in the LitRPG genre as it follows a group of people stranded inside a virtual reality RPG game after the virtual reality gear suffers a failure. Think of this as the world of online RPG’s meets Battle Royale or The Hunger Games.

Project #2 – I’ve briefly mentioned my gaslamp/low-steampunk fantasy. This is my focus for April and Camp NaNo. This story follows a young girl navigating an 1800’s-esque North America after a war over magic tore it apart. Magic has always been commonplace here. As the industrial revolution looms and people begin relying more on technology instead of magic, war breaks out. Technology and innovationare wiped out along with books and the world’s knowledge.

I’m planning some interesting villains for this novel/series–one which we’ll kinda be able to figure out early on. This antagonist will suffer a nearly fatal injury early on in the novel, but recover in time to start laying waste to the world. The other villain will be a “slow burn” villain, meaning they’ll start out as a protagonist, then as things happen to them throughout the story, will start turning evil. This character in particular has been fun to write!

The frog guardian of Cherry Blossom Garden, Burnaby. (Photo: Author)

Project #3 – Other than finishing my current YA series, The Rose Cross Academy, I’ve been shying away from YA as I haven’t been liking where the genre has been going in recent years. Many of the novel’s I’ve thumbed through rely on the same tired and unhealthy tropes, all the while still romanticizing toxic relationships, especially when it comes to female main characters. I’ve had an idea for a YA novel in the back of my mind, but have left it on the side due to the above reasons.

I am fascinated by the paranormal, so this will be another novel where ghosts and demons provide the underlying conflict. This will be an end-of-days type of novel leaning heavily on the ideas of the Biblical Apocalypse. Since I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and gobbled up anything manga studio CLAMP put out, I’ve always had a Tokyo Babylon/X1999 tale rolling around in my head–two factions facing off over the fate of humanity: one that thinks humanity is too far gone and must be purged from the Earth, and one that thinks humanity may still have hope.

I plan to be busy this year, and I’ve already kept my fingers moving quite briskly. If Brandon Sanderson can produce four extra novels in a couple years while still cranking out best seller after best seller, I think I can at least make a sizeable dent in my “creative debt” of novel ideals.

We’ll see where the months take me!

Take care, everyone.

-Rissa

I wrote a chapter a week in Feb. Here’s what happened.

March 4, 2022 /

Well, if you’re thinking the TL;DR of this post is that writing a chapter a week all month produced four chapters, well, you’d be half-right.

One of my New Years Resolutions was to work every day, in some fashion, on one or more of my writing projects. That includes everything from pounding out 10,000 words a day, to simply opening a wiki file and reading through my notes. I find that if I do something as simple as read back what I wrote previously (something older than a week), that this triggers my creativity and I’m able to write more than I set out to.

Wild crocuses blooming by the tennis court

In February, I set aside an hour in the evening every day to do “something” writing related. While all through January, the “Do Something Everyday” exercise produced good results, I thought if I could up my game to at least a brand new chapter every week, I’d be able to start a healthier writing habit than just writing something random every day.

In my January experiment, I found that I COULD NOT…

  • Write to a To-Do list (e.g. Finish Chapter 7, Write Chapter 10), and
  • Keep to a schedule of social media posts (blog, Twitter, etc)

… but I found that I COULD

  • Keep a running list of scenes or transitions to write, and then pick-and-choose what I wanted to write,
  • Write nearly full chapters if I allowed myself to bullet-point slower points (scenes or transitions), and
  • Use my wiki to inspire scenes or transitions.
What blog post would be complete without my goodest girl, Mochi!

So for February, I threw out what didn’t work for me, and added one more goal:

Finish one chapter a week.

That chapter could be for any writing project (I currently have four on the go. I know, bad author!). The chapter did not have to be perfect. The prose did not have to be publish-worthy. As long as said chapter was all words and no bullet points, I would consider that chapter “finished” in terms of rough draft-land.

