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3-7-22: Hello!! Welcome to the Crowns of the Sky series’ recently launched website! Here you’ll find updates from me, Carina, about what’s going on behind the scenes with my books and everything. Sooo, for now, I have over 200 pages of The Family Jewel finished, and I’m planning to write 300-ish. Once I change the page layout and everything, the page count is going to increase, so I think I’m almost done! I usually spend a few weeks editing and proofreading, so that’s why I set the tentative release date for April 25th. (By the way, “tentative” means “I think it’ll be published on this date, but please don’t hold me to it because I don’t actually know”.) I just finished the book trailer yesterday, and I’ll set up social media accounts for my new book series next weekend!

3-15-22: Hi! It’s lunchtime at school right now, and I’m almost done setting up the website! I’ll add new stuff eventually, of course, but almost everything I’ve been planning recently is done. I’m also soooooo close to finishing The Family Jewel—by the time you’re reading this I might already be done! I still have to proofread it of course, so the tentative release date is pretty realistic. I finished the front cover, but I haven’t done the back cover yet, mostly because I’ll need to use a font to write the blurb part and I’m scared that I’ll get copyrighted. Can that happen? Should I trace over the font? Does anyone know anything about this? If you do, you can use the message box I’ll set up soon, hopefully this afternoon! It should be in my ’about the author’ page, which you can find from the homepage. I also might make a question-and-answer feature, in case my amount of viewers stops being so depressingly little…so, there’s a lot of stuff to do!

3-19-22: I’m finally done with the website! I’ll add more stuff once the first book in the series gets published, but I don’t have anything else to do on the website until then, except to keep writing these updates. I made all my social media accounts last weekend, but I’m still not done setting up some of them, and I haven’t posted anything…but I’ll get to that! As for right now, I’m also done writing The Family Jewel!!! Finally, after six months! (I think it was six, maybe it was seven) I’m super excited, and I’m going to get started on proofreading it today so the book will come out on time! Just by thinking through it, I found a ton of plot holes, so I really need to fix those.

3-28-22: I’ve started posting on all my accounts—FINALLY! I haven’t really used social media before this whole advertising thing, not for personal use (I know, I’m weird) so I’m kind of confused and I’m worried that I’ll do something you’re not supposed to do and completely embarrass myself later…oh well, hopefully it’ll be fine. I’m kind of desperate to promote, even more than before, but I have almost no budget and no publisher or anyone to help with this stuff, so I feel a little stuck. Once TFJ comes out, I’ll have more options, I guess! Oh, and I decided that the second edition of the series (Crowns of the Sky is the second edition—the first edition was called The Adventures of the Seaside Celebration, if you didn’t know) is going to have five books instead of four! This might change again in the future, but for now, the next book will be Thunder’s Curse, then two more (I’m not using the title Rise and Shine anymore because I don’t really like it) and the last one will be Firework Wish. I’m also having a hard time arranging the narrators for each book, because there are supposed to be three different ones for each book, but there are eight queens, so everyone will have to narrate twice except one. Carie, Snowy, and Cookie are already set for the first book—it’s wayyy too late to change it now—and I also don’t want anyone to narrate twice in a row, and I have to think of two character arcs for almost everyone if this is going to happen. Okay, this is getting really long, so I’ll stop now!

4-8-22: Hi!! So…I’m kinda scared to say that the release date is finalized just yet, but it’s probably really close! I’m fixing up a few last plot holes and really trying to make the info dumps less info-dump-y, if that makes sense. It’s so hard to not let any of my social media accounts die (I think I’m already failing with some of them) but I’m trying my best to promote this website so we can get more readers! Sometimes I just wish I could pause time and have another long break from school. At least 9th graders don’t have state testing, so that’s good! But I have two super-important projects coming up, which isn’t so good…

4-12-22: I’m planning a book signing! I’m not going to say exactly where, but I’ll probably be selling and signing books at a library in the coming months. I’ll try to advertise with posters and stuff instead of online so that my location can’t be found by any random person, so if you’re only here online, you probably won’t hear much about it. I’m really scared that no one will come, but I’m even more scared that I’ll have to give a presentation and completely mess up. (Funny how writing all these updates about my struggles doesn’t scare me at all, but just thinking about talking with actual human beings makes me want to hide under the couch like my cat.) I also feel like my ’About the Author’ page looks a little weird without a picture, but I already have my full name and age on the internet, so I really don’t want to share exactly what I look like either. I think I might just draw myself, or put a picture of me wearing a mask or something, so don’t be weirded out if you see that!

4-21-22: The ebook edition of The Family Jewel will be released in four days!!! I’m super excited! The paperback won’t be out yet for an amount of time—I don’t want to give an exact date and put too much pressure on myself, but it won’t take months or anything, only a couple weeks or less! Right now I’m doing last-minute proofreading and finalizing the chapter titles, page count, cover design, and all that. I really want the total page count to be 300 or more, but I’m just 4 pages under! I think I might include some extra stuff in the front of the book—I haven’t added the dedication yet, so that’ll probably help. Amazon doesn’t give books copyright pages, which is annoying, but maybe there’s a setting to change that? Or maybe I can write it myself? I don’t know…I just hope someone doesn’t confuse my books for creative commons! Also, because I want to keep the opportunity open to sell my books in other places besides Amazon, I can’t ask for 70% royalty, only 30%…which means less money donated! I’m sad, but if I ask for 70%, I probably won’t be able to do the book signing because that’d be selling the book outside of Amazon. I wish I could just sell it completely on my own (like, on my website or something), but that’d mean even LESS readers, so I guess I have to stick with Amazon.

4-23-22: Two days until release date! I’m done with everything related to the Kindle ebook version of TFJ, so now I’m just waiting for some responses so I can click the ‘publish’ button tomorrow! Also, happy accident: turns out I remembered wrong, and I actually CAN have 70% royalty without giving Amazon exclusive rights to sell my book! So, yay, more money donated! And apparently Amazon also added the option to make a hardcover book, which is exactly what I wanted! It’s like they heard me or something! I’m so happy, I’ve always wanted my books to be hardcover. And I’ll sell books at a discount at my book signing (if I manage to get it) but that’ll be on my own, so I don’t have to give Amazon 30% of the money. I don’t know how much I’ll discount it yet, but I’ll be able to give away a bigger portion of the money to help children and animals! Also, just to be clear, when I say that 90% of profits will go to charity, I mean 90% of MY profits–not 90% of the cost of the book, because there are printing costs and all that. Just making that clear!

4-25-22: The Family Jewel is OUT!! It was released on Amazon this morning, and I’m super excited! As of right now, only the ebook version is available—I’m still working on the physical books, which will be available soon! I’m also starting the writing process of Thunder’s Curse, the next book in the series. (The title might change, but probably not.) I’ll post the link everywhere once I get home, because my school’s lousy WiFi is too slow. If you want to support my series, the first book is for sale on Amazon—or, if you don’t want to spend money, please consider following my book series’ official social media accounts! It’s free, and it’ll help a lot with getting new readers. Thanks so much!

4-27-22: I’m finished with the (unfinalized) full cover of The Family Jewel, and I’m working on formatting the text! I’m really excited for the print book to come out, and I think it might happen sooner than I expected—unless I run into some kind of issue. The hardcover will probably cost more than the paperback because it costs more to print—just giving a heads-up. I’m soooo excited to actually get the books!! I have a ton of homework this weekend plus all the author stuff, so I’m just going to have to let my books’ promotional social media accounts die for now, but, as Caramel says, I guess you can’t have everything in life…right?

5-2-22: School is almost over, and it’s getting super busy! I can’t seem to find the time to work on my book…well actually I can, but I’m tired once I finish my homework and I just don’t really feel like it—and plus, I don’t want to just lazily slap something together and regret it later. I hope I’ll finish all the formatting for the hardcover today or tomorrow (don’t hold me to it!), and it’ll be for sale 1-3 days after that. The paperback will be coming too—I don’t really have anything new to do for the paperback besides changing the price and resizing the cover a little, so it’ll probably be only a day or two after the hardcover! I’m soooo ready for summer (honestly, I’ve been ready since October) and I’ll make sure to work on Book 2 a lot in those two-and-a-half months!

5-4-22: I’m officially done with the hardcover version of TFJ!! It’ll be $15.99 (which might still be subject to change) and I found out a really sad detail…apparently, for hardcovers, Amazon gives 60% royalty…and it’s calculated BEFORE the printing cost is taken out. So, I’ll make less than $1 per book. Forty-five cents, to be precise! Which means I’ll only get to donate FORTY-ONE CENTS per hardcover book sale, and I’ll only get to keep four cents!! I’m so sad!!! I guess I didn’t do enough research on this…sorry…but hopefully the paperback will be a lot cheaper to print (from my previous experience it should be $4 to $5. Who knew a cover could cost this much?!). I don’t really care about the money I make for myself since it won’t be that much anyway, but I’m really disappointed that I can’t donate more to charity. Just know that I tried…and if I get my book signing approved, I’ll be able to earn more. Anyway, you’re probably tired of my ranting, so I’ll leave now!

