Haven't posted in a while. Here's a review on things that happened book-wise.

I realized I haven't compile my list of books yet. 

My first book, the first book that I entered NaNo with is published in 2011. Available on MizanStore and GooglePlay in print and ebook format. 

Author: D.F.Jules

Genre: Paranormal, YA, adventure, action, romance

Summary (As seen on Goodreads)

My name is Leah Curran and my life sucks

While other people inherit boxes of junk from their relatives, my family inherits powers. And not even cool powers. I have the ability to sense Angels, Demons and most importantly the Touched; people who are graced and cursed with the power of Angels and Demons, responsible for keeping the balance between Good and Evil. When it came to them, my mother only had one rule; avoid them at all cost. I broke that rule and lost my mother because of it.

Now I try to live a quiet, careful life with my uncle’s family and my best friend, Gabe. But once in a while the universe likes to kick you in the face just to remind you that you are small and insignificant. The Touched are gathering in my small little town of nowhere, and some of them know me and know what I can do. Some of them want to hurt me, some of them want to use me, and so little few want to protect me. Avoiding them is no longer an option.

I will finally have the chance to do something that I have been hopelessly wishing for since the night my mother disappeared; a chance to fight back.

I have been waiting for this, I have trained for this. It’s time to do or die.

Available at: MizanStore  (Print. DeadTree version), GooglePlay (ebook, friendly to foreign-buyers), WayangForce (ebook).

The second book I did on NaNoWriMo.

Author: D.F.Jules

Genre: Paranormal, fantasy, YA, action, romance, adventure

Summary (as seen on Goodreads)

Lorelei Wong is a simple and ordinary girl. She fights with her mother, she goes to school, she paints and she hangs out with her friends. 

She is completely ordinary—

—in spite of the fact that her three best friends—the Lyall boys; Kai, Colin and Channing—are werewolves and that she is the only human growing up in a werewolf pack.

Other than that, she is completely normal.

Or so she, and most of the people around her, thought.

Until one day she is told that she isn’t; that she is in fact a key element that can either help or destroy the very people she calls family, the very people she calls pack. And the Packs, already dwindling in number because of The Great Pack War, responds very seriously to threats.

Suddenly, Lorelei doesn’t have the option of being just a girl, she must be smart and sneaky and strong in order to survive, because being what she is, the packs will want to either own her, use her or destroy her.

And if she dies, she knows all her three boys will follow--and that is something she will never accept. 

In order to bargain for their lives, she must learn to deal and control her powers under the tutelage of her mother, but soon she learns that power doesn't come for free and Lorelei has to figure out if the price for a life is greater than the price of her soul.

Available at: Wayang Force (ebook: PDF format)

On NaNoWriMo 2014 I'm doing Till Death Do Us (Not) Part.

I haven't a cover yet but here is the summary also seen on Goodreads:

Seth Matthews and his two siblings, Nadia and Nate, have a knack for finding trouble, or as they often protested, trouble have a way of finding them.

But with a family history like theirs, mischief-making is in their blood.

In a world of Affinity-users, Seth, Nadia and Nate have the Affinity with the dead, mainly ghosts. People like them are called Reapers, a designation that is usually treated with respect and admiration. But the black mark upon their family brought the siblings' day-to-day life under scrutiny from Affinity Elders.

Handling the burden of prejudice and suspicion in their own unique way together with their Bond-Ghosts--ghosts who are tethered to their souls whose sole job is to guard their bodies from possession--Seth, Nadia and Nate stumbles upon a mystery where Bond-Ghosts are disappearing one by one.

Now they have to work together to figure out who is behind the disappearances before accusing fingers point toward them...and before their own Bond-Ghosts, Darling, Lizzie and Vincent disappear as well.

Last year I did my book DreamWalkers but it's still not done yet because of reasons.  But you can read chapter 1 and 2 (as usual I will be periodically posting up chapters as I go along) here:

DreamWalkers is a book that I had a lot of trouble to begin with, not only because the vagueness concept but because of the characterization of my main character Medea. Medea struggles a lot with her demons and most of the time her demons wins and I'm not that person but when I write this story I have to become that person and it is hard. It became hard for me to sleep, it became hard for me to be around people, I'm anxious all the time, I focused on the negative and I'm angry and often times vindictive. It's uncomfortable. So I have to stop from time to time as I write which of course makes the book slow going. 

I will one of these days put on my big girl panties and hunker down to finish this book in the near future, the story is too interesting not too. 

BTW, I am also on Goodreads. 

