A.R. Hellbender's Blog

My work on Unicorn Revenge, the 2nd and final book in the duology, is complete, and it is now in the hands of the publisher. I actually just got the cover for it today, and I’m over the moon about how amazing it is. But don’t worry, you guys won’t have to wait too long.

If you need some more social distancing reads, I’ve found out about some great indie authors recently. I especially recommend Mary Fan (YA Science Fiction) and Jaycee Jarvis (adult fantasy romance).

And don’t forget, if you haven’t read Unicorn Hunting yet, the ebook is only $2.99 right now!

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Unicorn Revenge, the 2nd and final book in the Unicorn Hunting duology, is being written!

Your chance to win a signed copy of Unicorn Hunting is here!

In order to win, follow the link to rafflecopter. The giveaway ends on December 1st.

Enter the Giveaway!

RockabillyEquestrian on tumblr has made April #readselfpublished month, meaning that in April, participants can make it their goal to read self-published books.

Check out her post here: http://therockabillyequestrian.tumblr.com/post/139967813902/readselfpublished

I’m definitely planning to participate as well, because an indie author should be reading other people’s indie books.

Here are some self-published books I hear are awesome, that I plan to read during #readselfpublished (feel free to give me some recommendations as well, because I need more):

-Air Awakens: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23127048-air-awakens

-Curse of the Sphinx: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25905676-curse-of-the-sphinx

-Eve, the Awakening: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25523025

Here are some places where you can get Unicorn Hunting:

Ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Unicorn-Hunting-A-R-Hellbender/dp/1502968878

Print (free shipping!: http://www.bookdepository.com/Unicorn-Hunting/9781502968876

Happy reading!

It has always been a dream of mine to make a living off of writing books. Making a living as a writer in general isn’t too hard, but writing your own books full-time is something else.
But like most writers who have not yet written best-selling books, I get bogged down in other things and don’t write my books as often as I should.
But that’s the point of NaNoWriMo. To force yourself to write whether you have an idea for what comes next or not. To make the time for writing every day. Because in order to be a full-time writer of awesome books, you have to already be a full-time writer of awesome books, even if that’s not what pays your bills. 

As many of you know, I write for a site called Textbroker. After coming back from tour, I logged in to find that I could no longer click on the 4-star assignments. I had received no notification that my rating had been decreased to 3 stars, but that seems to be what happened. Now, I have significantly fewer articles to choose from, with much lower pay, and on practically no notice.

Thanks, Textbroker [/sarcasm]

I would talk about how unfair that is, seeing as the ratings of the assignments I complete are based on what the site thinks and not the clients, but here’s an article that sums it up nicely.

I panicked at first, upon seeing the change, but now I’m feeling ok about it. It may be my biggest source of income, but it’s not as if there aren’t other sites that do the same thing, even if they are a bit harder to get accepted into. If I can’t get this sorted out and get them to increase my rating again, I will have to find a different site to write for. Oh well.

I’d say something about my recent tour with The Shrike, that we just got back from the other day, but I think this vlog I did speaks for itself: 

My short story The “Last” Quagga won 3rd place in a historical fiction contest. Thank you so much to everyone who voted! I could not have won without you.

Read the story here.

Sequels are so hard to write. Unless you write it like just one crazily long book that you just had to split into parts.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the sequels I’m writing. I have two completed books whose sequels I’m working on now, and those sequels take place between one and three years after the end of the previous book (and no, there’s no getting around it. That much time has to have passed for the stories to work).

The most difficult thing about writing a sequel, as I am finding out, is the evolution of people’s relationships to each other, especially romantic ones.

Let’s say two people developed feelings for each other and even kissed in the first book, but they don’t officially end up as a couple by the end. But then at least a year passes in between books. What is their relationship going to be like? I have to just decide that they got together and are in love, basically. Because having their relationship still be undecided after a year in between that we don’t see just doesn’t make sense.

For another example, let’s say that two people never hooked up at all but the reader could tell they had feelings for each other, and then the book ends, and the second one starts 3 years later and those people have basically never been apart the whole time. Did they become a couple during this time that passed that we didn’t see, or are they just in limbo?

Good gods, sequels, stop being so difficult to write!

In theory, my upcoming steampunk Sleeping Beauty novella, now titled Machine Maladies, has very little work left to do on it. However, I’m going to be busy enough this month that I still won’t be able to get it done unless I really push myself.

There is a lot to do for that upcoming tour I’m going on with The Shrike, including practicing their songs every day and making sure I write enough articles for work right now that I won’t need to write any in the 3 days leading up to the tour (3 days is the maximum amount of time it takes for an article I write to be accepted, and I want to make sure I don’t leave for tour and suddenly have to uncomfortably use my phone to revise one all of a sudden).

And while I’m not practicing songs or writing articles, I just want to read some books, dammit! But hopefully by next week I will get back to Machine Maladies, because I really want to be 100% done with it by November. It has been put off long enough, and it’s so close to being done.