5-6-22: Remember when I said the book would come out early if there weren’t any issues? So…naturally, I’m now experiencing issues upon issues upon issues. Cover issues, RGB to CMYK issues, formatting issues, alignment issues, issues and issues and issues. The hardcover is actually available now on Amazon, but if you compare what the cover looks like to what it looks like in the Kindle version, you’ll see that it looks really dull and just horrible in general, because apparently the background color is too vibrant to print or something like that. I’m working on it and I hope to fix it by this weekend! I’d do it today, but all my teachers are piling up the huge projects at once since it’s the end of the school year, and it’s getting super busy, so…I’ll get it out soon! I’m not a professional, I’m a 14-year-old girl, so I’m trying my best to make everything as good as possible and as fast as I can. It would be so much easier if I had an editor and an actual publishing company, but they take around 8 months to even get to a book, and I just can’t wait that long. At least I figured out how to make the cover the right size, though—I tried a ton of things, including using my dad’s CAD software to get the right dimensions, but once that whole process was over, I ended up with a PDF with a size barely over 100 KB (which is literally microscopic for a book cover, if you didn’t know) sooo…yeah, that didn’t really work.

5-25-22: I’m so sorry, I forgot about this website in these busy weeks at school…but, good news, today is my second-last day of 9th grade! I can’t believe I forgot to say that the hardcover TFJ is available, AND the paperback. I’ll post pictures of the physical copies as soon as I get my hands on them! And about the cover issue…well, it looks like I’m just going to have to deal with the ugly colors, because I checked and it’s already set to full saturation in CMYK mode. Oh well, at least it looks dramatic!

6-8-22: Happy June! Did you know: June 5th was our calendar’s equivalent of Cherry’s birthday! Celebrate with her by pulling a prank on someone 😂! With that aside, I just wanted to say that I’ll be working on Book 2 as much as I can over the summer, and hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot done before school starts! (I’m an incoming sophomore, apparently I’ll “suffermore”) I’ve written 36 pages so far, though the page count will probably expand once I get all the formatting done, because the page size I’m using right now is a little bigger than what my final book will be. I’m also busy drawing more pictures of all my animals, because I just realized, after making that picture of Cookie, that I have surprisingly little drawings I can use for media/designs without looking like it was copied-and-pasted from a default base. I don’t want to just keep using different variations of that jewel in front of a twilight sky, which is already on the actual book cover (even though it took me a ridiculously long time to draw) so I’ll keep making pictures of the queens! Also, sorry that I haven’t posted on YouTube or TikTok for literally ages…it’s just that making videos filled with drawings is really time-consuming, and I’ve been working on other things lately.

6-14-22: I finally posted another video!!! Sorry I didn’t make any videos these past weeks and hardly any pictures, but I was having trouble coming up with ideas and stuff. I’m so happy that it’s summer break now and I’ll have a lot more time! I’m trying to promote my book in more places, but it’s hard when I don’t even know what’s legal for 14-year-olds. I’m going to set up those paid social media ads soon, though, so at least that might get more people’s attention! (If it doesn’t, I’m going to throw my shoe across the room) Also, is it just me, or is it easier to not procrastinate when you don’t have a lot of time? Like, you’d expect that in the summer, when I’m literally doing nothing all day, I’d be all motivated and stuff, but the reality is that I keep putting everything off until I forget about it because I know I have a lot of time. (Jeez, I’m just like Cookie)

6-21-22: Exciting news: I’m making an audiobook of TFJ that will be free to listen on YouTube! I’ll be reading it, sooo…um…don’t mind my weird voice… (I heard that everyone thinks their own voice sounds weird, so hopefully it’s not that bad?) Warning, it’s probably going to take ages, since just those few lines at the start of the TFJ book trailer took me sooo long to record. I’ll definitely have English subtitles, and maybe Chinese as well? The Chinese subtitles will probably take even longer though, but if you’re reading this and understanding what I’m saying, they probably won’t matter much to you, so hopefully it’s fine!

6-28-22: I just ran a paid promotion on Facebook, and the results were kind of sad, probably because I overestimated the amount of people who would actually take 2 seconds out of their day to press a like button 😅 I’ve been working on Book 2 and I think I’m done with 17-20% of the book? Somewhere around that range. I didn’t do a whole lot in the first half of summer break, so I’ll try to get more stuff done before 10th grade starts! I’m kind of having a hard time with the book because I keep finding plot holes in my outline (which is barely an outline, by the way, mostly just bullet points with a bunch of run-on sentences) but I usually figure something out after staring at the screen for a while!

7-8-22: Hiii! I don’t really have anything to talk about, I’m just updating so you don’t think I forgot about this website. I’m writing Book 2 and I’m kind of stuck…I keep feeling like I’m writing filler in everyone’s POVs so I can get to the narrator who tells the things that actually happen, but once that’s done, I’m just back to writing fillers again, so it’s weird. I guess I should’ve planned it better, but I honestly hate just sitting there for hours, planning every single chapter. It would be super weird to have fight scenes in the context of my book, and those are what you’re usually supposed to put in fantasy books to make them interesting, so I always have to make them look for an object or escape from somewhere, or something like that instead of fighting. I feel like I’ll probably end up rewriting a bunch of chapters… Good news though, I came up with a lot of major plot points for future books!

7-15-22: There still isn’t very much going on, except that I’m now officially un-stuck on my book, so…yay! I have almost 100 pages done out of the 300-ish total, and I hope to get it out by October. I’ve also decided that I’m probably not doing a book signing in the near future, because it sounds more productive (and a lot less scary) to just send a copy to the library and have them put it on the shelf. Other than that, I’m working on the character arc introduction art for the narrators of the new book! If you’ve been paying attention, you might already know who the narrators are, but I’ll do an official reveal once I finish all the art. (All these art display styles have a name in my head now–so far there’s “arc art”, “crown art”, “audiobook art”, and probably more that I’m forgetting) For the audiobook, it’ll probably take a while since I’m planning to record at least 10 chapters before I start posting them, and…well…my voice sounds better at certain times of day, and my house is silent at certain other times of day, so sometimes it’s hard to find a good time to record. I also have other worldbuilding-related video ideas, but those are last priority. Gahhh so many things to do!! I can’t believe summer is almost over already, and I haven’t even done that much because I’m horrible at sticking to schedules!

7-30-22: Okay, this sounds super weird for a 14-year-old to say, but I actually kind of want to get back to school—I keep procrastinating and I can’t get anything done in the summer! It’s not THAT bad—I’ve still been working on my book, but not every day, and I still don’t have all the character arc art done, or any ideas for the book trailer or even the title. With the way I have everything set up, only one character will narrate just once, which means that everyone else gets two arcs and that isn’t really fair, so I’m trying to decide if I should squeeze a fourth narrator in the last book—but, honestly, I’d have trouble coming up with another arc anyway, so I don’t know. All I’ve decided is that the title will NOT be Thunder’s Curse, like it was in the first version of this series, because it just sounds way too dramatic for what the book is actually about. And, believe it or not, I’m still trying to fix plot holes and change parts of the plan, 100 pages in! But I’ll really try to get it out by October, or at least November.

8-3-22: Slow progress, but it’s way better than no progress at all! Right now it’s just repeating in the same pattern: 1) I’m stuck, 2) I get this super exciting but completely irrelevant idea, 3) I finally figure out what should happen next, 4) I realize it doesn’t connect to the rest of the plot, 5) I patch up plot holes and edit a ton of previous chapters and I’m satisfied, 6) it’s the next narrator’s turn–and bam, I’m stuck again. I literally have pages of ideas for the future from step 2 repeating over and over again, but I never seem to get the chance to use any of them. I had to completely overhaul some parts of the plot because of all the plot holes, which I guess is because my original outline was super vague–but I’m not one of those people who can just sit there for hours and hours and plan out each individual chapter (though I get jealous of them sometimes!). Somehow, I never get good ideas when I’m trying to think of them, which is also why I’m weirdly happy that school’s starting soon. It’s happened sooo many times before–my science teacher plays a video on the screen and it triggers this entire landslide in my brain, and as soon as lunch starts, I’m typing on my phone as fast as I can, trying to get it all down before I forget anything. But when I actually sit down and try to make it happen, I’m still there 3 hours later with a half page of filler. Like…is this normal? It is, right? Honestly, I don’t know, but this is turning into more of a rant than an update, so I’ll stop now. Happy August, by the way!

