Book Delayed Again: New Release June 26th

I am so, so sorry.

I’m very aware that maybe only about 10 or so people are actually A) aware this book exists and B) that I’ve even been writing a book, but I can’t release “The Queens of Ravenwood” just yet.

In this current climate, I’m part of this Black Lives Matter movement as a supporter. I’m using so many different platforms to try and promote information about a Black Lives Matter peaceful march happening in Tokyo tomorrow.

It feels wrong to try and promote a book right now.

On top of that, as I’ve been re-reading and editing my own book, I realized that I had chance to go back and write in some important elements that it was lacking from these first three drafts. I let the panic of COVID19 force me into a deadline, with the terrifying thought of, “I could be dead in two weeks and have never published a book!”

However, in rushing to get it done, I think I missed some important parts that would really round out my narrative. If I had my own editor and agent, they probably could’ve told me the same thing a while back, but since it’s just me at home with an editor I paid to proofread (his name is Nicholas by the way, he’s a great guy) this first book is a huge learning process.

Now, I’m delaying the book again and I know, it’s dumb, and it’s the worst thing for a first time author with virtually no audience to do. I’m aware it makes people lose interest and makes me look bad.

Still, I think June 26th is a better date for a variety of reasons. It’s the day the USA finally got marriage equality, so it fits with a lesbian main character getting married to a fae wife because [spoilers]. Also, it’s my birthday! I can’t think of a better way to get my own party started than by publishing a book.

I promise by the moon and stars, this is the FINAL RELEASE DATE! I will not be changing it. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

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Oh yeah, I Did A New Years Vlog, Oops

Legit forgot to share the video, whoops! Anyways, in this video I just talk about my goals and dreams for 2019. Enjoy!

Launching a Patreon Page! Yay!

Firstly, much love to everyone who stayed on the poetry series with me. It was a labor of love, and I’m glad to receive love for my work in return. It’s just awesome!

And so, it’s been suggested by a few friends here and there to go for a poetry book. Having no funds for such a venture, I decided it is time to get a Patreon page.

I haven’t set up monthly goals yet, but I essentially want to make exclusive content for the Patreon givers such as previews of the book that I won’t show here on the blog.

I also want to get back on the YouTube content making horse, putting up more tourist friendly things on Patreon with more day-to-day vlogs here on the site.

Basically, I have a thousand ideas, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m going for it anyways. I want to do more, like way more, but without a little support here and there I just can’t do it.

So if you’d like to support my poetry or my blogs or vlogs, head on over to the Patreon page. I’d appreciate even a dollar or two! It’s taking my work one step closer to getting out there!

Love you all, thank you!

The Japan Poetry Series

I’ve been itching to get a bit creative for quite a while. Specifically, I’ve wanted to craft poetry about Japan, but kept talking myself out of it. Poetry and I work well together in private, in scribbles on notebooks on the way to work, with a few selective moments here and there to share with friends. Putting poetry out there for the world to see scares me more than a little bit.

But I want to attempt something small to work my way up to something big. See, I have wanted to be a novelist since I was eleven years old. Hell, I even wrote a massively terrible romance novella when I was in seventh grade. After all these years, it’s finally time to get the finished things published and out there.

Still, I keep getting these haunting voices from past English teachers that I need “more” all the time. More editing, better vocabulary, more humor! In middle school and high school, I never really felt supported by my teachers with my creative endeavors. I was actually accused of not taking my work seriously, which hurt and once again made me really not want to show my work. I was never an English class darling, even though I adored all my English classes.

Funny thing is, I can’t NOT write. I just keep doing it anyway, all the time. I have hundreds of notebooks just sitting around with half-formed ideas and plot lines. In university, I met a lot of like minded people, other English majors who were similar in their drive for writing. I managed to publish some poetry and get my work recognized, but then I moved to Japan.

Even here, I still write all the time! I just get so nervous about sharing it. I’m a terrible critic of my own works. However, I know if I want to achieve my goal I can’t just keep waffling. This series is basically a compromise on my nerves and on trying to achieve my long term goals.

For now, I’m limiting myself to a poem a day for only seven days. I might make poetry a regular occurrence maybe on a specific day if I find I enjoy it, but if not then I’ll just have this one series. Also, if you all enjoy it then I might be more inclined to keep going. If it’s not well received, then I suppose lesson learned.

The first work will follow shortly after this post. I hope you enjoy it and my work!

 

Changing Things

I’m getting into the rhythm of this new stage in my life.

Well, I’ve got a job and a new apartment, so it’s all slowly coming together anyways. Unlike when I worked at my previous job as a high school teacher, the odds of overtime for this eikaiwa job will be few and far between. In other words, I have no excuses to not devote the time I need to my goals.

The high school job allowed me to make great friends with great co-workers, but it didn’t allow for much time for myself. Looking back, I let myself get really sucked into the Japanese way of working. I went to work on Saturdays when requested, I worked during holiday times when requested, I stayed after school late often for English Club, all because I enjoyed what I was doing. I felt really connected with the teachers and the students, and was fulfilled in many job satisfaction aspects.

