I'm back with another release, two actually. Otherkin Spirits, my new series is split up in two sets of releases. This year the Disturbed half of the series will come out. Disturbed Fate and Disturbed Connections, next year the other two books (the Tranquil half) will be released, also during the summer.
Otherkin Spirits is a series of New Adult gay books of different genres but all in the same Urban Fantasy setting.
The first book, Disturbed Fate, is about a seer and what happens when they find out that fate has changed, especially when that realisation brings forth a new problem, if the fate stays changed people will die. Disturbed Fate is about how four young men try to figure out when that fate changed and how to solve it, before they will lose someone else. The story is a traditional/normal Urban Fantasy and Paranormal crossover with a very light touch of romance.
The second book, Disturbed Connections, is about two young men, divided by who they are, one a lycan, the other a psychic vampire. The question is, how can a lycan, on the run from his clan, and a psychic vampire, who because of his "problem" was never able to live a normal life, make their forbidden relationship work? The story is build on a traditional romance outline but set in the same world as Disturbed Fate.
So, what am I looking for?
I'm looking for blogs where I can do blog posts, interviews, other interesting things.
When am I looking for them?
In two time periods, for Disturbed Fate I'm looking for places for 10-23rd of July and for Disturbed Connections I'm looking for places for 14-27th of August.
What will I provide?
Anything for the post, that goes from an image of the cover of the book, to an excerpt of the book to author info.
I can even provide review copies, though that might be short notice for some people.
How can you help out?
If you want to be part of this tour, send me an email with 3 things:
- the name of your blog and the url of it
- the date you would like to host for the tour (check at the end of the post for the dates that are still available)
- the type of post you would like to do, this can be: "base post" (this is the cover, the blurb, an excerpt, author info and buy links), a post on a topic related to my series or your blog (please also email me what you would like me to write about), an interview (with me or one of my characters) or anything else you can come up with.
Here is a list of my old blog tours, so you can see what kind of things I've done before: http://www.5timeschaos.com/blogtours
Don't worry if you've got a similar idea as that I've written about before, the two book series are vastly different so the posts will be too.
If you're interested email me at kia@5timeschaos.com
Cheers!
Kia
Dates:
Disturbed Fate
10 July (Wed) TAKEN
11 July (Thur) TAKEN
12 July (Fri) TAKEN
13 July (Sat) TAKEN
14 July (Sun) TAKEN
15 July (Mon) TAKEN
16 July (Tue)
17 July (Wed) TAKEN
18 July (Thur)
19 July (Fri)
20 July (Sat)
21 July (Sun)
22 July (Mon)
23 July (Tues) TAKEN
Disturbed Connections
14 August (Wed) TAKEN
15 August (Thurs) TAKEN
16 August (Fri) TAKEN
17 August (Sat) TAKEN
18 August (Sun) TAKEN
19 August (Mon) TAKEN
20 August (Tue) TAKEN
21 August (Wed)
22 August (Thur)
23 August (Fri) TAKEN
24 August (Sat)
25 August (Sun)
26 August (Mon)
27 August (Tue)
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Thursday, 30 May 2013
Best tool I ever bought for my writing, a mouse.
Makes a lot of sense, right? The best thing I ever bought for my writing was not a book, or a keyboard, or a pen, or anything like that, it was a mouse. A Razer Naga Hex (in green to be precise).
Here is what it looks like:
Does it make sense yet why this is the best thing ever? Of course, it fits nicely in my hand, the buttons are responsive and I can change the DPI of it. Sure, those are good things to have when you play videogames and that is why I originally bought it. My boyfriend bought me a copy of Diablo III and you can't play that on a touchpad (I know because I tried on the trial, I can play about anything on my touchpad but not DIII).
So, what is Razer and what is special about this mouse? Razer is a company that makes gaming products, they are one of the best brands to buy from when you're a gamer. They make keyboards, mice, headsets and even laptops.
The Naga Hex is the little brother of the Naga, which is their mouse with the most buttons on the side, 12 to be precise. Which, to me, is overkill. Until I saw this one, it had just released and I immediately took it with me. Originally for Diablo III and other videogames, I barely ever use the macro buttons on the side for that though.
Those 6 buttons on the side (and the two in the middle on the top) are macro buttons. You can attach certain actions to them. In gaming most people usually put attacks and other things to them so that they need to use less buttons on the keyboard.
But that is not where I found it to be the most useful for, I was so used to gaming on a laptop with touchpad that I had gotten used to things on that, I found it to be the most useful for my writing.
Yes, a gaming mouse is the most useful thing I ever got for my writing.
Not for the initial writing of my works but for editing and later formatting.
When I get my work back from my editor I need to accept her changes, or decline them, and there are notes and other things going on. The first time I did this I used right click and then "accept change" for each and every thing. That is two clicks, if you didn't miss click the change you want to accept. It's annoying because sometimes it's only punctuation and it just takes a lot of clicking and tires out your hands and wrists.
I can accept or decline changes in a matter of seconds, with a lot less clicks and a lot easier. I have put 4 macros on the side of the mouse.
1: accept change (and jumps to the next change immediately)
2: decline change (and jumps to the next change immediately)
3: decline note, so I can delete them after I've read them
5: undo
I know I don't use 4 and 6, but that doesn't matter, I disabled those buttons so that they can't do anything weird when I miss click.
I can now accept changes at a high speed, I can read along as I change everything. A lot of the changes my editor makes are punctuation or tense changes and I can almost blindly accept them (of course I first read what she changed). I can accept each change with just 1 click. So I'm halving my own work, plus I no longer need to search for changes as the macro will jump to the next change immediately. Sure, the buttons are simply macros, and I could use the keyboard combination that it does simply by hand. Though that still means I need to do quite a couple of clicks, as they are all 2 key combinations. Ctrl + Num 9 is the combination for "accept change" that I put into the program. That is still 2 different sides of the keyboard. With this mouse I need just 1 button.