8-12-22: Hi!! I’m still struggling with the book, if you’re wondering, but I’ve made a bit more progress now. I have an unfinalized title that I like, and I’ve also written a little more content. Plus, I think I’ve finally figured out the plan (shh, I don’t want to jinx it!). All the graphics for TFJ had a twilight theme, so I’m trying to decide if this book’s theme should be midnight or sunrise. I’m leaning toward sunrise, since it fits with the title better, and I honestly just really want to use colors other than blue or purple! If it goes on like this, the third book will be daytime, fourth will be dusk, and fifth will be midnight. Oh also, these past days, I’ve been doing expo-style advertising at events and stuff, and it’s been working out a lot better than my Facebook ads! Plus, it’s free! It was kind of scary at first, but it’s getting better now. I’m making small changes to this website, too, like adding graphics instead of solid colors and trying to make it look good on both a phone and a computer. I wish I could import a font, but I can’t figure it out!

8-19-22: The title of Book 2 is now finalized and will be revealed soon! The narrators will also be revealed soon, if you haven’t already figured out who they are, and I’m working on ideas for the book trailer and character arc trailers. I’ve also started on the cover and I’m trying to figure out the details. The only problem is, I keep not writing. It’s not because I’m stuck (thankfully), it’s because I just don’t have the time. I think it’s because school just started and I’m still finding out when I can work on it, but my deadline is in a month, so I feel like I have to hurry. The “page count” you see on the homepage is the page count I see in Google Docs, but the page size I’m using is a little larger than the trim size for my books, so the pages will expand. TFJ was under 225 Google Docs pages and it ended up being 300 pages. So I’m actually not AS behind as you might think. But my goal is around 250 Google Docs pages, which means I’m only 60% done with it, and I’ve already been working on it for 4-5 months, so yeah, I’m still really behind. I might have to push the release date to November, so sorry if that happens!

8-26-22: I’m so behind I’m so behind I’m so behind ahhh! I have 87 more pages to write and just 22 days left! I’ve been working on it as much as I can these past few days and I’ve finished less than 2/3 of the book–but it’s fine, I kinda expected this anyway. I’m also stuck at school in the middle of the day with 12% battery on my laptop, because I forgot to charge it last night, sooo…yeah. I almost forgot about the cover and the title reveal and narrator reveal, too. I have all the drawings done for the narrator reveal, so I just need to add the quotes. I’ll try to get it out tonight or at least tomorrow! I should start on the book trailer, too, since I really want to have it done ahead of time. But, honestly, I have never done a single author-related thing ahead of time in my life, so if by some miracle it actually happens, I’ll be super surprised. At the pace things are going at, I’d say there’s a really good chance the release date will be pushed to November…SORRY!

8-27-22: I know it’s only been a day since I last updated, but some things have changed! I finished the title/narrator reveal, and it’s up everywhere except Instagram (that little colorful loading circle was spinning forever, I’ll try again tomorrow). The new book will be called Solar Eclipse! If you’re wondering why…well, I can’t explain it well without having spoilers, but basically, one animal represents the sun and one represents the moon, and everyone else represents the Earth. The animal who represents the sun is being blocked from reaching the animals on Earth because of the animal who represents the moon, since there are some complicated feelings. So it’s like a metaphorical solar eclipse! I think the new title is a lot better than Thunder’s Curse and just fits the vibe way more. I also worked on the cover a little bit today. I redrew the background of it because I tried to do an abstract sunrise but it ended up looking more like a wildfire instead. It’s okay though, since I can still use the wildfire background in promotional designs! I’ve started looking for music to use in the book trailer, too. Sadly, I didn’t work on the actual book, and I might be too busy tomorrow, but I’ll write as soon as possible!

9-6-22: Happy September–it’s almost my birthday! Fifteen feels so old, omg…but anyways, I’m going somewhere this weekend, so I’ll have less time to work on my book. But good news: progress is going a lot faster! I can see the end now, and I only have five more chapters to write, and…I don’t want to jinx it, but…I think there’s a good chance I won’t have to postpone the release date after all! I worked on it a lot over the three-day-weekend, which usually doesn’t happen because of homework and laziness and whatever other stuff, so even I was surprised. Once I find out if I’m going to meet my deadline for writing, I’ll probably set a tentative release date, which will then be final. Also, I’ve finished the cover, and a reveal is coming soon! I’ve also started on the trailer and planned out some of the character arc trailers. I’m super excited to release the new book!

9-11-22: I have ideas for the book and character arc trailers, I’m almost done with the book, I finished the arc art and crown art and will start posting once I get home, and generally, things are going pretty good! I’m fairly sure now that I won’t push the release date to November, which I’m super happy about. This is the weird thing about writing—things can change from really bad to really good in minutes, or vice versa. I also got permission to advertise at another event and am waiting to hear from one other one! I guess I’ll need to make another display board for Solar Eclipse when it comes out, but I don’t want to have two display boards (my tiny table can barely support one!) so I’ll probably just make one that combines the two books. Or I’ll make one for the whole series, and just put “coming soon” for books 3-5 and stick the information on as I go. OR, actually, I can just use the TFJ display board and tell people there’s a book 2 as they walk by? I don’t know, but you’re probably sick of reading about my repetitive thoughts, so I’ll go mind my own business now!

9-18-22: Sooo, my deadline for writing was yesterday…and am I done? Eheheh no… *laughs guiltily* But I promise I’m super close! I have less than three chapters left! It’s only because I’m struggling with writing all the official royalty stuff at the end. For some reason it’s super easy for me to go into long rants about characters’ feelings, but I really can’t do ceremony stuff, even though it’s really important since they’re constitutional queens and all they’re supposed to do is go to ceremonies. I really want to get the book out before Halloween, because it might be a good idea to hand out flyers or something to kids passing by. (yes, I’m THAT desperate) I have a lot of homework now so it’s hard to find time to work on stuff like book trailers, and I know it’s only going to get more, and I’m also doing dual enrollment and AP and clubs and volunteer events and stuff, so…sorry!! All my social media accounts are sooo dead, I can’t remember when I posted last! It used to be because I didn’t have enough stuff to post, but now I have this stockpile of images but I just keep forgetting about it. Maybe if I get more followers, I’ll remember? I don’t know, but I’m not going to just magically get followers overnight, so I have to do something!

9-27-22: I’m done I’m done I’m finally done!! Yeah, I know, I’m 10 days over the deadline, but I can edit faster, I guess. I don’t want to rush anything, so I’ll publish it late if I have to, but I’d definitely rather do it in October. And, random detail, I finished the book during lunch at school while eating one of those baby tangerines. Weird, huh? Anyways…I’m working on the book trailer. I planned to do it last weekend, but I had a ton of homework, so I guess I’ll just have to do it sometime during the week. Maybe if I just work on it for 15-30 minutes per school night? But honestly, I’m not the kind of person who can stick to that type of thing. I either lose track of time and keep doing it for hours and forget about all my homework, or give up after staring at the screen for five minutes. But I will work on it sometime, and I’ll get it out before the book is published!

10-3-22: Happy October: it’s release month! I’m finally done with the book trailer!! I finished pretty much the whole thing (except the first 7-ish seconds) this Sunday, and ended up doing all my homework at night because of it, but oh well. At least it got done. I had to cut out a few seconds of the music, which I do sometimes when I can’t find anything to fill the time, but it’s not super smooth, so hopefully you won’t notice when it skips! I’ve picked music for all three character trailers and have a concept for one, but I haven’t started on any of them. I guess I’ll have to wait for the weekend again–but, good news, I have a three-day weekend next week! I’m also making more art for the series. I found out that it’s a lot more efficient to draw them on paper first and then trace over it digitally, because that way I’m not going over every single pixel like a bajillion times to get them all straight.

10-13-22: Okay, so…I thought I was going to get a lot done over the long weekend, but I actually did nothing because I had so much homework. I pretty much spent all three days working on my English project, and a bunch of other stuff, so…sorry! I’ll try to work on the character arc trailers during school nights, but no promises. At least I have half-baked concepts for all of them and have started on some parts. As for the actual book, I usually just spend a month proofreading it over and over again and I find little mistakes each time, but this time, it doesn’t seem like there are a lot for some reason. The main thing that’s bothering me is the ending, but sometimes, when you pause while reading your own writing and then go back to it after a few hours or days, it sounds different, somehow. I’m worried that the ending happened too fast or too slow or was too similar to the last ending, and it’s just confusing in general and I’m trying to fix it. I also wrote this whole argument between Choco and her mom, and I decided to put it in there on the spur of the moment, so I have to either change other chapters to set up for that moment or just cut it entirely so it doesn’t seem sudden. I’m planning to just find a day and read the whole thing from beginning to end, without stopping, so I can figure out how it really sounds. I also feel like the plot is super flimsy, like the major problems they’re facing are just a side plot to Choco and Cocoa’s friendship arc, and I don’t know if I want that or not. And even the Choco-Cocoa arc might not even be very good…so, long story short, I’m confused, but I’m working on it.