But at the same time, I realized that in the three years I worked there, I didn’t publish nearly enough stuff. I actually started several new hobbies. Comedy shows, YouTube, performance shows, volunteering with Stonewall Japan, it all added up. At the same time, those hobbies weren’t my passion. I kept crunching time to do this activity and this other activity, but I didn’t make enough time for writing.

I was also Stonewall Japan’s Vice President for a year, which was a wonderful if challenging experience. I learned a lot, gained much needed experience in team building and project management, but it was essentially a volunteer part time job. So many aspects of the national leadership role demanded time and attention, which in turn meant devoting less attention to what I wanted to do.

I decided for myself the best thing to do would be to step down from such a major role. Instead, I will be Kanto East Block Leader for the next year, which will be a significantly less responsibility than Vice President. I will still be a part of Stonewall’s plans for pride events and such, but I won’t be planning meetings, attending leadership meetings, vetting out new people, checking in on National Newsletters, etc.

What am I gonna do with all this free(er) time? I’m going to write more.

I want to make more content for this site and other sites I have. I want to write more freelance articles and get my name out there. I want to start self-publishing these novels just sitting in my hard drive and waiting to be pushed into the world. I want to really focus in on the love I always had for writing, but never devoted enough time to it to make it the thing I do for a living.

It will be a process, it will take effort, but I want to make it happen.

I’m the kind of person who always has pens, notebooks, or other stationary items on hand just in case an idea pops into my head. I will write scribbles of novel ideas into agendas, tell myself “one day,” but then the one day never comes. I’m tired of always dreaming about it or talking about it but never getting it done.

It’s time to change that, it’s time to just quit kidding myself. I’m not superwoman, and I can’t do every single thing I enjoy as well as give myself time to write. I have to straighten out my priorities into the way that’ll get me to where I want to go. To be sure, I’ll continue to do my hobbies. Specifically, the comedy shows and YouTube will keep being regular occurrences, but I won’t be running off to this event or that one all the time anymore.

One of the goals I have will be doing daily posts. They might be short or long, but they will be up here. I hope that the daily posts won’t be too annoying for people following me, but I need this exercise to keep me actively writing.

Change can be daunting, but the one is for the best.

Happy New Year!

Yep, I’m late to the party for that little salutations, but that’s how life goes don’t it? I took a much longer break than I intended, ended up having a really good time with friends old and new. I went to Christmas and New Year’s parties, I did comedy shows, I did a lot of various things.

Now as the new year begins, I find myself tied up in knots. It’s hiring season here in Japan, and I’m trying to get hired. I’m worried with only a couple months left that I might not find something, because I’m that person, the one everyone else expects will land on their feet just fine. Meanwhile, I’m nearly always certain I’m about to be a big failure.

And so, I work hard and I apply myself. I’ve posted resumes, I’m even working on a Japanese one at the moment, but it’s tough. There are always people out there with more experience, more education, or more connections than me. Not to mention, of course, many of those same people probably passed the JLPT long before I ever tried. It’s all I’m thinking about as I type, type, type away from this job site to the other.

However, I do still hope 2018 will bring good things. No matter what, I want to stay in Japan, in a country that I love and I consider home. I don’t have any plans to leave anytime soon. I do want to move, so hopefully I can procure a profession of some variety and then get somewhere closer to where the majority of my friends live.

So that’s my two resolutions I suppose: Get a job and move!

I’ll be letting you all know if and when I get around to accomplishing either of those. While you’re waiting, I’ve got a video for you to see! It’s catching everyone up on what I’ve been doing in more detail. I basically just talked the cheat sheet version, but if you’re interested, take a look and enjoy!

Happy New Year! | First Vlog of 2017

Alrighty, I’m back! Sort of. I’ve been without Internet access at my home for some time, but I’m going to restart the blog from here on out. My 2017 resolution is to get out a blog every week. Even if it’s just something short and sweet, I’m forcing myself to take this thing a little more seriously.

In this vid, I talk about some Japanese New Year traditions and what I did for New Years. I hope you like it. Please like and subscribe! I appreciate your support.

 

Bringing the Old Posts to the New

Someone has informed me that I should integrate my old blog with this new one, and then I got an idea.

I’m going to start on a series called “Flashbacks.” Basically, what I intend to do is pick and choose the highlights from my old blog and bring them over here. What I’ll also do is add on new information I gained in the following years of living in Japan, and also maybe throw in a few journal entries that I wrote from that timeframe.

Why am I going to bring the old to the new? Well, for many reasons, but for one the old blog is getting a bunch of spam bots and spam comments every other week, and I don’t want to keep going back and filtering through them. At the same time, there are a lot of posts that are near and dear to my heart that I don’t want to see erased.

And then, I want to find a way to make money off of blogging in the (far and distant) future, or freelancing or both. In order to do that, I would need to buy this site/domain, and I really only want to focus on one and not multiple accounts. I would ideally prefer it if traffic flowed to this one so that people would come here to help me make ad revenue (once again, in the future, not currently).

I think it’ll be something like “Flashback Friday,” which is probably already a thing somewhere but hopefully it’s not trademarked or whatever yet. Anyway, closely follwing this post I’m going to do my first flashback, so I hope you all enjoy!