February came to an end, and I had finished the aforementioned 4 chapters. But something pretty cool also happened. On the side as I completed a chapter and still had the writing bug in me, I continued to write. I managed to final-draft one whole novel, final-draft Part 1 of a 2nd novel, I came up with an idea for a 3rd novel (maybe/maybe not it will be a series… cuz I love my series’), and put a good dent in my high fantasy series.

A walk along the seawall in Stanley Park, downtown Vancouver

As for word count, I didn’t really blow any of my old records out of the water. I’d say I was writing NaNoWriMo-level word counts every day.

Round about the time I was writing this post, one of my favourite authors, Brandon Sanderson, announced his next Kickstarter–because somehow he found time to write four “extra” novels (aside from the million-other novels he wrote)–and pretty much broke the internet when it comes to the self-publishing sphere. I think as authors, we all strive to be as prolific as authors such as Sanderson, Koontz, and King who can crank out multiple novels in a year. It’s impressive when one of these prolific authors pops up one day and goes “Hey guys, guess what I did?” Needless to say, several of us are very jealous.

I think that also lit a bit of a fire under my bum as well. I’ve mentioned before I was hoping to make a “big leap” from self-publishing one novel a year to a whole TWO NOVELS A YEAR, but now I’m wondering if I can step up a little more. (High fantasy series, I’m looking at you!)

A view off the edge of the world from Grouse Mountain, Vancouver

Now it’s March and I’m heading into the month with a new passion, a new determination, and a hotter flame under my bum. Formatting the eBook for my next release is slowly sucking the life out of me (seriously, who thought it would take this LONG!), and I’m acquiring ISBN numbers like Pokemon. The keyboard is calling me, and the muses are coming out of their winter hiding. This spring is looking promising.

I know some say it’s not necessarily a good thing to have multiple projects on the go, but my brain doesn’t think linearly, nor does it think in-universe. So, we’ll see what I can crank out for March. At least another 5 chapters. Hopefully all in the same novel.

Until next time!

– Rissa

COVID-19 and New Year’s Resolutions

January 16, 2022 /

I’m late to the game on the whole New Year’s Resolutions thing, but I have a good excuse. With this most recent variant, the probability of catching the virus went up a substantial amount. Going by numbers in my city, it appears to be about a 20%-25% jump.

But more on that in a minute.

Story Time

For Christmas, we packed our bags, put the puppers up with a boarder, and hopped a flight (with a couple lay-overs) to Houston. Now that we’re east coasters, there are no direct flights, so we still have to transit through Calgary. It seems we still can’t escape that city!

Good ‘ol Calgary Airport

With our pre-flight COVID-19 negative tests secured, we took the plunge. Christmas Eve was spent cooking and wrapping last minute gifts. Christmas Day was spent with my not-so-little little bro & his family, tearing into gifts, eating way too much food, and polishing off several bottles of champagne. This was a Christmas we have missed for two years. Thanks, ‘rona.

All was going well, until one morning I woke up with a scratch in my throat and a cough. I thought nothing of it. Our pre-flight tests were all negative, and we hadn’t been anywhere other than my parents house after arriving.

The day came to take our COVID tests in order to get back to Canada. And who should test positive? Me! Long-story-short, I had to stay back for a week (with a wicked stuffy nose) before being able to come home. You might think that was a perfect time to write, but when you’re suddenly away from your family, it’s super stressful. So, very littler writing was had.

D’oh!

Luckily about 10 days later, my PCR came back negative, and I rescheduled my flight home. I’ve been home for a week now, being a good little girl and sticking close to home unless I need to walk Mochi. It took me a few days to calm down and catch up to the fact that I was actually home before I could start writing again.

From the plane – Mt. Rainier, an active volcano in Washington state.

What I did for 2021

This year, I’m going to do things a bit differently. For 2021, I tried to stick to the mantra “Write Every Day.” Long-story-short, I couldn’t stick to that for more than a few weeks at a time. My anxiety would flare up to the point where thinking about opening a document to write triggered panic attacks.