10-15-22: Today is our calendar’s equivalent of Caramel’s birthday!! And it’s really fitting, too, since today I went to an event and sold books there. It went really well, and I’m super happy about that! And I’m struggling a little less with Solar Eclipse, too. I decided to write little color-coded summaries for each chapter so I can see what the plot is like at first glance, and it’s really helpful so far. I’m relieved to see that most of it is still about the main plot! The character development feels a little iffy though. In TFJ, all three of the narrators were very similar to me in at least one way, so they were easy to write, but the SE narrators are all pretty different from me. I don’t know if Choco and Cocoa’s friendship feels natural enough, or about the whole giant burst of ugly emotions Peppie has toward the end (no spoilers!) because I’ve never really experienced anything like that before. I’ll just try to get more people to proofread it, I guess, and tell me the things that I can’t figure out myself.

10-26-22: Okaaay, soo, uh…the book was supposed to come out tomorrow, but that’s definitely not happening, so I changed the release date–which is still tentative, by the way. The reason for that is because I let someone else read my book, and they told me I might need to overhaul the whole thing, so, yeah, that’s fun. I might not, though–the pacing is just kind of slow, so I might be able to get away with just taking out some stuff and adding other stuff. And apparently it’d be better to write three books instead of five, so they sell better? But the thing is, I reeeeally want to write five books! And everything is planned already, so it would be really weird to combine this book and the next book, and squeeze three more narrators in. Hopefully, I can just change some of the plot and not have to redo any of the character trailers or promo videos or anything like that.

11-8-22: Hii!! So. Um. Yeah. I’m adding a whole second part to the book so the series will only be three books. And I really don’t know when the release date will be, so I just took it off the page. There’ll be six narrators instead of three, and the chapters won’t be evenly split anymore, and basically, it’s a huge mess right now, and I’m trying to make sense of everything–combining two books into one. It’ll probably still seem like it’s supposed to be two books, since both parts need the narrators that they have because the plot was made around the characters, not the other way around. I just hope it won’t be TOO big of a mess once it’s finished. And I haven’t worked on the book in a week…sorry ahhh!! I feel really lost, and I don’t know what to do, and just…yeah, it’s a mess. I know I keep saying that, but it really is. I’ve never had such a huge setback before, so bear with me!

11-14-22: Okay, things are going better…I think. I don’t want to jinx it. I’ve been writing a little bit, and I’m trying to speed things up, because apparently the biggest issue with the first draft of the book was the pacing. The funny thing is, I thought the pacing was fast, but apparently it was super slow in the first half! I cut out 30-ish pages and rewrote the rest to fit, and now I’m working on Part 2, which was the originally-planned third book. So, now I’m trying to remind myself of the plan more often, and instead of writing this huge lead-up to things, just making them happen. And I’m actually glad I procrastinated on the cover reveal, because with the new Part 2 I’m writing, it might not actually end up being the cover anymore. Even if it isn’t, I’ll still release it as part of a “rejected cover” thing or something like that, because, well…I drew it, didn’t I? And it took a really long time, so I’m not going to just throw it out! But most likely, I think, I’ll just add parts to the cover and keep the rest of it as it is. I’m sooo excited for Thanksgiving Break!! Ahh I’m tired and happy at the same time somehow, and I just want it to come already, but as always, the week before break always passes at the pace of an injured snail. (Do snails get injured? How? Where?)

12-5-22: Hii!! Soo…uh, I’m not dead, as you can tell. Sorry for not updating in so long! After the last update, for around 3 weeks, I pretty much didn’t write at all, since I just didn’t know where to go with the second part of the book and was really confused. I also realized that some of the queens’ backstories are super boring or don’t make sense, so I tried to figure it out. But now I finally have everything reasonably close to where I want it to be, and I’m writing again! I have no idea how long the second part is going to be. I’ll try to make it as short as possible, but since it’s what was originally going to be the third book, but it’s merged into the second, there’s still a lot that’s supposed to happen to move the story forward. I have to write at least two major character arcs, and the whole plot and stuff. I’ll try to make it go faster, but even after cutting some of it, Part 1 is still around 215 pages—and the page size I’m using isn’t even the print size for my book, so there’ll be even more pages once it’s published. But I’m trying, that’s the point.

12-19-22: I’m back again! (Sorry for not updating in a while! I’m still not dead) Just as I said I thought things were getting better–guess what, they got worse. I came up with a new book idea the weekend before last weekend, and now I’ve somehow lost all ability to think about the book I’m on right now. I haven’t been in the mood for writing in sooo long, and I’ve been drawing a lot, but I can’t think of where the story should go from here. And it’s finals week, too, so I don’t exactly have a lot of time. That’s it–short update, but I don’t really have anything else to say.

12-31-22: It’s the last day of the year! Happy holidays to anyone reading this! I haven’t really been writing much–I think I only wrote around twenty or thirty pages of new stuff in two months, which is really bad, but yesterday, I sat down and wrote seven pages straight! I’m still struggling with getting everything in place after these pretty massive changes, but I think I’ve gotten most of the plot down. I still don’t know if I’ll have to remake the trailer or the cover. I’ll likely just add stuff to the cover instead of remaking it completely, and maybe I’ll have separate trailers for parts 1 and 2 of the book? I don’t know, but I’ve made a lot of drawings for the characters. I now have the crown art for all the queens except Peppie, which I’m working on (mostly because I’m still trying to figure out how to make her clouds look different from Snowy’s mist). I’m finished with everyone’s character arc art! Sorry for not posting anywhere in so long, and being really inconsistent. It’s actually been such a long time that I forgot what I posted and what I didn’t post yet, so I’ll have to go through everything again to make sure I don’t leave out a drawing of someone or post the same picture twice. Yesterday I posted a little doodle of Cherry that I drew a few weeks ago.

1-10-23: I know I’m a little late in saying this, but…HAPPY NEW YEAR!! The book is still a mess, if you’re curious, but it’s a slightly more likable mess. I actually want to write now, which hasn’t been that common these past couple of weeks! There are still a million plot holes, inconsistencies, and things I need to fix, and I also somehow thought of TWO more new story ideas on top of the one I already have (which I’m planning to write after this series) and I really need to focus, but oh well. Neither of them is as developed as the first idea, though. I already have a tentative title and most of the plot down, and the characters. It’ll be a standalone book, and it’ll be about…*gasp* humans!!! Well, kind of–there are also elves and fairies and witches and lots and lots of cats. But since I need to focus, I’ll stop rambling about future projects and get to writing. Bye!!

1-17-23: It’s our calendar’s equivalent of Cookie’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY COOKIE!! I’ve been writing a little more this week, and even though I know I’ll have to go through truckloads of loose threads and plot holes while editing, it’s been fun. Things are actually moving along now, and at a faster pace than before. I’m finally feeling the stress of having so many characters and needing to let the reader know what each of them is doing, which, oddly, I’ve never felt before. Does that mean I’m getting better or worse? Maybe it just means the plot is messier. I don’t know, but I just had a three-day weekend and I have another one next week, so I’m happy about that! It’ll be refreshing when I start working on my next book, after the Crowns of the Sky series. I’m planning to have only two lead characters, a boy and a girl, who are going to spend basically all their time together anyway, so it’ll be less confusing. Aside from them, the only other characters are cats, but they’re a plot device more than anything. I know it’s probably too early, but I’m already working on an art style for the new book, since the CoTS art style mostly suits animals, not humans, and it doesn’t really fit with the vibe of the new book. I’m also still trying to find events I can promote my book on, and I’ve finished all of the crown art and character arc art for every single queen! Right now, I’m making Choco’s character trailer, which’ll be fun.

1-30-23: Four days ago, on January 26th, was Snowflake’s birthday!! (Wow, hers is only 9 days after Cookie’s) Other than that, the only news I have is that the book is a HUGE mess. Like…seriously, it has sooo many plot holes that I’m just ignoring for now, since I’m trying to finish the book first. I’ve never had this many plot holes in a single book before, but I guess that’s what happens when you cut stuff out, move it around, and merge the third book into the second. Sorry the progress is going so slow! I’m also trying to post more often on social media (by “more often” I mean at least once a week for photos and once a month for videos, which is the best I can manage right now) and I’ve set calendar reminders and everything, but I still keep forgetting somehow. I still haven’t finished Choco’s video, which I’ve been working on literally since last year, and my brain is chaos right now. That’s basically it, so bye!!