It lessens the strain on my hands as I only need to click with my thumb while I can relax the rest of my hand and arm.
The second thing I use it for is during formatting. If you've seen my formatting guide for the kindle you know that I swear by nuking all your formatting and re-formatting everything afterwards. This is what I use it for too. I have macro buttons for italics, bold, header 1 and a few other small options. It makes everything so much quicker. Select, click the button and move on. This has brought back 3 rounds of making changes back to just 1.
These two things have made my writing life so much easier and quicker. Sure I still need to write and do all these things but what used to take hours now takes maybe half or 1/3 of the time it used to and with a lot less hand cramps.
Another thing I really liked it for was during writing my dissertation. I had quick buttons for header 1 and 2 and also to add footnotes and things like that. Formatting literally at the click of a button. I didn't need to look away from where I was writing, I just clicked my mouse, typed what I needed and moved on. No disruption of thought stream.
Of course, not everyone can buy a mouse like this. But check out how macros work, set your own quick buttons for things. These few changes can make your life so much easier. 1 click is better than 2 and 1 button is better than 2.
What quick tips or special things do you use to make your life easier when it comes to writing and editing?
Write on!
Kia
Here is what it looks like:
Does it make sense yet why this is the best thing ever? Of course, it fits nicely in my hand, the buttons are responsive and I can change the DPI of it. Sure, those are good things to have when you play videogames and that is why I originally bought it. My boyfriend bought me a copy of Diablo III and you can't play that on a touchpad (I know because I tried on the trial, I can play about anything on my touchpad but not DIII).
So, what is Razer and what is special about this mouse? Razer is a company that makes gaming products, they are one of the best brands to buy from when you're a gamer. They make keyboards, mice, headsets and even laptops.
The Naga Hex is the little brother of the Naga, which is their mouse with the most buttons on the side, 12 to be precise. Which, to me, is overkill. Until I saw this one, it had just released and I immediately took it with me. Originally for Diablo III and other videogames, I barely ever use the macro buttons on the side for that though.
Those 6 buttons on the side (and the two in the middle on the top) are macro buttons. You can attach certain actions to them. In gaming most people usually put attacks and other things to them so that they need to use less buttons on the keyboard.
But that is not where I found it to be the most useful for, I was so used to gaming on a laptop with touchpad that I had gotten used to things on that, I found it to be the most useful for my writing.
Yes, a gaming mouse is the most useful thing I ever got for my writing.
Not for the initial writing of my works but for editing and later formatting.
When I get my work back from my editor I need to accept her changes, or decline them, and there are notes and other things going on. The first time I did this I used right click and then "accept change" for each and every thing. That is two clicks, if you didn't miss click the change you want to accept. It's annoying because sometimes it's only punctuation and it just takes a lot of clicking and tires out your hands and wrists.
I can accept or decline changes in a matter of seconds, with a lot less clicks and a lot easier. I have put 4 macros on the side of the mouse.
1: accept change (and jumps to the next change immediately)
2: decline change (and jumps to the next change immediately)
3: decline note, so I can delete them after I've read them
5: undo
I know I don't use 4 and 6, but that doesn't matter, I disabled those buttons so that they can't do anything weird when I miss click.
I can now accept changes at a high speed, I can read along as I change everything. A lot of the changes my editor makes are punctuation or tense changes and I can almost blindly accept them (of course I first read what she changed). I can accept each change with just 1 click. So I'm halving my own work, plus I no longer need to search for changes as the macro will jump to the next change immediately. Sure, the buttons are simply macros, and I could use the keyboard combination that it does simply by hand. Though that still means I need to do quite a couple of clicks, as they are all 2 key combinations. Ctrl + Num 9 is the combination for "accept change" that I put into the program. That is still 2 different sides of the keyboard. With this mouse I need just 1 button.
It lessens the strain on my hands as I only need to click with my thumb while I can relax the rest of my hand and arm.
The second thing I use it for is during formatting. If you've seen my formatting guide for the kindle you know that I swear by nuking all your formatting and re-formatting everything afterwards. This is what I use it for too. I have macro buttons for italics, bold, header 1 and a few other small options. It makes everything so much quicker. Select, click the button and move on. This has brought back 3 rounds of making changes back to just 1.
These two things have made my writing life so much easier and quicker. Sure I still need to write and do all these things but what used to take hours now takes maybe half or 1/3 of the time it used to and with a lot less hand cramps.
Another thing I really liked it for was during writing my dissertation. I had quick buttons for header 1 and 2 and also to add footnotes and things like that. Formatting literally at the click of a button. I didn't need to look away from where I was writing, I just clicked my mouse, typed what I needed and moved on. No disruption of thought stream.
Of course, not everyone can buy a mouse like this. But check out how macros work, set your own quick buttons for things. These few changes can make your life so much easier. 1 click is better than 2 and 1 button is better than 2.
What quick tips or special things do you use to make your life easier when it comes to writing and editing?
Write on!
Kia
Monday, 13 May 2013
Elle Casey's Spring give away! 190 books to choose from and 1500+ copies to win!
There are some really really cool books in this giveaway! Check out the books and maybe sign up for a couple of them!
you can go to the giveaway page here: http://bit.ly/1499km3
And here are all the covers of the books that are part of the giveaway!
you can go to the giveaway page here: http://bit.ly/1499km3
And here are all the covers of the books that are part of the giveaway!
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