My goals changed at the beginning quarter of the year to hit an easy target: 5,000 words a week. That seemed to work pretty well, and there were weeks where I blew my target out of the water.

NaNoWriMo rolled around and I told myself to commit. Write every day in November, even if it’s junk, even if it’s gibberish. Just write. I didn’t have to stick to a single project, I could write whatever the heck I wanted.

And it worked! I slammed back NaNo in about 20 days. As December started, I was able to keep the momentum going. I think I had found my magic bullet.

Resolutions for 2022

This year, starting in February, I’m aiming for 10,000 words a week. That’s only 2,000 words a day for 5 of the 7 days. At my writing speed (or word vomit speed) I can crank out 2,000 words in about an hour. That’s not a big commitment at all. This is me writing while the evening news runs in the background.

Here’s a random nature photo. r/FairytaleAsFu*k is quaking.

I am also going to try to keep a separate writing journal aside from my bullet journal. I’m able to stick to my bullet journal, but the contents are all over the place. I’m going to separate writing completely, and leave my bullet journal for day-to-day and personal goals only.

And that works out perfectly. For Christmas, my journaling-writer mum got me one of her favourite planner notebooks to try out. It’s called the Go Girl Planner , available also on Amazon. It’s built with three sections: Month-at-a-glance, week-at-a-glance, and free-form bullet journaling for jotting down ideas, maps, and anything else that comes about.

My Go Girl classic horizontal weekly planner I got for Christmas.

I set up my month-at-a-glance for now with things that are happening through the month. Come February, I will shift to only writing-related items, such as social media, targets for self-edits, and planning out timelines for my writing projects. More on that in another post.

My week-at-a-glance will be used to record and track specific goals that week. For instance, now that I’ve finished the first draft of my fourth novel in the Rose Cross Academy series, I need to self-edit the manuscript before sending it to my editor for her to chop to pieces. I will see if giving myself a goal every day or every other day to self-edit a chapter will help me through the process, or if I need less structured goals such as ‘self-edit 10 chapters this week.’

Writing Goals for 2022

  • As mentioned, I’ve finished the rough draft of my fourth book. By March/April, I want to have this book edited and ready for publishing.
  • Book #5 in my Rose Cross Academy series will need some work. I have a framework, I know the beginning, middle, and end, and I’ve written about 30%-40% of the novel. I’d like to work on this novel with the most focus.
  • I’d like to get my publishing schedule up to at least two books a year, instead of one.
My laptop keyboard, rainbow mode.
  • I have (what I thought was) a just-for-fun WIP that has grown into a monstrous novel nearing 150K words (code name GM). I think this novel has potential, and I’d like to clean it up and send it out for beta reading. Part One of this novel is complete and self-edited. Part two is 75-80% done. Whether I split the manuscript into two is still up for debate. This work deviates from my previous YA novels and comes in as New Adult LitRPG.
  • And finally, I have my 2021 brainstorm-turned-novel-series-idea I’m calling “Four Crows”. This is becoming New Adult as well—a pistol-and-petticoat Steampunk fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic late 1800’s North America. The premise is right before the 1890’s industrial revolution of North America, an apocalypse occurs which wipes out a chunk of the population, destroys emerging technology (such as the motor vehicle and industrial machinery), and replaces it with a watered-down form of magic. One hundred years later, as society has recovered and is gearing up for a second industrial revolution, events leading to the original apocalypse are rearing their ugly heads again.

To Wrap It Up . . .

I plan on 2022 being busy with ideas and finalizing drafts. Two of my projects are close to publishing, so I’m well on way to hitting my two-novel-a-year plan. And since loose daily writing goals worked well for me in the latter half of 2021, I’ll be experimenting on what goals I can set for myself that don’t feel like work. Life is stressful enough, I don’t want my writing to become one of them.

Sunrise touching the Coast Mountains.