2-10-23: Hii!! Nothing much has been going on, really, except that I wrote some more and I think the book will be finished before summer, hopefully. I’m scared to put a tentative release date on the website, because I really don’t know, and I’ve been writing on and off lately. Other than that, I have a mound of homework but I’m hoping to finally finish Choco’s character arc video over the three-day weekend! I also went to promote my book at the farmer’s market last Saturday, and it went super well! I sold 20 physical copies and probably some more online copies, and I also went to check out a flea market at a local community college on Sunday. I’m planning to also promote there someday, and hopefully sell more copies. I think I’ve raised around $400 for charity now or possibly even more. When I get home, I’ll find out the exact amount and put it on this website! I haven’t actually donated any of the money yet, mostly because I didn’t really have that much before, but I think maybe once I hit $500 I’ll donate.

3-5-23: Sooo it’s been a while since the last update, and I haven’t really written anything at all. Probably less than 500 words in the last month…I’m sorry!!!! But it’s just such a huge mess, and I don’t know how to make it move forward, and I’ve also been super busy with school. I tried to write today, but I gave up after an hour of staring at the screen and deleting every sentence I started. Other than that, I have good news. I’ve made my first donation to St. Jude and I’m going to be donating to Best Friends really soon! You can see how much I’ve raised so far on the homepage–$707.77, which is a lot more than I expected. Once I do both, I’m going to post the receipts on this website so there’s proof. I’m also feeling more motivated to make those character arc videos…even though I haven’t actually done any yet since, like, last year. Seriously, why can’t weekends be longer? It’s so hard to juggle school, extracurriculars, author stuff, and still have free time. And I’m taking 5 AP classes next year–I’m pretty sure I’ve signed my own death warrant.

3-7-23: Why is it that every single time I say I don’t know what to write, I immediately do? And every time I say progress is going good, I get writer’s block the day after? Maybe I’ll just stop talking about it so I don’t jinx it again. Oh, right–I forgot to mention it in the last update, but I went to a farmers’ market on both Saturday and Sunday. (Is it “farmers’ market”? “Farmer’s market?” Or just “farmers market?” I don’t know, apostrophes are weird) On Saturday, I sold twenty-eight copies, which is the most copies I’ve ever sold at an event, and on Sunday, I sold four–which might be the least. But I guess everything has its ups and downs. And, yesterday, I spent a full 20 minutes just staring at the screen and listening to the music for Choco’s character arc video, trying to motivate myself to work on it, but then my parents called me down for dinner and I forgot all about it. I also forgot about a homework assignment I had and spent my night writing, so I had to get up early this morning to do it. Basically, I’m a mess, and I rate procrastinating a -1 out of 10, but I just can’t stop doing it somehow.

3-17-23: Happy St. Patrick’s Day—and happy birthday, Cocoa! I’m going to a farmers’ market again tomorrow to sell my book, because new copies just came in last-minute. I’m super excited for that—and I FINALLY finished Choco’s character arc video! (seriously…I’ve been procrastinating on that for 3 months) Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened, so I’ll leave now and get to work on the mountain of homework I have for the weekend.

4-14-23: Sorry I haven’t updated in so long! I kind of forgot about this website, to be honest, but when I got this really cute fanart of Snowflake messaged to me, I just had to say something about it! It’s SOOO GOOD!! The person didn’t leave their email or phone number, so unfortunately I can’t message them back, but if you’re reading this, thank you so much–I literally screamed when I saw it! It’s so crazy to me that people actually take time out of their day to look at stuff that I make! Other than that, I’m officially out of the on-and-off writer’s block I’ve been in for the last few months. I really want to write now, but the problem I have is time. AP tests are coming up soon, and my life will be very sad in a month if I don’t study, so… (why, Euro, why?!) I’ll try though, especially since the weekend is coming up!

5-22-23: Wow, has it really been over a month since I last updated? I didn’t even notice, with AP testing and then finals, and now it’s the fourth-last day of school. I’m going to China for the whole summer, but that shouldn’t really affect my website or my social media or anything. I also have a really important announcement—I’m quitting Crowns of the Sky! I’m sorry if you really liked the series (if you did…thank you) but I just don’t really feel that motivated or interested in it anymore. I might still continue it one day, but for now, I’m working on a new project. It’s going to be a standalone book called Wind Seeker (the title might still be tentative) and I’m really excited! I somehow never thought I would write anything not related to my elementary school friend group’s animal world, which is why this website and all my accounts are named after Crowns of the Sky. I won’t be changing any of that or making any new sites/accounts because that would mean I’d have to start from Square 1 again (not that I’ve gotten super far), but I’ll be changing the look and style of this website and make it more of an author website instead of a series website. More details about my new book and why I quit will be in the video that’s coming out, hopefully this week, on my channel!

7-16-23:
Me: Oh, I’m going to China for the summer, but that shouldn’t affect my website or social media or anything like that!
Also me: *doesn’t update or post anything for almost TWO MONTHS*
I’m sorryyyy!! I got carried away with stuff and then I was stressing out about classes and then–well, the point is, I’m back, and I’m still alive. I’ve been working on my new book, Wind Seeker, and thinking about how I want to change my website. I drew a new profile picture and a new banner thingy for my YouTube channel, and I’m also hopefully going to start designing the updated website today. I’ve also released a video talking about myself and my journey, as well as what I’m doing now, so check it out if you’re interested: How I Became A Published Author At Age 9! 🌱🌙 Also, I, um…sort of got banned from Facebook? And I don’t really know why? I can’t fix the issue yet because it’s asking for my phone number and my phone number doesn’t work in China, but I’ll try to get it solved once I get back to the U.S. I’m pretty sure you can still see my page, though, so at least there’s that. I’m going to post something about the video on all my social media (except Facebook, of course) and tomorrow, there’ll be a drawing for Wind Seeker! I’ll try not to disappear for so long again!

7-20-23: I’ve officially started to redesign my website! My goal is to get it done by the end of the summer, but that’s looking a little iffy at the moment, just based on the sheer amount of confusion and random issues I’ve ran into just in the last hour and a half. With a total of around $100 to spend (not just on the website, on everything book-related ever) and a one-quarter class in seventh grade being my only coding experience, making a decent website is haaard! I’m also wondering what else I should post on YouTube. I still want to do book trailers and character trailers and all that, which is basically all I used to post, but before, I was writing a book with eight main characters, which kept me really busy. Now, there are only two main characters, which means I’ll probably be done with all the trailers in a much shorter amount of time. I’m wondering if I should post things like vlogs and speedpaints, which sounds like it might be fun and get attention for my books, but I still really hate using my voice in videos. Should I just do it anyway? I don’t know about that either–I’m trying to make everything I have online less about Crowns of the Sky and more about me as an author, so I can promote a variety of books once I write them. It’s all still a work in progress! But I have one piece of good news, though–I’ve already come up with the concept for the Wind Seeker book trailer, and it’s going to be live-action! I found someone to play the main character, so I just have to buy an outfit and find somewhere to record. I’m really happy, because I feel like it’ll draw a lot more positive attention than that tacky not-really-animation thing I did before. But at the same time, I’m also kind of worried, since I also don’t have any experience with filmmaking or even photography or anything like that, which means I’ll probably be recording on my phone while trying to force a flashlight and a fan to make “special effects.” Basically, this whole business is just me doing things with no experience and hoping for the best.

7-29-23: The new website design is up! A lot of the links and other pages still don’t work or look really weird, but honestly just getting this far and more or less finishing the homepage took a lot less time than I expected. Also, I cannot tell you HOW long I have been wanting a sticky menu–it’s been forever, and I’m so happy I finally have one! These next few days, I’ll be doing some more fixing and changing things, but hopefully, the website will be done by the end of the summer. (Also, side note: I was looking at the “all updates” page and realized the previous few updates were all just a string of “sorry for not updating!” and thought it was funny)

8-6-23: The website is finished! All the links and buttons and all the pages have been updated, at least for now! It’s just in time, since I’m heading back to the U.S. the day after tomorrow, and starting school the day after that. (NOT looking forward to the jet lag!) I also already have a jacket for Cleo’s costume in my upcoming live-action book trailer, and I have some other things I plan to buy, such as fabric patches and cellophane. I’m planning to film the behind the scenes of making the trailer and setting up the props and all that, so hopefully it’ll be fun! I still need to ask for permission on a couple of things, such as places to film, but overall, things are going well! Side note: The “a” key on my computer broke, so for the last couple days I’ve been copying and pasting the letter. It really made me appreciate just how often the letter is used! But I’m still a little annoyed–why did it have to be “a”? Why couldn’t it be “q”?

