Hello World

This is my first official blog post (like ever), and while the former coding student in me would have just let this single blog post be 'hello world', I figured why not introduce myself with ten facts?

So, without further ado, here are ten fun facts about me!

1. My favourite food is fried chicken. (favourite dessert would be cheesecake though!)

Not really sure why it's become my favourite. Maybe it's affordability? Not too tough to chew? Less likely to have a weird aftertaste?

All I know is that there's not a lot of chicken dishes I'd dislike (with the exception of any organ related meat). Friend chicken is my favourite way of eating the meat, although I lean heavily towards Korean fried chicken (preferably Yangnyeom) and occasionally Nashville style hot chicken.

2.  My favourite video games are Shining Force and Shining Force 2 (excluding number 2's ending, which I absolutely detested.)

In the days where my household never had internet, my brother and I would entertain ourselves with his GBA and my Nintendo 3DS. We also played games on our PS2 (with no memory card) and later on our XBOX 360. We also had a shared family laptop where we would occasionally launch Assassin's Creed, and two Sega Genesis Collection DVDs.

Never figured out what happened to our Volume 5, but Volume 4 (which I still have!) was my favourite as it included Shining Force I & II (and Landstalker, Streets of Rage...etc). I loved the turned based combat and while some of the designs were a little corny (more so in the first game) I adored them. Loved the ending of the first game. Hated the ending of the second game. (Don't want to spoiler in case y'all want to play it)

Either way, these two games had a profound impact on me. They're actually one of the main inspirations behind the fictional universe I made that most of my stories will be set in.  

3. I am somehow prone to slipping, and falling down stairs.

I had animosity with a particular set of stairs at high school (which I would frequently fall down), and I have almost fallen down the stairs in my own house! Don't even make me mention the times I slipped and fallen in public (particularly on rainy days) 

4. I'm an artist too!

I was a big fan of drawing when I was kid, and had high hopes of one day making a career out of it (I used to make homemade comics during any free time I had in Intermediate). 

However, my two years of art classes in High School drained all the creativity out of me, and with my mother not really approving it, my interest in art ceased for a while...until Covid hit and we were all stuck in our homes during lockdowns. 

During this time, I had already dropped reading physical novels a few years before (thanks to particular book in high school that made me stop reading novels all together), and I knew I couldn't sustain myself with video games all the time. So, with a neglected graphics tablet, I decided to jump back into art! It's sort of like a side gig, where I do occasional commissions and tabling at conventions.

5. My favourite book genres are Fantasy and Humour.

I love feeling like I have super powers and I love jokes. You'll see humour in almost all of my books no matter the genre.

6. I originally wanted to be a screenwriter, with the goals on one day working on big movies.

My first ever screenplay for an assignment was my first written project for my fictional universe. It was about an elf who decides to become a witch rather than being an archer.

As for the screenplay career itself, I took TV and Film as my main major for my degree until Covid hit. I fell in love with art, and made Digital Communications my main instead. (went absolutely nowhere with my degree lol, but at least everything I've learnt from it is incorporated in my novel writing) 

7.  My first ever attempt at a novel was titled 'Gravity Girl'.

Long before I knew I could upload my writing online, I was handwriting short little stories that were fanfictions involving my friends and classmates (no shipping, just them in humorous settings). 

I don't remember when, but I remember trying to write a novel inspired by the flash game Gravity Guy, which was called 'Gravity Girl'. It was basically GRAVITY GUY meets CINDERELLA, where the titular character was worked like a servant at home by her step family, but at night became a hero named Gravity Girl which (you guessed it) had the ability to control the gravitational pull of her body.

I never finished it, and I honestly don't know what the story was about besides the character saving the prince lol.  

8.  I have a (10 years and counting) fictional universe.

It honestly started as fantasy personas for my friend group when I was thirteen. Some of these characters evolved into actual OCS, while other simply faded away because I wasn't sure where they would belong in the universe that I slowly expanded upon over the years.

My fictional universe is kind of wacky. It's definitely speculative, with the expected fantasy and sci-fi elements. While parts of the world actively embraces new technology, some are still embracing older technology (no doubts because of magic still being useful in the world lol). You got fairies, people living in the sky, and some guy with a plasma gun. 

9. I've only ever finished 2 first drafts.

Excluding short stories, in my entirety of writing, I have only ever completed first drafts of two projects. The first one I completed was intended to be an entryway into my fictional universe. However, it took almost two years just to complete it, and I realised it would be tedious work in fixing the writing and it's plot issues, so I moved on to another project (which I wrote 3/4s of before I abandoned it). I had tons of story ideas and outline here and there, but it wasn't until my most recent project, that I finally finished another first draft. This project was 'The Stray Scales'.

10. I'm aiming to get 'The Stray Scales' published!

After a few manuscripts which never came to fruition, and loads of miscellaneous writing, I decided THE STRAY SCALES would be the project to spreads its wings.

For years, even during the early beginning of my building my universe, the idea of a series of standalone fairy tale retellings was always something I wanted to venture. For a while, I wasn't sure where I would even begin, and where all the characters would fit into my universe. After developing the Lands of Faelin a bit more than just a generic 'this is where all the fairy tale characters live', I knew it was time to give it a shot. And I knew this was the project I would finally pitch.

The Stray Scales originally started as a university assignment with only five chapters initially written (the maximum word count was 12k words), but it only took the entirety of November and a day of December to complete the first draft (thank you writing sprints)

The project is now over a year old, and October is the month I plan to send out my first batch of queries! Wish me luck!

EDIT: Nearly forgot to link my author website, if y'all wanna check that out and subscribe to my newsletter!