As spring peaks over the mountains here on the east coast, I have high hopes and good spirits heading into the year. It’s a bit disappointing that COVID gobbled up half of January, but I have a whole year to make up for it.

How are your New Year’s goals looking? If you have them planned out, are you sticking to them?

Everyone take care!

– Rissa

Autumn on the West Coast

October 27, 2021 /

As you may know from a previous post, we packed up the family in July and moved from the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains to settle in the foothills of the North Shore Mountain range–aka the greater Vancouver area.

We expected many things to be different after moving from prairie country, and I personally have been most excited to welcome fall. The Alberta prairies are dry, and whether that contributes to the limited diversity of the boreal forest, I’m not sure. All I know is that autumn in Alberta is yellow due to the trembling aspen and poplar trees.

Trembling aspen in the fall.

However here in Vancouver, we have a wider variety of trees and a wider colour palette for fall. The variety of maple trees lend bright reds and oranges, and there are even sherbet coloured trees of which I have yet to learn the names.

No idea what these trees are but they look like orange sherbet.

To break it down, the colours on this side of the mountains are gorgeous!

Daily walkies with Mochi take us through a rainbow of foliage.

Adventures to go grocery shopping or to visit stores offer up bright colours.

A burst of red on a residential street.

It’s just so “not Alberta” over here, from getting more daylight in the fall months to weeks of endless rain and mist. The sun is definitely a rarity on the west coast.

Our existing family here warned us that fall and winter were wet and rainy, and we are experiencing that. The river is running high and swift in time for salmon spawning season. That’s our next “local” attraction to check out.

A sign posted by a river where salmon spawn.

And, I dunno… I still haven’t seen a bear, but I’m not too disappointed aboutthat.

As always, fall means Halloween in Canada (our Thanksgiving is also in October, but is quickly trumped by all the ghosts and ghoulies). With Halloween right around the corner, that means a few things for me.

First off, next month is NaNoWriMo. This will be my 11th year in a row participating… 11 years! In those years, I’ve published 3 novels and have another 3 in the waiting room . This year I hope to add a book #4 to the waiting room by completing the first book in a fantasy series I’ve been actually planning and not pantsing.

This aptly named bigleaf maple leaf is bigger than my head!

And secondly, while I’m pounding away at that 50,000 word goal, I’d like the 4th book in my Rose Cross Academy series to be visiting with my editor to get polished up for self publishing early next year.

Aaaaand third-ly, if you’re a big epic fantasy nerd like me, you’ll know November 19th is when the first three episodes of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series comes out on Amazon Prime. I’ve got my popcorn, my angreal, and my Black Ajah shawl all ready for the occasion!

November will be busy, but it’s a good kind of busy. I’m also curious to see how the seasons play out on this side of the Rockies. By Halloween, Calgary would already have had snow falling for a couple weeks. Halloween costumes are typically worn over snow suits or multiple layers. This year in Vancouver, we’re expecting a balmy +13 (about 55F), just warm enough to keep the snow suits and thermals at bay.

New Westminster Quay in autumn.

And thus the countdown begins. Four more days to go until November!

Is anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What are your plans for that month-long session of keyboard pounding? Good luck on all your endeavours and I hope to see you soon!

– Rissa.

A Change of Scenery – Moving

September 25, 2021 /

I think we can mostly agree that COVID-19 has changed the landscape of the modern workplace. Whether that be office work, service work, or health and safety, where we work has changed. For me, the biggest change was going from working eight-to-five in an office to working eightish-to-sometime-in-the-evening hours from home.

For about thirteen months starting in 2020, Real Life Rissa (that’s me!) worked from home at an I.T. job in the Alberta environmental services sector. During these thirteen months, I went through various hardships, from dealing with a bloom in my anxiety, to struggling with immigration to the U.S. for my family, and the death of a family pet.

At least my home office had a great backdrop!

Then my husband’s company was acquired, and his job situation went into flux.