8-28-23: I’m back in the US, and school started a few weeks ago! (my computer key is also fixed, in case you were wondering) I haven’t written much these last few weeks, mostly because I was stuck on a fight scene between one of the protagonists and an ogre. I think I have it mostly figured out, though–I did a lot of research on different powers to get more ideas for the magic in the story, and I roleplayed the entire fight with an AI! I’m going to change some things to match the story more, but other than that, it should be good. I’ve been working on the book trailer, too, and I’m trying to vlog the process, but it’s so awkward talking in front of a camera. (If it turns out super embarrassing, I probably won’t post it!) Right now I’m waiting for stuff I ordered for the props and outfit to come, so I can sew the jacket Cleo wears in the book. Also, I just realized (again) that I haven’t posted anything in a month! I really need to find a way to stop doing that!

9-13-23: My birthday passed recently–I’m now sixteen! I can’t believe I’m old enough to drive…the thought of me driving just sounds so weird. Other than that, the materials I need to start making Cleo’s outfit for the book trailer have come, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I also somehow JUST got around to starting that fight scene, and I’m still not done, which is pretty ridiculous since it’s only like 4 pages and I’ve had the whole thing planned out since last month. The good news is, I’m un-banned from Facebook! I still don’t know what happened, but hopefully it doesn’t happen again. I’ve also FINALLY posted that series of drawings I’ve had sitting on my phone since the beginning of June. It’s funny because I used to struggle with not having enough content to post, and I would have to think up ways to make more faster and spread out my posts. Even just a few months ago, I was planning to post the entire series of 9 drawings one-by-one just so I could be more active. But now, it’s just the opposite! I dumped all nine of them in the same post, because I still have somewhere around twenty drawings that I just keep forgetting about…so expect more art soon! (Unless my goldfish brain forgets again, which I’d say is equally likely.)

10-15-23: Happy birthday to Caramel! (Crowns of the Sky is discontinued, but I just had to say it–she was my main character for six years.) This week, I got a partnership with One Tree Planted, which I’m really happy about–I honestly still can’t believe I’m getting the chance to work with them, and I’m so excited to raise money for them with my next book, Wind Seeker! I’ll update my website with more information soon. Speaking of the new book…I’ve been pretty busy lately (I took the PSAT yesterday) so I haven’t really had the time to write, but I’m trying to make it a goal to write for at least fifteen minutes per day. The problem is, either I procrastinate/get lazy and don’t do it at all, or I do so well in the fifteen minutes that I don’t want to stop there, and usually end up spending an hour or more, which kind of defeats the purpose of it being a manageable goal. It also makes it so that if I don’t have at least an hour of time, I don’t even want to start. I’m working on a few drawings, though, and continuing to sew Cleo’s jacket for the book trailer.

11-1-23: Happy late Halloween! October 31st is actually the date at the beginning of Wind Seeker, the book I’m writing, so you could say the story started yesterday, which is pretty cool. I was planning to post a drawing yesterday to celebrate, since the book DOES have some spooky details, with one of the protagonists being a witch and all, but I never got around to it. I also started selling my books at events again two weeks ago (I haven’t been doing that as much recently, since I was traveling over the summer and was pretty busy the last few months). I’m trying to remember to work on my preparations for the live-action book trailer, but I keep forgetting. The good news, though, is that I’ve been writing a little more lately. I’ve actually been pretty consistent the last few days, and I’m now at 81 pages. I’m always surprised at how long it takes me to write just one page, since the spacing and font size I use are pretty big.

11-9-23: Hello! I’m getting really close to being able to film the book trailer for Wind Seeker, which I’m super excited about! The book is nowhere near done, so I won’t be posting it for a while, but it’ll be nice to not have to worry about the trailer once I’m editing the book. I also started the character intro video for Cleo, my female protagonist, and I’ve decided that both her video and Fern’s are going to be in the style of an animatic. I was originally planning to do a slideshow-like video with some animations in between, but I felt like an animatic would feel a lot more cohesive, wouldn’t come with the stress of having to make it seem polished, and also offers a lot more opportunities to cut corners if I need to. As for writing…I was doing really well writing more consistently, but I kind of fell out of it these past few days. (It’s weird, I just can’t seem to stop procrastinating for more than a week!) That’s okay, though, since I have a three-day-weekend because of Veteran’s Day. I’m going to try to muster up the motivation to finish most of my homework tomorrow, so I can focus on author stuff for the other two days. (Keyword: try)

11-13-23: Hi again! So, did I meet all my goals for the weekend? No…but honestly I wasn’t expecting to. I did finally start sewing the colored patches on the jacket for the book trailer, though, after way too long spent planning, and it’s turning out to be really time consuming. It took me around 4 hours just to sew on 2 patches! But to be fair, I AM a complete beginner, and about an hour of that time was wasted when I accidentally sewed the sleeve shut and I dumbly tried to “un-sew” the entire thing by threading the needle backwards and accidentally getting it caught in the fabric and having to use a different needle and a pair of scissors to get it out, all because I wanted to save a bit of thread that I ended up cutting off anyway…but still. Another thing: I noticed, from selling books a couple times these last few weeks, that I’m getting less sales, and a lot of people are starting to recognize me. I went to an annual event, and somebody even asked me if it was a new book, and I had to tell them it was still the same one as last year. It’s kind of a painful reminder of how slow I’ve gotten at writing, especially because of all the troubles I had with Solar Eclipse, the book I eventually quit. So now I’m really trying to work on my book as much as possible!

12-11-23: My book hit 90 pages today! Which should make me happy, but it’s honestly kind of sad considering how long I’ve been working on it. I guess I’m still just used to being able to write really fast, since when I was in middle school, I used to have the time to write for around an hour per day, and I never got stuck back then. I’m also getting ready to film my book trailer. I went to check out the site I’ll be filming at yesterday, which is a community college, and I saw a couple of places that would look nice in the video. I’m making the script right now, and still trying to sew that jacket I’ve been working on for months at this point. I’m (finally) almost done, but now I need to do the hardest part, which is the collar! And also, I got an idea for another story, which I’ll probably turn into a short picture book. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be distracting me from my current project, unlike what happened last time. I might even work on both books at the same time, if I get stuck on Wind Seeker and want to write something else for a while. Details coming…maybe not soon, but at some point!

1-9-24: Happy New Year!! I’ve officially hit 100 pages of Wind Seeker! I also finished filming the book trailer. I was originally not going to post it until the month before release, but depending on what happens, it might go up sooner. The main thing is that I have to finish the cover first, because I want to include it in the trailer. Besides that, I think it turned out pretty well (better than I was expecting) and I’m really excited to promote my new book! The jacket collar was a hassle, in case you were wondering, and I spent about twenty straight minutes just staring at it and trying to figure out how to sew it in place, but my mom saved the day with safety pins and everything looked good in the end. I’m also actually active on social media right now…for once in my life. So, now’s the best time to check it out!

2-3-24: Hi!! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve updated! (I should get back to those near-daily updates I used to do..) Anyway, I’ve been working on Wind Seeker, and I’m right at the most exciting part where the plot starts to pick up! But the bad news is that it’s a fight scene, and I don’t have a ton of experience with those, since in my previous books, the characters were all just escaping or running away from danger, because the way their world was built made it so that it wouldn’t really make sense if they actually fought back. I’ve been trying to read a lot of fight scenes written by famous authors, but it’s still hard, because I’m struggling to make each fight unique. So far, all the fights using magic have gone like this: scary ogre appears, Fern throws a potion, Fern flies on his umbrella, Fern beats the ogre using their elemental weakness, and then Cleo and Fern run away. It’s not too bad, since there’s only been two of them so far and one was really short, but I feel like it’ll become really bad if I do it again a third time, if that makes sense. Oh, also, I have this huge folder of random Wind Seeker related poems I wrote when I was bored (I think there’s, like, 20 in there by now?) so I’m picking the ones that suck less than the others and posting them on social media along with a drawing. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about any of them, but if there’s one thing I learned from being an author since I was 9, it’s that once you get something out there, no matter how terrible it is, you feel SO much more motivated. And plus…I ask ChatGPT to write poems sometimes, and they’re so bad that it makes me feel better about myself. So, be prepared for some weird poems, and enjoy!