Guess what? It's baaaaack.

I know. I know. I'm a masochist. Buy hey, first day, finished with 4k words. Not bad, ey?

Touched: The Sword

Here's the blurb that I've been working on:

My name is Leah Curran and my life sucks.
While other people inherit boxes of junk from their relatives, my family inherits powers. And not even cool powers. I have the ability to sense Angels, Demons and most importantly the Touched; people who are graced and cursed with the power of Angels and Demons,  responsible for keeping the balance between Good and Evil. When it came to them, my mother only had one rule; avoid them at all cost. I broke that rule and lost my mother because of it.
Now I try to live a quiet, careful life with my uncle’s family and my best friend, Gabe. But once in a while the universe likes to kick you in the face just to remind you that you are small and insignificant. The Touched are gathering in my small little town of nowhere, and some of them know me and know what I can do. Some of them want to hurt me, some of them want to use me, and so little few want to protect me. Avoiding them is no longer an option.
I will finally have the chance to do something that I have been hopelessly wishing for since the night my mother disappeared; a chance to fight back.
I have been waiting for this, I have trained for this. It’s time to do or die.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

I have this, I guess you can say, condition that makes it necessary for me to hole myself inside a room, completely alone with no contact whatsoever from other human beings.

Sometimes the need comes slowly, other times it comes so suddenly I just immediately shut down. 

This time, it comes slowly, like storm clouds gathering in the sky, ready to unleash thunder and lightning. 

I'm not kidding. 

The signs are easy to detect; I get easily annoyed, easily angered, feeling the compulsion to hit just about everybody and everything. The slightest sound becomes way too loud and irritating, especially human voices. Just a simple sound of the human voice could raise my blood pressure...which is why I always have headphones around my head when I go out--cause people tend to leave me alone. Most of the time I don't even turn the music on. 

The filter I have in my brain, that picks out things I should or shouldn't. The easy going demeanor and tolerance I have for other people's shenanigans...yeah, that would basically be GONE.

Sometimes, it feels like there's another me rising beneath the surface; someone who says and does whatever the hell she wants without regarding other people or consequences. 

This is usually the time where I lock myself inside my house and not go out. At all. Usually, it takes days. The longest I stayed in this state of mind was three weeks...where I do not want and do not speak to another person, at least not face to face or even through the phone.

Seriously, not even my friends. Or my family.

Yes, I'm fucking serious.

One other thing though, when I'm being like this, I also dislike being touched, which isn't at all weird because I'm not really a touchy feeling kind of person in the first place, but someone touches me when I'm in this condition; that person will be in danger of losing a hand. My temper just spikes without warning. 

Anyway, this self-induced isolation is easy to do when I was living in my own house way over at the other island...but not so much where I'm currently am, surrounded by family. And it's not really something I talk to my family about, this'thing', because although my family knows I like my space and I'm not particularly talkative, touchy feely and/or social, they don't know to the extent of  how this 'thing' makes me feel. 

I'm not going to label it as depression, 'cause I don't go inside my room to wallow and despair, no, I usually do things, like read, cook, clean, do laundry, or write or draw. I don't lie in bed and stop living, although I do lie in bed and sort out my feelings--because oddly I also have this really weird delayed reaction when it comes to serious things that happens in my life--and try to exorcise this twisted knot inside me. 

It's kind of like when I go to a party or an event and usually after a while I just have to find some spot or dark corner where I can be alone--just with a longer time-span.

So far, my family has been kind of good in leaving me alone (sort of), but, we'll see. 

Oh, and it's also funny that the 'thing' is happening so close to January NaNoWriMo.

Huh, so because I was kind of curious whether other people have experienced this kind of 'thing', I googled it and found this in Yahoo Answers:

Light touch (including a hand on my arm, pat on the back, gentle caress, etc) creates a sensation somewhat akin to the hairs raising on the back of my neck, except that it radiates out from the point of contact across my whole body. My chest tightens up and it becomes hard to breathe. I experience the intense urge to hit the offending hand (or other limb) away* as hard and fast as possible. It feels like some sort of hostile invasion. I have no particular aversion to germs, it's the actual sensation of being touched that I find unpleasant, even from people I know well. Same thing with hair or clothes accidentally brushing against my body.

Unexpected touch is just as bad, if not worse, because I have no way to mentally prepare myself for it in advance.