Then my company was acquired, and my job situation went into flux.

Then the capitol riots happened in Washington, D.C.

Over the span of a few months, our emotions went from “What are we going to do?” to “Okay, we better do something fast!”

The only good thing about lockdown was the daily walks.

Low-and-behold, the hubs settled into a new job with a real estate company that wanted him to work out of their Vancouver office in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Now, if you know me, you’ll know my family and Vancouver go way back. Naturally we jumped at the opportunity to relocate from the prairies to the west coast.

We sold all but one property in Alberta to afford the move to the Vancouver area. It’s frickin’ expensive to live on the west coast, but we squeaked into a new development in Coquitlam, one of the tri-cities of metro Vancouver. We secured a deposit on a temporary rental until construction on our townhouse complex could be completed.

We had the best view from the breakfast nook year-round.

Now, we knew well beforehand that we’d be moving from an estate home just under 3,000 sq-ft to a cozy little 900 sq-ft apartment for the next nine months of our lives. A sacrifice we were all willing to make to live in one of our dream destinations. And sacrifice we did.

About a month into moving plans, we lost our Boo. She had been battling untreatable kidney problems for years, and they all came to the inevitable end in June. I got to hold my Boo for one last time before the vet sent her off to that big scratching post in the sky one sunny afternoon.

She will forever be my favourite co-author.

So it seemed losing my country view and awesome writing space was suddenly no big deal. I had to believe we would make new memories in Coquitlam, we’d inherit a new view, and we’d adopt another cat.

At the end of July once all the frustrations of selling multiple properties finally worked out, we packed up the SUV (and boy did we pack the SUV) and hit the road.

Just enough room for 3 yahoo’s and a Shiba.

After battling through the height of fire season in BC and Alberta, three days later, we rolled in to our rental in Coquitlam and got a serious dose of reality.

A travelapse of our move to BC

We thought we had donated or sold enough of our belongings to downsize into our apartment, but three storage units and one crowded living space later, we came to realize just how much stuff we really owned. Fifteen years of accumulation . . .

It’s like one of those hidden objects game. Can you find the Shiba?

We’ve been here for about 2 months now and have settled in (not to mention organized a bit). Now that the relocation is complete, I’m hoping to dive back into my writing.

Although my main concern should be publishing The Rose Cross Academy book #4, I’ve had a sudden creative streak that’s put my time towards yet another WIP. That’s three I have going, now. And each one demands a different corner of my already crowded brain. I prefer to write whatever’s in my head so I don’t loose any ideas, but I’m also a year behind on my 4th Book. COVID certainly didn’t help with that.

With NaNoWriMo fast approaching, I’m counting on that being the kick in the pants I need. I want to get my 4th book off to my editor before November so I can focus on NaNo. 2020 was the first year I didn’t complete the month-long writing challenge, so this will be a redemption year for me!

Alrighty. So now that I’ve dusted off the ol’ blog, it’s time to get back to some writing!

I hope the last year has treated you well. Stay healthy everyone!

  • Rissa

Go Home 2020, You’re Drunk

December 18, 2020 /

Well.

Here we are.

The end of 2020.

Let’s see. We had horrible murder hornets, horrible fires in Australia, horrible police shootings, horrible explosions, and presidents acting like horrible children.

Oh yeah, and that coronavirus thing.

With 2020 coming to a close (thankfully), I’ would like to hope I can look back on 2020 and say I’ve accomplished much. Well, you know what they say about hope, right?

In Canada, we were put into lockdown in March. Overnight, my “office job” became my “couch job”. That’s okay, though. I’m used to computer-ing on the couch. After all, this is where I’ve written and published my first three novels. Going off the fact Shakespeare wrote some of his best works while in quarantine during the bubonic plague, I thought I should at least be able to get my fourth novel out the door. Right?

Right??

