Guest Post: Alexandra Birr (Editor)

For people who are bored at their desks. If the hum drum of office life is getting to you, never fear—I’m here to help. 2 to 5 minutes of entertainment is at your fingertips!

What you need:

1 post-it note (cat dispenser is a bonus, but not required)

Step 1: Fold your post-it diagonally and unfold it, in both directions

Step 2: Begin to push two sides of your post-it inward, pinching them all the way to the center

Step 3: Flatten your post-it so that the two pinched sides are now folded in. Round the two acute corners of the triangle.

Step 4: fold two points of the triangle up to the center point

Step 5: Flip your post-it over, and fold the right-angle corner until it is slightly past the base of the triangle

Step 6: Fold the tip of the triangle down over the opposite side of the post-it

Step 7: Fold the post-it in half, with the tip from step 6 being creased on the inside. And ta-da! You have a butterfly!

Tada! Per the Character Art Poll, here is the finished piece on Navon! Omupied did an absolutely GORGEOUS job! <3 Are you excited to see where his journey takes him in Gods or Men? Normally I hate writing Navon's stuff, but his Gods or Men sections are as interesting for me as they are dark! ;)

Fun Navon fact:

Chocolate and wine (along with a good necromantic tome) would be his ideal way to spend the evening. (To which Jikun, of course, would say he's such a bore. XD)

Guest Post: Alexandra Birr (Editor)

Recently I wrote a post about why you should foster a kitten—but maybe you’re ready to take it a step further! Are you ready to ADOPT a kitten? What a wonderful decision! If you’ve got kittens on the mind, here are a couple pieces of advice to keep in mind before adopting.

1. Expose your kitty to many new experiences

In general, kittens are much braver than adult cats. I know it is our instinct to not want to scare the kittens, but exposing them to new experiences is a good thing! Don’t be afraid to run the vacuum, have people over frequently to meet the kittens, play loud music, etc. The more the cat becomes used to as a kitten, the less he’ll be afraid of as an adult.

This includes things like claw trimming and teeth brushing! Teeth brushing is important to your kitty’s health, and claw trimming is important to your sanity. :) Get your kitten used to you handling her paws and mouth, and then start the trimming and brushing early. Your furniture and her teeth will thank you later.

2. Kittens eat small, frequent meals

Instead of 2 meals a day like an adult cat, kittens eat 3-4 smaller meals per day. It’s a good idea now to help your kitten learn not to overeat. If you’re not home all day to give 3-4 meals per day, make sure to measure out how much your kitten should eat per day, and add that to their dish in the morning and evening. Do not simply fill the dish to the top, as this will get your kitty into the habit of free feeding.

3. Make sure you’re up to date on vaccines

Most vets will have a checklist of what vaccines your kitten needs, and when. Be sure to keep on top of that, as some vaccines are time-sensitive! (For example if your kitten received his first FVRCP vaccine early enough, he will need boosters every 3 weeks until 16 weeks old.)

4. Have a way to redirect “bad” behavior

One thing new cat owners worry about is if their new furry family member will scratch their furniture. Thankfully, for most cats this is easy to fix! With a kitten, you can begin early. Make sure you have a scratching post on hand. If you notice your kitten beginning to stretch his claws somewhere where he shouldn’t, immediately stop him and redirect him to the scratching post. (If your kitten doesn’t like the scratching post, you can try a different type. Some cats love cardboard, some love twine, some love fabric, etc. etc.)

There’s not much cuter than having a tiny kitten wrestling, biting, and playing with your hand and arm. At 2 lbs, it doesn’t hurt too badly! However, if you don’t want this same kitty to be biting and scratching your hand at 12 lbs, redirect this behavior early. Instead of playing with your hands, redirect your playful kitty to a toy. This will teach your kitten what is and is not okay to play with.

5. STRONGLY consider adopting a pair

This is the most important point I have to make, especially because you don’t always hear it before you adopt! I strongly, STRONGLY encourage you to adopt two kittens at once, especially if they already know each other or are siblings. It may seem counterintuitive, that two kittens would be more work than one, but the opposite is actually true. At 8-12 weeks, the age most kittens go up for adoption, cats are in the very important socialization stage, where they are learning what is acceptable “cat behavior.” With another kitten as a playmate, they will wrestle and play all day. When they wrestle, they give each other very important feedback about what is “too hard” or “not okay.”

