Hello everybody and thank you all for being patient while I try to get parts of my life together. The crazy thing is I am very busy but I kind of have nothing to show for it which I think is pretty much typical of any author. And since I also do graphic design for projects that won’t be out for a few months — if not over a year — I really can’t share or talk about what I’m working on. And about the time when I can, I usually have forgotten that I worked on it.

The holiday season is upon us with my most favorite holiday actually already have happened — Halloween — and for the first time in years, I actually have no one in the house but me and the cats so planning a large meal is kind of silly. Once I a get the medical issues under control, I have to do a serious thinking about if I’m going to remain in San Diego because there is no one here anymore or do I have to the cats and go elsewhere to be closer to family and friends.

Thing is, I am very much a Californian and the idea of living someplace with even a hint of red makes my skin crawl. And it’s not necessarily the people in the area but rather the governmental entities that have been voted into power as their representatives. And I know that the residents of the state or location are ultimately responsible for who they put into office but I also know that it is very easy to fall into a dogmatic-fueled mindset if that becomes your only source of information. Religion and politics both operate on information gathering and it is beneficial for either structure to be able to craft their message as the sole focal point that a person uses to make decisions on.

And I’m not going to fall into any long-winded discussion about politics and religion because when it’s all said and done, we pretty much all just need to stand out side and get right with ourselves before going in.

This is obviously going to be a very rambling post because I swear as soon as I started I get interrupted with texts and cats.

I am currently working on Saint and the biggest problem with writing his not throwing in everything. Because I am writing something more suspense oriented I am reading more urban fantasy. I never read in the genre that I am writing in because there is a potential for someone else’s voice and plot points influencing you as you write. Which is not good. I have noticed a tendency for some writers to toss in everything when writing urban fantasy. I mean I get it because there have been times when I was like oh I really want to add this to the story and it’s hard not to power up your characters like a three-year-old telling a joke but I think we all walk a fine line between being descriptive and over seasoning the book.

What I really enjoy about urban fantasy is not just the world building but also the supernatural constructs. How does the magic work? Has it always been there? Are we hiding it from the general populace or is it out in the open? A magic system isn’t something that you can make up on the fly… Well you can but that will come and bite you in the ass later.

There are so many possibilities but you also have to build in restraints and make sure that you have your own set of rules which you may or may not break later on the series. So like if you say nobody can magic up a grapefruit and then the main character pulls a grapefruit out of thin air, you either have fucked up your magic system or are you are using it as a harbinger of how powerful your main character is. It’s kind of the old adage of if you are going to put a gun on the mantelpiece and talk about it then you have to use it in some way later on.

So that’s pretty much what I have been thinking about lately. That and a nap.

On a final note, I am going to share a video by Hawai’i’s Pickle Lady. And it is making one of my favorite foods which we call manapua but other people know as char siu bao. This is one of the things I could eat until I’m sick.