2-6-24: I’m at the part in my book where the plot really starts to pick up! I was stuck yesterday because it’s a fight scene, and I felt like all my fight scenes were really repetitive. But then I asked someone else, who helped a lot, and now I’m really excited about writing. The problem is that I’m drowning in homework right now, and I’m also applying for a bunch of summer programs (junior year is hard) so I don’t have enough time. I think I should have less homework tomorrow, though, so I’ll try to just sit down and write a bunch. I also discovered that, weirdly, my book trailer works on me. Like, whenever I’m feeling uninspired to write, I watch my book trailer, and it magically makes me excited about my book again, and I have no idea why. I’m not complaining, though.

2-19-24: The book trailer for Wind Seeker is up! You can find it on the Wind Seeker page on this website, or click here. I’m really excited to share it and to finally let people know what my book is all about. If you have the time, please watch it–it helps the YouTube algorithm, and I’d really appreciate it! I’m trying to find the time to draw, but school is busy, and I’m kind of running out of things to post on social media again. I still have one more drawing and a few pictures (I think) from when we filmed the book trailer, so those should be up in the next few weeks. As for writing, it’s hard, but I’m managing! The other day at Petco, I saw a chameleon, and I suddenly had the urge to make a character with a pet chameleon that they carry around everywhere, so I inserted one onto this really minor character that talks to the main characters like twice. Fern, with all his nervous energy, keeps imagining the chameleon glaring at him or calling him useless, and I’m having a lot of fun writing it! (I do feel a little bad for him, though) There’s also this huge plot hole that I’ve known about since September, and I’ve just been…ignoring it, because I don’t want to deal with it. So…I’m going to have to fix that someday. Not today, though.

3-12-24: Random fact: Today’s my cat’s birthday! She’s 5, and the only thing she wants is treats. I’m going to try to write 5 pages today, because I tried to write 15 pages over the weekend and failed miserably because I had too much homework and too little motivation. That’ll hopefully change today, though, because I have less homework than usual. I’m trying to write a lot, because my goal is to finish the first draft by the end of the month, and I’m pretty behind. I really want to get the majority of the brainpower-requiring work done a while before AP exams hit, or else it’ll get pushed back another month and that’ll be bad. I can’t believe it’s already been almost 2 years since I last published a book, I think that’s the longest gap since I first started. I still haven’t calculated the exact number of pages I’ll need to write to meet my goal…because I’m sure it’s a terrifying number and that’ll kill my motivation…so I’m trying to set the highest possible goals that are still realistic, hang on until spring break, and hope for the best.

3-24-24: It’s the second day of spring break, and I’m going to finish writing Wind Seeker this week! I got lucky and was hit with a smaller amount of homework, so I made a schedule for writing to keep myself motivated. I just wrote over 10 pages, which is the most I’ve written in one day since…basically as far back as I can remember. I’ve estimated that I still have around 50 pages to write after this, and just under 10 of those are a scene that I have a very detailed plan for already, so it’s going good! I’m going to save the highly-planned scene for a day when I’m feeling lazy or not too inspired, and try my best to follow my schedule. I have a theme and a mini-challenge for every day to keep my very short attention span alive–like writing a page in every room of my house, for example, and I’m leaving a lot of pages for the last day, because in my experience, the closer you are to the end of a book, the easier it is to finish, since the whole time you were writing, you’ve been thinking about the ending. Something I’m trying to be mindful of is balancing action and dialogue, since I feel like my book has relatively heavy amounts of both. I’m also trying to tie in the environmental themes more closely, since I noticed that I got so caught up in the plot and the character development that I almost lost sight of why I wrote this book in the first place. It’s crazy, but I’m moving forward! Tomorrow’s theme is “indecisiveness,” so to symbolize the feeling of not being able to decide what to do, I’ll be alternating between drawing, writing, and doing something relaxing, with half an hour for each, and I’m kind of worried that it’ll break my focus for writing, but I also know that it’ll stop me from getting tired. That’ll be interesting–I’ll update you tomorrow night if I don’t forget.

4-2-24: Okay, so if you’re wondering how my plan to finish Wind Seeker over spring break went…..I got about halfway through. My motivation was all concentrated in short, sudden bursts, and the rest of the time I had none. It’s okay, though–I’ll do my best to be consistent, and I think I can still get the book out before May if I try really hard. One thing I’m learning is to not wait until I feel like it before I write, but to wait until I don’t not feel like it. I can’t tell you how many opportunities I’ve lost, just because I decided not to write when I really wouldn’t have minded doing it that much. In other words, don’t procrastinate! Which is always much easier said than done, especially for someone like me who may be too far gone. But I’m not giving up on the book, and I’m drawing the cover right now.

4-11-24: I’m officially done with the first draft of Wind Seeker!! WOOOO!!!! Now…I have to edit, because I left 40-something comments for myself and I’m scared. Once I’m done sorting out the mess, I’ll get beta readers (somehow, I’ll figure it out) and also go through it myself a bunch of times. There are also a bunch of finishing touches I want to add, like before each chapter I want to put a tip on how to live more sustainably. I already wrote the acknowledgements, because every time I finish the first draft of a book, I just really feel like writing the acknowledgements right away for some reason. I still have things that I want to say in the author’s note, though, and I still have no cover, which is not okay. I’m working on it! If, for some reason, you want to be one of my beta readers, feel free to contact me–I’d love to have some help! You won’t get paid, unfortunately, but you will get your name in the acknowledgements…if you want, that is.

5-9-24: Release day is two days from now!! I’m really scrambling to get everything done–the cover, the last few touch-ups, the formatting, and just…it’s crazy, but a very exciting kind of crazy. I’m really excited to finally get this book out for the world–I love my story, and I want other people to read it! And that’s it, basically–short update, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say once the book is out.

5-10-24: I PUBLISHED IT!! AHHHH!! (It’s past midnight, excuse me while I go scream into my pillow) Wind Seeker won’t go up until tomorrow or maybe a couple days from now, since Amazon needs to review it, but both the ebook and the paperback are done! I’ll do the hardcover tomorrow morning since I don’t need it as urgently. I just…I can’t believe I finally got it done, during AP testing week at that (I just had APUSH today) and my brain is just a jumbled mess of words right now. (AHHHHH) I’m expecting to get my copies in a week or two, and I’ll definitely post it on my social media once I do. I’m so excited to see them! It’s been over TWO YEARS since I last published a book..which I think is the longest time I’ve gone without publishing anything ever since I started writing, which is crazy. It’s so weird to me that as far as the world knows right now, my most recent work is still Crowns of the Sky…and I feel like I’ve grown so much since then. Or, at least, I hope I have. It’d be embarrassing if this book were worse. But you get my point.

5-14-24: Both the ebook and paperback of Wind Seeker are up! I’m working on the hardcover, but it’s taking a while because of cover issues (it’s ALWAYS the cover issues). Apparently my cover art isn’t big enough to wrap around the whole thing, which is annoying because on the template it looks like everything is fine…so I have to fix that. I’m also trying to figure out how to grow on social media, because up until now I’ve just been posting drawings and stuff with no strategy at all. I might make a YouTube video of me learning how to do it (because my YouTube channel has seriously been neglected) if I can get over how weird my voice sounds on video. I’m going to try to promote this one really hard, so wish me luck. I’m also starting on my next book, which is going to be a picture book about AI art! I know this isn’t what I usually write about, and I’m still going to keep writing environmentalist books, but it’s just been really bugging me lately that human artists aren’t being appreciated as much in the face of this new technology. I’m hoping to finish it over the summer, and then get back to my next novel, which I sort of have an idea for?? But it’s really vague and I keep changing it? I like to write a really messy, long synopsis before I start writing an outline, because…I don’t really know why, actually. I guess it’s easier for me to get my thoughts down that way. The book is going to be about sea pollution, so it’s kind of connecting back to my first ever book, which I’m excited about. I’ve decided the characters’ names and personalities and everything, and the general concept…it’s just that the plot keeps not making sense, and I keep thinking of random holes that I’m not sure how to patch up. That’s fine for now, though, since it’ll be months before I even have time to work on it.

7-14-24: I’m so sorry for not updating for two months! The good news, though, is that I actually have lots to say. A little while ago, the background color of my website turned to white, which was really annoying because it made the majority of the text unreadable. I only managed to fix that issue yesterday…but fixing that one led to a MOUNTAIN of other issues, and it was a pain to get all of those sorted out. If you visited my website yesterday or earlier today, it probably looked very weird. But I’m done re-doing everything now, and it actually took a lot less time than I was expecting. Also, I have a concrete plan for my next novel, and I’m currently doing heavy research and planning, since the main character has ME/CFS and I want to use it as a plot device as well as portray it accurately. I’m making good progress on my picture book, Un-Artificial Me, as well! I actually even started a YouTube series where I show you my process. I’m shocked because YouTube actually seems to be recommending my videos to people now…mind you, it’s not a LOT of people, but it’s still a big improvement from the last four years when the only views were generated from me replaying it over and over again so that I could feel better about myself. I’m working on a poetry book as well, themed around Wind Seeker, which I’m going to release online to promote the novel. My poetry kind of sucks, but a sale is a sale, and that makes the potential embarrassment worth it. Also, one last thing: I had a HUGE custom diamond painting made, of Cleo and Fern from Wind Seeker! I’m going to film myself working on it, and I’m really excited to have a giant shiny artwork on my wall of my characters when I’m finished.

