Monsters, News, and... a Debut?

Oh man, I'm not even going to ask where the time went because I don't think I want to know the answer. A lot has happened in the two(ish) months since I went on hiatus. I hope that you all have been staying healthy and the likes.

But anyway I'm back.

Of a sorts.

I'm maybe kind of still on hiatus? I don't know. Not sure if I'm ever going to find a blogging schedule that fits for me but maybe I'm just bad with schedules in general.

BUT with all of that said and aside and stuff.... I sort of have some big news. Big big news, y'all, I've been holding out on you so brace yourselves XD Today is the last day of Camp NaNo and I have arrived a little late to discuss my project but here I am all the same.

(Images via Pinterest)

BARN

If you are thinking, oh man, she started a new project then you are partially correct. Kinda sort of mostly but not quite there, correct.

Because you see, I'm jumping genres with this project. As can probably be deduced from the above collage, it isn't a fantasy. It isn't even young adult.

That's right, that's the big news. I am writing an adult horror comedy.

Well... that's 50% of the big news anyway.

The other 50% being that Nicki Chapelway is a YA author and that isn't changing. My adult novels are going to be under the name of N.L. Chapelway.

And there you have it, the big news. I'm writing under a new pen name. Surprise!

(from Pinterest)

Don't worry, my adult novels are still going to be just as clean as my YA titles, just with adult characters. Which can I say is pretty freaky deaky weird (note to self: write a blog post about the differences I have found between writing a YA and an adult novel).

But anyway, I'm about... I would say a quarter (maybe?) into BARN. And I figured that I would finally share a little about it.

• I call it BARN for short but its full title is But thAt doesn't necessaRily meaN monsters
• And it is about, you guessed it—monsters!
• So yeah I would say it definitely has some paranormal elements
• It isn't fantasy but it isn't set on Earth either, more like a parallel but slightly different world
• It has four main characters: Millie, Warren, Nicholas, and Renee. In a sense they are coworkers because they all are agents under the same organization. Except Millie and Warren are partners and they are sort of working against Nicholas and Renee and sort of each other's antagonists so it gets complicated and hardly civil.

(a picture that I did of them in the first week of my quarantine)

(a picture I did of them last week— hopefully this shows how I have been putting my quarantine to good use XD)

• It takes place in northern Ohio, my home base. The town where the book itself spends most of its time in is purely fictional but the neighboring town, at least what I'm using as a placeholder as I write, is very real and a township I have been to on multiple occasions
• It is 1950's themed because why not?
• I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of vampires in this book

(Via Pinterest)

• But even if there are vampires (again not saying there are, just that there could be), and vampires aren't your thing not to worry there are plenty of other monsters in this book
• Monsters are a really big deal in this book
• It's supposed to be both scary and funny I'll let you know how that goes
• Is there romance you ask? Good question, I reply
• It is the first in a series of an undisclosed number of books
• It has quotes like this

 “Honestly what are you afraid of, Noble?”

“A lot of things, dying being the primary one."

"He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m sure it was nothing.” His shoulders rose and fell as an odd huffing, wheezing sound that it took Millie a second to identify as a laugh, escaped his lips. “Funny thing about why I don’t find my own words reassuring. Nothing can kill you just as much as something can.”

 “Survival isn’t even the issue here. My pride has been wounded more than my mere flesh.”

 “There is something wrong with this whole area. And it isn’t the lack of actual smiling and grinning living breathing people, because quite frankly I enjoy that bit.”

“I get it, I get it. You dislike people, come on Agent Sunshine, get in the car.”

"They kept obsolete organizations running pretending that monsters still existed. When the horrible, discovery of the modern world was not that there weren’t monsters. But that monsters existed in a non monstrous form and very often they were exactly who you trusted the most."

 “What in the world happened in Ohio?”

"She shot Cahill what she assumed was a look of challenge, although she didn’t have a mirror handy and often times in the past her face had been unreliable in getting a message across.

Once she had tried to look threateningly at a man and he had assumed that she was flirting. It had not been a good night for him."

• I'd be lying if I didn't admit that this story was inspired by X-Files but it also is based off of Agent Carter and Fringe and is basically the culmination of my favorite TV shows

(Via Pinterest)

(Via Pinterest)

• If you are curious though who the usual suspects specifically are, I rounded them up: X-Files Season 5 episode 4 Detour, X-Files Season 5 episode 12 Bad Blood, and Fringe Season 2 episode 2 Night of Desirable Objects, Fringe Season 2 episode 20 Brown Betty

So there you have it and there you don't have it because I can't give away alllll my secrets in one blog post.

(Via Pinterest)

BARN

(for those of you who are curious of what Nicki is up to, she is hard at work on finishing up the edits for A Winter Dark and Deadly which she hopes to publish sometime soon, but she is taking a break from her other projects because #writersblock)


So how have you guys been of late? Do you like my new blog theme, I've been in a Sci-Fi mood. What do you think of BARN?