Me and my workspace (aka, my couch)

Well, here it is December. I literally have not been into my office in nine months, and I’m not joking. My corner of Canada has been in strict lockdown to the point where we can be fined or even sent to jail for having a Christmas party. (Again. No joke). I leave my house for essentials only, because if crowds gave me the willies before COVID, they are a frickin’ hive of pestilence and disease now! Amazon has become my shopping destination of choice, food delivery apps keep the family from eating each other, and walking the dog is like a get-out-of-jail-free card.

I’ve been stuck at home for nine f’ing months, and what have I written?

Ten virtual cookies if you know this meme!

Well, I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Given the state of the world, my anxiety has been through the roof. Although the dreaded panic attacks have been few, and the ocular migraines have been even fewer, I have developed mild claustrophobia. There have been those heart-pounding times where I’ve gotta get the crap outta the house or I’ll suffocate. Thankfully Mochi loves extra walkies. And I think she also knows when I’m having my moments because she gets super cuddly. We’ll snuggle on the couch and watch Netflix until I calm down. Of course, now she’s so used to getting pets and cuddles while I’m working, she thinks she can have them whenever she wants. So, we’re still learning.

Why work when you can pet me?

I have managed to start a new series—a fantasy series I’m planning on crafting into a multi-book epic fantasy set in a world that underwent an industrial revolution, promptly started a war, then lost all that revolutionary knowledge. The kicker is everyone can use magic in some form or another. Crafting that world has kept me busy. I’d say this is steampunk The Wheel of Time meets Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire.

My “trapped in a video game” novel has also received some love over the endless months of lockdown. I’m thinking of splitting it into two books . . . more of a “Video Game Novel, Part I” and “Video Game Novel, Part II” sort of deal, since the point where the manuscript breaks into the next novel by no means makes a cohesive story, nor does it allow the first “book” to tie up any plot threads. The manuscript is creeping up on 300K words. Seeing what my 120K YA novel looked like coming out of KDP, a novel at 300K would not only be a door stop, but a ridiculous doorstop at that. I got this idea from SAO and Alice in Borderland manga’s (Netflix has a live action adaptation of Alice, so you should go watch it RIGHT NOW!) Same premise as both: players are stuck in a game while the game is trying to kill them.

I’m a purist, so you get the Japanese trailer. Ha!

And the third novel I’m working on outside of my published series . . . well, how do I explain this one? I got the idea from a music video, of all things, and in all truth, the music video has nothing to do with the novel. I’d describe this idea as Pacific Rim meets Mad Max. (Like I said, nothing to do with the video… which bee-tee-dubs is NCT 127’s Superhuman). There’s the “giant robots” element of Pacific Rim, the post-apocalyptic collapse of society elements of Mad Max, and they’re all tied together by, who else, the United States military.

Yeah, work those welder’s gloves, Haechan!

I have, of course, been working on my 4th novel like a good little writer. The cover design is coming along, and the story itself is 75% written. About 50% of that has been self-edited, and primed and pretty for my editor to utterly destroy.

All the pieces I need are here. The real hurdle is finding the motivation. Lately it’s not so much a question of me just sitting down and writing, it’s more a question of wanting to write. Some days, I look at the file names and throw an adult temper tantrum because I just don’t want to write! The good thing is, tho, when I do manage to sit down an write, I pump out 10K-20K in a day. I go into ‘go away, leave me alone, I’m writing’ mode. Now I just need to figure out how to get more of the motivations and less of the temper tantrums.

With the holidays fast approaching, I think I’ll ask Santa for a streak of creativity and perhaps a strong cup of coffee. I hope that’s not asking too much of the jolly ol’ man. After all, there will be no milk and cookies to be had, at least in Canada. Sharing food is now taboo even though COVID isn’t a food-borne illness.

Until next time, keep bundled safely in your homes and keep your “social distance”. After all, people are scary when it’s NOT a pandemic. Or maybe that’s just my anti-social-ness talking.

Happy Holidays!