8-26-24: I haven’t uploaded a YouTube video in 42 days…which is kind of bad, so I’m going to fix that as soon as I get home from school today. I’ve started senior year, which is…interesting (I’m way older than I feel). I haven’t been drawing as much recently, but I’m still trying really hard to finish Un-Artificial Me as soon as I can! I’ll have a page on this website for it once I post it online, and I’ve decided on Tapas for the site I’m using. So far I’ve done 20/39 pages…which is less than I was hoping, but I’m still proud of myself. I’m also really excited because I got some new opportunities recently as an author–if everything works out, I’ll share it here!

10-16-24: Yesterday, I suddenly remembered the existence of this website and realized that I haven’t updated in almost TWO MONTHS. So, that’s fun. It’s pretty hard to remember to update, mainly because I don’t know if anyone actually reads these (should I try adding a comment section?) or if my ranting is just an annoying use of space, but I’ll try to do it more often! I’m currently drowning in college apps (I’m applying EA to Stanford, even though I probably have less than a 1% chance to get in but whatever) so I’m not able to do much else, but I’m working really hard on Un-Artificial Me and am trying to get it out by the end of this month! But I’m going to be participating in the StoryForge 30K in 30 days challenge in November, so I’ll hopefully get a lot of writing done then. I’m trying to finish most of my college stuff in October so I can just focus on writing, since the last time I wrote so much in so little time was when I was a seventh grader who didn’t care about quality.

11-10-24: UN-ARTIFICIAL ME IS OUT!!!! I REPEAT, my new comic book Un-Artificial Me is out! Right now you can read it online for free on Tapas (link) and I’ll be releasing the physical copies on Amazon within the next few days. I’ll also be updating this website to include information on the new book as soon as I get the chance, and I’ll be blasting the news on social media as well. I’m so excited to finally be done with this, since I think it addresses an issue that really needs to be talked about, and I’m also just proud of myself as a writer and artist. The final drawings did end up a little low resolution, but I knew that was going to be the case from the beginning because my iPad can’t handle large files, so it’s fine. I felt like my art improved a lot throughout this process, too–I definitely draw faster than I used to, and I think the way I draw faces and poses has improved too. Also, I’ve been sorely neglecting YouTube lately, mainly because of this picture book (also because of college apps, but I don’t want to talk about that) but I’ll get back to that soon as well. I have a bunch of new video ideas, and SO much footage from illustrating Un-Artificial Me!
Side note: I just noticed that for some reason I forgot to add the last update to the ‘Previous Updates’ page, which has actually never happened in my life before. Interesting.

11-12-24: I’ve been working hard to get Un-Artificial Me out on Amazon, and I ordered a proof copy this weekend. The problem is, the proof won’t come until tomorrow or Thursday, and tomorrow I’m leaving for a 4-day trip. So I won’t get to see the results until Saturday at the earliest, and even if I manage to get everything ready on the same day and the book gets approved on my first try, it won’t be available until Sunday. I’m a little sad about this since I’m really excited to get my own copies and for the physical release to be available for everyone, but I’ll make it work. But I’m definitely making another YouTube video soon (but not THAT soon, since I still have my trip) and I’ve been thinking of more ways to promote Un-Artificial Me.

11-24-24: The physical version of Un-Artifical Me is FINALLY out! I went through four rounds of rejections and agonizingly confusing error reports from Amazon before I fixed all the issues–I actually had to get rid of the page numbers, because the fact that they stuck out past the normal margins proved to be very problematic. But it’s not a big deal, since the book is only around 40 pages anyway. I’m so excited, and it would mean the world to me if anyone actually buys a copy. I’m not expecting that though, since it’s available online for free (the most important thing is that people read it, anyway). I’m also on Thanksgiving break now, so while I’m working on my UC applications (the first half of senior year is so stressful) I’ll also hopefully be posting a new YouTube video and making progress on my new WIP. Speaking of the new book, I’m hesitant to officially announce it on social media since it’ll be around a year before it’s published, so I’ll hold off on that and still mostly post about Wind Seeker and Un-Artificial Me. But just know that I love the characters and concept a lot, and am very proud of what I’ve written so far! And once I’ve made some character illustrations, I’ll add a page for it on this website for anyone interested.

11-28-24: Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it! I just posted a new YouTube video (after the first time in 3 months…sorry) where I do an art challenge: for every 20 minutes I spend drawing, I have to spin a random wheel to pick a color to eliminate, and after that, I can’t use the color again in my drawing. It was really fun, so make sure to check it out! Also, I just hit a milestone of $3000 raised for charity! I’m super excited and it feels like my work has paid off, since I’ve been working very hard to sell books these past few weekends. Just last Saturday, I went to two markets in a row (one in the morning, one in the afternoon) and sold 19 books, and two Saturdays before that, I sold 21 books. Joining the San Pedro Art Association has opened up so many new opportunities for me, including a new market, which I’ve heard is very busy. I’m going on Sunday and probably staying there for the whole day (I’ll be at a different market on Saturday too) so hopefully I can make a lot of money. It’s exhausting to stand outside and spend 3 to 8+ hours greeting people and pitching my book, especially for an introvert like me, but it’s also very exciting. I recently realized I haven’t shared much about my book selling experiences, so if you want to hear more, please let me know! I have tons of stories to share.

12-29-24: Merry late Christmas and happy holidays! I just reached over $3500 donated to charity in total, and I’m so grateful for everyone who’s supported me and bought my books! I just ordered a custom sweater with Cleo and Fern on it, and will be sure to make a post about it once it gets here. I’m planning on posting a YouTube video sometime soon as well. I’ve already recorded and edited myself reading Un-Artificial Me, and am just procrastinating on making the thumbnail (weird because that’s the easiest part). Other than that…college applications are really stressing me out right now, so I haven’t had much time to write in the last few weeks. It helps a lot that I’m on winter break, but it’s still a lot of work to do. I’m almost done, though–my last deadline is January 15th, so after that, I’ll be a lot less stressed.

2-5-25: Hi, it’s been a while! Happy late New Year and Lunar New Year. I’m finally done with college apps, and am now just looking for scholarships, so I should have more time. Today, I just passed 100 pages written for my WIP, Color the Sea! I’m so excited about this book and will post information about it once I get some artwork done for it (it’ll happen eventually). I’m also going to the ribbon cutting for the new gallery at Crafted with the San Pedro Art Association (if you didn’t know, they’re a group that works to spread art and art education, which I joined last year! And Crafted is a market that sells really cool and amazing handmade goods). I’ll be signing my books and talking to customers, and I’m really excited to be there. Also, for the first time in my life, I’ve been consistently posting on Instagram every 2-ish days for around a month, and I’m so happy since I seem to be getting a lot more followers. If you came here from Instagram, thank you so much!!

3-21-25: Hi again! Sorry for disappearing for more than a month AGAIN…I keep saying I’ll try to update more, but always end up forgetting about it. I’m on spring break now, and I remember last year I made myself a very intense writing challenge to try and finish Wind Seeker over spring break and failed miserably. So, this year, I want to try and give myself a less intense writing challenge to make progress on my WIPs, Color the Sea and The Pigeon Witch (which I’ll introduce soon, I’ll promise). I might post about it on Instagram, but I don’t know. I’m super excited about both these projects and can’t wait to share more information about them! The Pigeon Witch will probably be published sooner since it’s a short story/novella while Color the Sea is a novel, so I’ll try and get the character art for it done so I can post about it. I’ve also been horribly neglecting my YouTube channel…I posted consistently for a few weeks, then disappeared for a month, as usual. This week, I had the most random burst of energy for schoolwork, which is surprising considering my worsening senioritis, and I hope it’ll carry over to writing as well.

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10-27-25: Okay, I think this is officially the longest I’ve disappeared between updates (…or maybe not, I’ll have to check). So much has happened since I last updated! I published The Pigeon Witch in May, reached 1.5k followers on Instagram, traveled to China and stayed with family for 2 months, started university, and sold even more books. I also have not touched this website at all since March, so today I’m adding lots of new pages and content to fill in the gaps I’ve neglected. I’ll talk to you soon (hopefully in less than seven months)!

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