So, about a year ago, I came upon a reddit post of someone criticizing this painting for romanticizing rape. And someone responded explaining that Hades & Persephone are basically #relationshipgoals for Greek gods, and that her abduction was part of her wedding ceremony, approved by Zeus. Also, rape and abduction are the same word in ancient Greek.

So poor Hades, who legally and appropriately married his wife, has gone down in history as a violent weirdo rapist. I also learned that Persephone is a true queen of the underworld. She shares equal power with her husband, and her name is associated with death. Not spring and summer and fluffy bunnies and everything else that I was taught from a children's book of Greek myths.

Persephone does not bring the spring and the harvest when she returns. That's her mom, Demeter, whose heartache is relieved. Persephone brings the winter and death when she happily goes back to her husband in the underworld.

Man, what a misinterpreted old myth! And then I learned a few personality traits of Hades. The number one thing that stuck out to me was an unbiased, merciless sense of justice.

Hades has no pity. He does what is fair and just. Always. To anybody. (Persephone chides him into taking mercy a few times, but these are rare exceptions made for his wife.)

He's also very protective and possessive of the underworld. Nobody had better fuck with his shit, basically. Zeus respects him.

He's also extremely rich and loves jewels and fine things. All the gemstones and precious minerals are his because they reside beneath the earth, in his domain.

He also makes the best wine. Better than Dionysus. In fact, in later versions of the myth, he and Dionysus start to blend together, kind of like he goes by a different name on the surface world.

That won't be the case in my tale. I've looked up 30 different versions of the tale and cherry picked the facts that I liked. Then I stitched them all together (multiple myths, beyond the abduction) to create a fun novel that I hope you guys will like.

Of course it's a gender bender. Hades & Seph. Because.... Hm.

Because.

I'm going for a sweet romance in a dark fantasy world kind of feel. Much, much different than the Pykh books. The perfect project for a little break! Though I won't be surprised if many of you say, "Gee, I love Pykh, but not this thing..." XD

That's okay! I'm writing this one for me! I truly became compelled to write it as I learned more and more about Hades and how interesting he is. Hopefully you guys will think so as well. I've only just started to write him, so I'm in that honeymoon phase where the novel is a world of possibilities. I hope I get something close to my vision.

Disclaimer: In the original myths, all the gods are related to each other.  Hera and Demeter are Zeus's sisters. For the sake of world creepiness and authenticity, I have kept this fact in the books. Hades is technically Seph's uncle. However, this is not incest taboo romance. Readers can figure out the funky family tree with a little logic, but it is NEVER referenced directly.

I hope you like Chapter One!

Thank you guys so much for supporting the Pykh books!! Thanks to your love, reviews, and sharing the books on social media, Tantor is interested in acquiring the audiobook rights to Pykh 3, and (hopefully) Joel Leslie will be doing a fabulous rendition of the characters very soon. Eeee, I’m so excited!

I have no idea when the audiobook will be released, but there is usually a 30 day preorder available on audible.com before it comes out. So we shall find out soon.

I have been reading some new books and going through the post-release phase of authordom. The day of uploading the book, and the day after, is literally the scariest moment of my life. And then, about five days after the launch, I'm relaxed and happy and catching up on household chores/visiting friends. And then about 10 days after the launch I’m antsy again, feeling incomplete without a new project to work on.

This time I didn’t even get to 10 days of taking a break. I’m working on something new already! Something really great, I hope, and more details shall follow soon. I haven’t started Pykh 4 yet, but I shall definitely be starting it this summer. August 1st is the absolute latest deadline I have set for starting the fourth book. This new project is a test of an outlining method I’m trying.

I’m attempting to create the stories better at the very start of the project and then work sequentially so that there’s less wasted words and trying things out. As you know from reading the back section of book 3, an unfortunate part of my process right now is trying the same scenes over and over, possibly from different perspectives, until I get it right.

I’m 100% down for getting it right with less effort. The problem is I never have my best idea before the story is written. 90% of my ideas come to me while I’m writing the text. So how am I supposed to create a chapter by chapter outline for things I don’t know are happening yet?

The method I’m trying is basically a bullet list of phases through the story, with ideas listed inside the phases as they come to me. So far this is working great. I’ve had a very prolific three days! :) But also, I suspect that could be because this story only has one POV (so far), I'm only at the very beginning, and I’ve been holding the story in my head since last summer. So it’s had a while to cook.

We shall see if this method works well when I hit the middle of the novel, when things usually slow down. And then if I do get the book out at the end of July / beginning of August, we shall see if the same method works for Human Omega.

I am hoping for good things, because I have ideas for a fifth and sixth Pykh book using new characters, but I also want to write other things and different ideas that I’ve had over the last year. Staying in one series world and one style of writing has been tiring for me. (Though I love Pykh & Friends very much.)