– Rissa

When Life Gives you Dead Leaves . . .

October 1, 2018 /

Geesh. It’s been ages since my last blog post! Since my last check-in, our brutally-hot summer has changed into an unusually cold and rainy autumn. Granted autumn is my favourite season, but I can’t help but feel we’ve been cheated out of summer. Well, maybe it was just me who was cheated.

Autumn, how can I stay mad at you?

A bout of rather nasty warm-weather pneumonia at the end of June rewarded me with a fractured rib. That took away most of my summer activities: hiking, camping, and general out-and-about-ness. Three months later I’m still tender and unable to do much more than my weekly walk to the corner store for Doritos.

My Real Life Job in the oil & gas industry has become exciting. We acquired another company, went public, and are in the process of replacing everything in existence in our business. Lots of fun, lots of work, and lots of long hours.

Leaving not many hours for writing.

Then, as if I already didn’t have enough to do, we got a dog. Meet Mochi, our red sesame Shiba Inu. One look at her little face was enough to melt this stone heart and forget the fact that, not only did I have troubles finding time to write, I also had to find time to take care of her.

Having an 8-week old puppy in the house is a lot like having another child. We fuss over her when she’s awake, bend over backwards for potty training, then tip-toe around when she’s napping so we can have a few minutes of peace. So far my obsessive hovering abilities have kept her from chewing the house apart and using Boo’s cat post as a toilet. Perhaps one day my two fur babies will make friends, but for now the Boo is content to just glare at Mochi from a safe distance.

… always.

I mentioned my weekly walks before. It’s something I’m trying to stick with. No phone (other than to hatch Pokemon eggs, lol!), no music. Just me and my over-active imagination. The walks help to keep me moving and active, and they also give me a chance to think through my writing. On my walks, I’ve figured out character backstories, schemed-up plot twists, and found ways to link scenes together.

One thing I’ve realized is when life dumps dead leaves on you, you make a big-ass pile and hop in! I took my pneumonia as a chance to get to know my writing again. I took my fractured rib as a chance to find low-impact exercise that will keep my body moving. I took the hectic work life as a chance to refine my leadership and organizational skills. So far, I’m still in one piece and kicking this year’s butt.

Although I don’t see Real Life settling down any time soon, this is nothing I can’t handle. And with autumn bathing my countryside back yard in colour, I’m finding it easier to deal with the things life throws at me. My anxiety has been quiet for a few months. My last psychedelic head-trip (aka ocular migraine) was over six months ago. I’ve been watching my diet in hopes to keeps those attacks at bay.

In the world of writing, Book #4 in my Rose Cross Academy series is still truckin’ along. I have a few scenes to hammer out and link to the rest of the story line. The story is written, beginning to end, it just needs a little TLC. I’m almost done the cover too!

Book #4 cover … under construction!

With NaNoWriMo coming up, I already have my project for November in mind and I’m actually planning things out. Lately I’ve been reading fantasy novels, which are a deviation from young adult, paranormal, and horror novels. In reading fantasy, I’ve thought up my own novel and I’m going to use that for November. The story will follow a young girl who is the only non-magical member of her magical village. In my world, magic is the norm and not the exception, but to the ho-hum extent—lighting fires for cooking, growing seeds into plants, filling a glass of water. The great magic died out hundreds of years ago during a war that attempted to expunge the higher magics from the world. That great magic hides in books throughout the world, and she’s determined to find all these magic books.

So as I sit in my messy corner of the couch in which I have penned three novels and am working on about a billion more, I watch the first flakes of winter meander by my window. Really, I’m making it sound more ethereal than it actually is. In reality, I’m cold, I want a cup of coffee, and the smell of burning dust from the first furnace run of the season is making me sneeze.

Yes. Winter is coming.

And there’s a puppy chewing on my toes.

Whatcha lookin’ at?

Welp, nothing for it. Time to get back to writing. And I’ve gotta get this puppy to stop using me as a human chew toy.

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