Blog redesign! -a blog update for September-

Ahh..... It's time to sip some pumpkin coffee and enjoy my hard work.

I just finished redesigning this blog to look... more like the imagery from my novel. I am a crazy visual person, and I feel like the creatures and characters in my novel are really what will sell it. Before, my blog was a colored-pencil sketch of an endlessly long whale, but that only emphasized a short scene from my novel. This, however, encompasses the feel of my world better. I have a huge Halloween-feel to my book, so jack-o'-lanterns, crows, and the skeletal rat bring the spirit of that season out. The kudanite, or that bluish-purple monster in the lower left corner, is a seahorse-inspired sentient being. I have my little clockwork robots marching across the top. The woman in the orange-pink is Rosalyn the Squid Lady. She's a poet, pirate, and the leader of a troupe of clowns. I spent like six hours coloring her in. I also made a new header logo!

All of the art on my site was hand-drawn by me, unless I've noted otherwise. Most of it is digitally enhanced or colored, but some of it is shaded with pencils. The words in the background are from an actual passage from The Unraveler.

Anyway, I mentioned pumpkin coffee. I need a refill. Haha! Let me tell you about Duncan Donuts Pumpkin Spiced coffee. It's a seasonal thing, and you can get it now until the winter. It's absolutely delicious. I suggest blending it with marshmallows and a good helping of milk.

So, writing this month has been really about expanding my online credentials. I have submitted short stories and poetry to five publications (and it was my first time submitting stuff!). I'll probably know by the end of this month if any of it has been selected. I've been working on a bunch of short stories and flash fiction, just to sharpen my skills. I've written everything from pure horror, to a western, to an Irish folklore tale this past month, and I hope to do more. Of course, all of this while still editing my novel. It's close to as edited as I can make it, but I have a few friends reading it. Maybe I'll get some feedback, since another of my friends have started a writing circle group. My friend Matt S. sent me insanely useful feedback that changed my book in major ways a while back. I'm still thankful for it.

My routine lately has been reading whatever Daily Science Fiction sends me and then visiting the author-of-the-day's website. I'm trying to research what other authors are doing to promote themselves, and how what they add to their websites to make them have that extra-uuph that puts it above the rest. That's why I've added new pages like "Extras" and "Reading suggestions" to my own site. I want people to come to my website and see how hard I'm working on all of this, how dedicated I am. I'm doing all of this while trying to figure out what I'm going to do next with myself (but that topic is for a different blog).

Anyway, tell me what you think of the redesign. If you see anything that looks out of place, let me know! And get some pumpkin coffee!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
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