Interestingly enough, although light touch is abhorrent, being grabbed or held very tightly (to the point where an NT might find it uncomfortable or somewhat painful) is quite pleasant,

 ...the words in italics is exactly how I feel. I've never froze up or experienced panic attacks before but I do feel...not disgust but I cringe away from the touch, same goes when I walk in a crowd, I dislike having even the clothes of people touching me.

The thing is, the woman that answered this has Asperger Syndrome and I don't think I have it. Or maybe a mild case of it? Is that even possible?

I just have this aversion for touch, especially when I'm in hibernate mode, even from family or friends. 

COVER NEWS!!!

So, the story is, editor reread final manuscript of The Sword and felt that the original cover--

--which is this one:

--suits Leah perfectly.

And, of course, I agreed with her, so it's decided that we're going to use the original covers:

Wolf At The Door: Short story: Werewolf Tea Party

For all of you who had nagged at me for writing something about ConnorxMey before he was Lycaon and she was Waerloga. Enjoy this short story. And more will come!!

Wolf At The Door: Short story: Werewolf Tea Party: Connor eyed the eight year old girl who looked dainty and delicate in her white lace dress; looking as fresh and innocent as a n...

Publishing News, COVER FIASCO, and artwork

So, TOUCHED publishing progress news: 

Hardcopy of manuscript was sent to publisher and we've discussed about the covers. I was thinking, since Stacey K. Wall had done such a great job in turning my ideas into three great covers--

--we might as well just used hers! Look at it, isn't it awesome???

And editor has agreed but then one of my readers, @allyinthemoon (and fellow writer) stumbled upon something that shattered my dream of having such awesome covers. What did she find? 

Well, this:

Do you see it?

YUP, it's the same girl on it!!!!

Evidentally, we got our model picture at the same place (which is completely legal and fine since we got from a site that if you buy the printing rights, you can use it) and I figured no one would even notice but--

--I really don't want a mess with it, you know, especially since this would be my first published novel...

...so I told my editor and she told me that it would be fine, we could just make a different cover.

BUT I DON'T WANT A DIFFERENT COVER, because these covers are like, BAM, perfect in every way already (Stacey, I love you!!!) and notice how it had an overall theme.

So, my editor said, we could just change the models but how would Stacey feel?

So, I told Stacey the problem and I ask her whether it was okay for us to use her implementation of my idea, and change the models--she will get her credit of course--and she said yes (again Stacey, I am blessed with having meeting you). So, we're currently in the process of making the covers.

That's all for publishing news.

On other news, hey, #TOUCHED art. 

What happened with this is that I befriended CC, a person on facebook who was a reader of my story (no matter what people say, facebook is an awesome place to me...although Tumblr is where I find soulmates) and I saw that she'd been doing wonderful sketches and artwork and I was like, hey, you fancy doing some artwork for TOUCHED?

And she was like, YEAH!!

So, I gave her two scenes to work with and then we were like, "GAME ON, BITCHES!"

I gave her this JustinxLeah scene to do her magic to:

When I blinked I found myself on Justin’s lap, his arms trembling around me, his breath hot on my neck as he breathed me in. The pain inside my chest disappeared with every ticking second and the pounding inside my head was replaced with our heartbeat; fast and strong and steady.

His palm pressed against my lower back while his other hand curved around my shoulders and he held me like I was a touchstone. His touchstone. 

Right now I was his connection to himself and to the world. The urge to reach out to him, to rub his back and comfort him was strong but I kept myself rigid against him. I was doing this because I had no choice and a small part of me couldn’t stand to see him or anyone in pain. And he was in pain, I could feel it now. It was the displaced feeling I felt times a billion. He was so lost, so lost without me and no matter how much I resent him for putting me in this position, I couldn’t let anyone feel that way when I could do something about it. 

He held on to me, not just with his hands but with everything inside him, everything that made him what he was. I could feel it like a blanket, a web wrapping around me, absorbing me. There was a hole inside him too and he filled it with everything about me; of how I smelled, how I smiled, how I talked, how I laughed and how I fought. Of everything he had come to know about me, of my scars and my loneliness and my pain. Of how I looked like in his eyes and how I felt against him. These little simple facts he catalogued and fed it into the emptiness inside him, using them to piece himself back together.

So I let him touch me, let him hold me, let him press his face against the curve of my neck but my two hands remained in my lap.

“Thank you.” He whispered against my shoulder. 

My shoulders twitched against his arm. “Sure.”

“Just give me a minute.”

“Take your time.” I said and focused my eyes on the spice rack above the stove instead of the calm feeling of belonging that I felt. 

And resented it.