Additionally, kittens are VERY playful! Their hunting and stalking instincts are running high, and everything to them is a toy….. especially your wiggly, moving, perfectly-at-eye-level feet! With a buddy, kittens will expend much of their crazy high energy with each other. They’ll keep each other very active and alert, and will save your feet and legs a good amount of pouncing and scratching. :)

Are you thinking about getting a kitten, or already have one? What’s your #1 question or advice?

Guest Post: Alexandra Birr (Editor)

It’s May, and we are well into the beginning of what rescue organizations have affectionately named “Kitten Season!” This is the time of the year when many stray cats are giving birth, causing rescue organizations to be flooded with requests to take in a pregnant mother, or an entire litter of new kittens. Many organizations are unable to keep up with the number of requests, and rely on the help of foster parents to take the kittens into their homes until they’re ready for their forever families. If you’ve never fostered an animal before, kittens are the perfect place to start!

1. Kitten fostering is a low time commitment

Many people may be wary of fostering because they worry that they will have a cat for a long time, with no end date. Perhaps they’re daunted as well by the idea of adopting a cat who will be their companion for many years to come! Not so, with kittens! Kittens, as is easy to imagine, get snapped up as soon as they’re available for adoption. Foster parents will usually keep the kittens until they are old enough that they’ve been fixed and have had their first round of shots. If your spring is rather uneventful, you can foster a pair of kittens during this busy season, and then likely have your home cat-free (or sadly cat-less! L) within a month or two.  

2. Kitten fostering is a low financial commitment

Owning a pet can become very costly. Food, supplies, vet check ups, illness, vaccinations… However with fosters, most rescue organizations will cover all the costs of your foster’s vet bills, and many will even buy food and litter if need be! What these organizations often lack the most is warm, loving home where the kittens can get the attention they need to grow into happy, healthy cats—that’s where you step in!

3. So small!

Perhaps you don’t have much extra room in your home, and a pair of adult cats might seem a bit cramped. Luckily for you—did you know? Kittens are very small! ;D They won’t be too confined, even in an apartment. To them, the chair legs are a jungle gym, the couch is a mountain, and the trash can is a vast canyon to root around in—er, wait, no, I didn’t mean that last one.

4. So cute!

Need I say this one? There is a reason why kittens get snatched up so quickly. Instead of fruitlessly attempting to do justice to just how cute these furry foster babies can be, here are some pictures of my (recently adopted!) foster kitties.

5. You can see how a cat will fit into your environment

Foster organizations have a term for when your foster cat somehow turns into your forever cat… “foster fail.” :) Perhaps you are actually already looking for a new addition to your family! Maybe you already have a cat and would like to see how a new kitty gets along with the older one, or you have kids and want to see if they’re up to the responsibility of owning a pet. A foster is a great way to see if the kitten is a good fit—and if it’s not, you’ve given it a loving home on its way to its forever home!

6. You’re saving a life

Fostering may not seem like a big deal, but to that one or two or three little kittens that you fostered, it’s the biggest deal in the world. Fostering saves the kitten from the streets, and from staying in a shelter where—at their young age—they are more liable to become ill. You also have the opportunity to properly socialize the kitten, so that he will grow up into a happy adult cat for the rest of his life!

If you have a little room in your home and a lot of room in your heart, consider fostering a kitten this season. If I haven’t convinced you, maybe Bert will. :)

Hey Soplings! I've been super, SUPER busy working on Gods or Men! It is going marvelously and I've begun progressing on Navon's PoV! So, in perfect timing, Omupied revealed this WIP to me! Just a few little tweaks and this baby will be finished!!

In my personal life, I've just begun introducing two lovely kittens we've named Romulus and Remus into our lives! We picked the boys up from the rescue last night and they are two of God's most precious little angels! Loving, playful, energetic, outgoing... Romulus spent an hour and a half this morning suckling on my earlobe. XD Stay tuned for more pictures and information about them, as well as some other artworks Omupied has sent me the last few weeks! 