I have seen the complaints about the proofreading! Unfortunately, this book was enormous, and I am not a good proofreader. It takes me several passes to correct my own work, and each pass is about a chapter per hour. I’m a slow writer and a slow reader. :-(

Thankfully, the lovely and kind Htet Htet reached out to me and rescued many of you from about 300 or more mistakes. You may have to delete the e-book and re-download it on your Kindles. Hopefully that works. Amazon is reluctant and inconsistent with updating book files.

An incredibly generous person, Jennifer Smith, who does freelance editing, is also working on the book right now. She may even look over the other books if she has time!

Without going into personal details, I am unfortunately unable to afford editors for the foreseeable future.  There’s so much I could say about this but I won’t. Financial hardship, supporting others, and owing money all goes into it. Just know that I am aware of this fault and I am extremely grateful to these two! And I’m sure you guys are as well, lol.

Finally, quickly, I wanted to get your opinion on something. Block formatting vs. standard formatting.

My reasons for preferring block formatting are:

• I usually read on my phone.
• Most of the text out there that we read has block formatting. This blog, facebook, etc, is all block formatting.
• I believe that standard formatting was invented to reduce printing costs and was not created to making reading easier on anybody.

But which do you like? Does your preference change depending on whether you read a phone, tablet, or paperback?

I had a lot of fun writing this book! I hope you guys enjoy it. I'm a little worried, to be honest, because it's a really weird book. When I look at other romance titles, I don't see anything like anything that I wrote. So I'm not sure if the general audience is going to like it.

But I like it. And I'm really proud of it.

This book holds the largest cast of characters I've ever worked with in a single title. It's the longest single title I've ever published that isn't a collection of shorter books. And I'm really happy with how the climax to the series turns out.

There's a whole chunk of my life in this one. 143,000 words, plus another 9,000 of deleted scenes -- Amazon estimates the page count at 545! That should keep you guys fed for a couple days! I hope! (Don't read fast.)

I am trying to get more efficient at storytelling because I would like to publish more books each year. I'd be really happy if I could get two more titles out in 2019. But the year is almost halfway gone already. (So soon! Ack!) We shall see how my methods fare in the months ahead.

For now, I am tinkering on several projects and taking a short rest until the end of the month. I will post more about what I'm up to and hopefully some fun chapters of something in the coming weeks. :)

Sometimes you've just got to flip your big dumb alien onto his stomach and teach him a thing about masculinity.

It’s not how much you’ve got — it’s how you use it.

Finally, everything is going good for Carter. He's not a slave. He has a roof over his head. He's fixed his alien language translator and now can talk to Pykh and Siel, his protectors.
​
Thankfully, they aren't promiscuous alien hillbillies. They're loyal men who love him, and Carter loves them back. Our space marine is ready to settle into a new life on the fleaf'akhie planet and be happy.

But now there's another problem. On this planet… he's the girl?

And not just any girl, but a pale, delicate, exotic princess who must be bowed to, courted, and entertained with poems.

What's a tough space marine to do, being treated like this?
​
Setting them straight would be easy, and Carter does come clean to his hopeful fathers to-be, but now a golden-armored general brings a carriage to take him away to safety. Carter must play along with the princess act, or he and his new family may be turned away at the gates. 

I'm sorry to make you guys wait so long! So here's another In Progress report.

I'm writing the last chapters of the book! Not the last chapters, but it's looking like I have 12-ish left. They're approx 1.5k on average, so I'm definitely in the range of less than 20k to complete the book.

I am taking a lot of time with this ending, but that's because if you don't like the end to book 3, you're not going to like the series overall. Book 3 is basically the whole point of writing these. :)

I'm really happy with the chapters I'm completing right now, so while I'm not pleased with spending, what, 6+ months on a single story, I am very proud of this book. Juggling the perspectives, the number of characters, and the political elements has improved my skill as a writer, I think. I look forward to more complex stories and challenges like the Human Omega books have been for me.

I also look forward to having fewer viewpoint characters, lol.

Anyway! I'm confident the book finishes in two weeks or less. I do a lot of improvisation, so if I hit another twisty road I could be knocked back. But I write a little bit out of order and a lot of the ending chapters have already been completed. I'm hitting areas of paved road in front of me.

And then editing won't take longer than two weeks. I've been editing during the times that I'm stuck. Spending months on this draft has also improved the continuity of the story, so I won't have to rewrite chapters. I may delete some chapters, but I won't need to do book surgery, thank god.

Hang in there a little longer! I'm working on my process to avoid burnout and increase efficiency in the future.

Happy Easter!

No chapter this time :<