When I was brainstorming Zen’s book, I knew I wanted him to be in a band with at least four other guys. But I had no idea what kind of band or what their name would be.
Fun fact: The band was originally named Dark Phoenix but then I realized that was the name of an X-men movie and I had to come up with something else. I used the shit out of the thesaurus and came up with the new name.
Read MoreZen was the very first character I ever came up with. I’ve talked a little bit about this before, but when I heard the song “The Hills” by The Weeknd, I really started to wonder what that lifestyle would look like. For my first foray into attempting to write my own book, I wanted to write something exciting. What better to start out with than rock stars?
Read MoreAs you probably know by now, Finding Zen was my first attempt at writing a book. It’ll always be my favorite story because of that, but when I was doing character development, I really had no idea what I was doing. I jumped into 12-page character questionnaires that were FAR more detailed than necessary.
Thankfully, I learned how to streamline the process and it’s not nearly as intense now as it used to be.
Read MoreThe Shadow Phoenix series was my first ever, and because of that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. My first version of the Zen cover I did myself and… it was okay. But, I didn’t know the first thing about designing a book cover.
Read MoreThis week, I spent most of my time revamping Finding Zen. The new version has been uploaded and is ready for you to check out! Keep reading to find out about why I felt the need to make the changes.
Read MoreWhen writing a story, I sometimes have to choose what to include in the final draft. I try to be careful about my planning so I don’t end up writing a bunch of extra stuff that gets cut, but it does still happen from time to time. This is one such scene.
Read MoreI do my best thinking in the shower. Yep, I said it. Not just a normal shower, though. I like to turn off all the lights and turn on Pandora and just let my mind wander in the dark. Sometimes I listen to the music, sometimes it’s just background noise while my mind wanders.
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