For those who enjoy the Spoiler Series, here is a level three spoiler you must highlight to read:

SPOILER LEVEL 3: Navon so far has been 3 of my four chapters, with Jikun taking the other one. Tomorrow, I enter Jikun's PoV again!

As always, I look forward to our next chat! XOXO

Hey Soplings!

FIRST: I will warn you before I'm about to spoil something, so you can read onward without worrying I will suddenly scream THEN THEY ALL DIE or some such horror.

So here it is! The promised Spoiler Series! Today, I'm going to do a few spoilers from Gods or Men! As I mentioned before, I will label them with a number to let you know ahead of time how "big" a spoiler it is--I know some of you are cool with little spoilers and others are like, "DAMN IT JUST TELL ME!"

So without further ado, I'll do THREE spoilers today to demonstrate the levels!

1 = Not a big spoiler. This will not change what I think you should already know or alter anything you won't learn immediately in the next book.

2 = Mid-level spoiler (sometimes almost a 1, but never a 3). Offering new information about characters, plot, and what you might have been uncertain about in a previous book.

3 = This is geuine "spoiler" information. Like big point of view reveals or plot elements or other bigger content!

Hey Soplings!

First, I have decided to number these series update posts. I mean, instead of calling them all the exact same thing, now I can add a fancy number to the end and make it look like I'm making progress. I chose 20 because it looked like a nice, round number, not too small, not too big, and most importantly: believable.

Anywho, so I have a quick update for you on the progress of Gods or Men and the series as a whole! I've been extremely busy this month (April is one of the busiest months for me: Spring, birthdays, Easter, Anniversary, etc...!) so my blog/news posts have been nonexistant. But I wanted to drop in to let you guys know that while Gods or Men is progressing "slowly" it is going extremely well! (In fact, better than either Kings or Pawns or Heroes or Thieves were by this point!)

What I mean by that is that the characters are playing their roles well and obediently--no one is trying to revamp the entire story or running off right when I'm about to close their arc. That's a nice change.

I'm also going to start doing something special. I call it "The Spoiler Series." As you guys have noted by now, I say very little about what is ACTUALLY going on with my writing in order to avoid spoiling anything. In fact, I don't even talk about whose point of view I'm addressing for the sake of keeping you in the dark on who is even making it to the next book. Well, for those of you who are dying to know, I will now be creating a special post just for you! This post will reveal deeper details about the upcoming book and will have spoilers rated 1-3 (1 being a minor spoiler like perhaps whose point of view I'm working on and 3 being like a huge spoiler like... if I told you who was going to die.)

There is also an art update I sent out in last month's newsletter that I'm posting now for those of you not joining us through our email adventures!

TADA! Our first draft of Navon! Isn't it absolutely marvelous? Damn, Omupied is just the best character artist @_@! I can't wait to see where the picture goes from here!

So the other day I received a question from an amazing woman that inspired me to share my thoughts:

One thing that I really admired about SOP is that you have a depth of plot. Important characters that come out as the story progresses and different threads of story that interweave throughout the bigger picture. My question is: How?

 As many of you know, I did a series on the Five Keys of World-building a few weeks back, but I think this question is unique in that it asks: once you have all those keys, how do you weave them in to the big picture?

World Building Key 1: History and the Present

World Building Key 2: Linguistics 1

World Building Key 2: Linguistics 2

World Building Key 3: Landscape

World Building Key 4: Diversity

World Building Key 5: Balancing Realism with Magic

And I think the short and sweet answer is: by dropping random details and thoughts EVERYWHERE. See, everything you write has its own history. Everything.

When you think about it like that, yes, it is massively over-whelming (no author has time to write the history of every single minor character, passing food cart, coin exchanging hands, worn boot, leather sack, and sleepless night)—but it pays to note and randomly choose here and there those that do have relevance.

Now, this does NOT mean that particular coin or fruit merchant are relevant at this very moment or EVEN this very book. The point is that you have planted a seed.

Perhaps throughout your book you grow that seed by dropping some other tiny detail about it or passing comment. Then one day (or one book, as it goes) BAM, that little seed is a massive tree.

Imagine yourself with a sack of seeds: start planting them into the story RIGHT NOW.

In fact, some things you might not even have a purpose for yet, but the more seeds you plant, the more trees you’ll have for later. Planting/growing that seed creates far more dimension in the world than plopping down trees whenever you need them.

If you would like a very detailed example on how I do this and just how massive a tree this little seed can build, you can click HERE.

THIS is what gives your world the illusion of realism and infinite depth: threading the mundane in with the great—weaving them together so seamlessly that the reader can no longer tell what is “great” and what is “mundane” (because even the smallest details reveal themselves to have relevance later.)

Then soon, the world seems as complex and infinite as our own.

Hello my fantabulous Soplings!

I've been slaving away at Gods or Men for the last week with extra vigor in hopes of closing the gap between now and its completion. Things have been going marvelously (our editor, Alexandra, had been at my figurative side all week). I still can't throw you a release date, but can tell you that this book is huge and thus--even as wonderfully as things are going--we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

In the meantime, however, Navon, having won the character art poll with 36% of the vote, is having his character art done!

AND, as a special treat, Ilsevel and Sellemar (in second and third) are also having their art done! :D

Woooo!

Now, I leave you with this amazing, beautiful, bilingual book blogger (who loves Jikun and Navon)! She held an awesome series of funny, amusing, and insightful character interviews with them back during the Kings or Pawns book tour! If you missed them, you can find them here!

Jikun
Navon
Jikun & Navon together

The Crater City Comix Grand Opening was an amazing day! (Thank you guys so much for coming out! :D) What a cool store in the Middlesboro Mall! And the staff- absolutely the best! Xoxo Met lots of new fans, shared our love of the art, and hung out with a phenomenal crowd! Here are a few of our photos from the day!

You can find more photos here!

Hey Soplings! The month of January was a pretty great one for trying new books, movies, and tv shows and I have the best of the best to share with you from my experience!

A Fortunate Review of Unfortunate Events 5/5 [Dark Comedy, TV series] Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events This screen adaption of "Lemony Snicket's" A Series of Unfortunate Events (found on Netflix) is absolutely deserving of the rave reviews that have been pouring in. The actual author of the books (Daniel Handler) created the sceenplay of this brilliant edition. The Scenery: Magnificent--often blending bright colors with dreary situations. The Story: Wonderfully quirky and extreme and strange--yet effectively delivered by an amazing cast. The Characters: Unique. Strong. As I said, an AMAZING cast!

We'll do this again in March! Yay!

Hey Soplings! Boy do I have something amazing to share with you today! As you know, I have a huge love for entreprenuers and the indie world, especially in the entertainment business--there so many brilliant people exist who strive to give us a new thing to brighten our day, obsesss over, cry, laugh, hurl against the wall... But they just don't have the money of big corporations to make their phenomenal visions a reality. That's where we come in--joining together to make something amazing come true!

Consider skipping that Starbucks for just today and support a wonderful indie! xoxoxo

Hello Soplings!

We have a surprise signing for 2017! This will be my only signing this Spring (due to hard work on Gods or Men) and your chance to win a signed, pre-released Gods or Men!

Book Signing:

WHAT: GRAND OPENING of Crater City Comix! I will be in cosplay, signing books. Available Steps of Power products for purchase: books, art (prints and canvas), bookmarks

WHEN: 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM, Friday, February 17th, at the grand opening of Crater City Comix (located in the Middlesboro Mall).

WHERE:
Middlesboro Mall
905 N 12th St # 1,
Middlesboro, KY 40965

COSPLAY: Hell yes. It's happening! I will be in the five-time award-winning cosplay, Eldaeus, from Heroes or Thieves! (And yes, we can totally grab some selfies together ;D)

OTHER: The amazing young-adult urban fantasy author, Lydia Sherrer, will be there signing copies of her books, too! If you haven't seen her stuff yet, you are MISSING OUT!! A must read!