Copyright © 2012 by D.F. Jules

And then she came up with this:

I love this black and white version because it worked more with the scene, it has an almost menacing atmosphere because of the smudges at the background, contrasting greatly with the softness of his expression and the gentleness in the way he was holding her. It even almost looked like he was protecting her from the darkness behind them (or inside him *evil smile) and that worked.

Granted, the scene was supposed to be a little more intense and desperate for Justin, but...to be fair, I did let the artist to have free rein and I was intrigued by how she interpreted this scene.

In this color version there is a lot more gentleness because of the colors, and it looked more alive than the black and white ver. but what really sold me about this one was the shattered glass all around them; it was the perfect way to convey how Justin was feeling. How he was all broken up inside and was very vulnerable and delicate and the only thing that could save him was Leah. 

And most of all, I loved that she didn't draw Leah holding him back, because she's not supposed to. 

In short, I LOVED BOTH FOR DIFFERENT REASONS and I'm SO EXCITED TO SEE WHAT SHE WOULD MAKE OUT OF THE GABExLEAH SCENE!!!

You can see her other work on HER SITE!

NEW STORY BLOG

Since #GoV is still such a mess, I'm going to share you the other story that came to me. Here there be snippet, title is FATELESS! It's a story about the ficklness of fate (obviously), desert pirates, riches, betrayal, love, friendship,swordfights, political intrigue, and most of all magic. 

Soooo

...yesterday I met publisher/agent and we've hashed out some details that needed to be revised from the contract. New contract will be sent on Monday.

Other than that, since I've been kind of busy meeting friends and baby sitting, I've been missing three days of writing. 

I know. Horrible. How will I ever make up for it?

BY WRITING 4K WORDS TOMORROW, DAMMIT!!

Tomorrow I would have some time to pound the keyboards because I'm meeting Bie and GB at 7 PM. I'm hoping I can make some headway for #GoV, I mean, damn, this book is kicking my ass!!!

BTW, have you guys checked out the new trailer of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instrument: City of Bones? One word: AWESOME.

And on other news....well, family DRAMA is seriously not helping my state of mind.

Other than that, hey, this is interesting: What Bestsellers Do Differently than Everyone Else. 

Oh, and hey, chapters 1,2, and 3 of Jim Butcher's latest Dresden book Cold Days.

Where My Characters Do A Gandalf and Yelling, "YOU SHALL NOT WRITE!!"

My #GoV characters are killing me. KILLING ME. They are willful, stubborn, and being such a pain in the ass right now.

It's like TOUCHED all over again.

I thought, hey, maybe I'm just having a slow week, so as a test, I switched to WAH and, that went great, easy and practically writes itself. So, I come to the conclusion that it's #GoV that's a problem right now.

Other than that, life is good, the house is finally sold and we're dealing with that. I'm glad that my property agent is awesome sauce and they made the process way easier than I thought.

My mom will be here tomorrow and we'll leave by the 13th.

I will however, stay at Jakarta for a few days because I'm meeting editor at the 14th, possibly meet some of my friends especially Dhee who is six weeks pregnant. YEAH!!!

Other than that, I'm kind of excited to get some books.

I was feeling quite bummed about moving away from Yogya but I guessed I'm all bummed out right now. I have accepted and now I'm just blah.

Well, back to writing. Oh, and finally could figure out what the major plot of GoV is. Funny though, there's not much of a romance to this book, which I'm kind of worried about. But then again, WATD was like that but suddenly, ha, Lei and Kai happened.

Oh well, let's see.

I'll let my characters guide me. Muse, imbue my hands with magical powers.

Updates on Guardians of Volk

Wohoo, writing is going GREAT...and I'm hoping I'm not jinxing myself for later. But anyway, here are snippets, yes, snippet with an s, there are 2 snippets for you read!!!!

GUARDIANS OF VOLK SNIPPETS

The awesome thing is, I've finally figured out what to write on the 2nd and 3rd book, well, actually I just merged some ideas for books together and voila, awesomeness!!! It's really going to be GREAT!!!

Have updated Dreamcast of The Guardians and The Companions.

*wipes brow*, evidently when you have 18 sort of Main Characters, you really have to do a dreamcast whether you want to or not. It helps to get them straight and when you want to describe how they look.

Have finally finished with the dreamcast, had a hard time in finding Indian/Middle Eastern Actors/Models to dreamcast. Anyway, you find it here.

And 1st snippet Guardians of Volk could be found here!

Updates of NaNo's Novel

*sigh* I changed the trilogy title again.. From The Three Kingdoms, to The Three Cities, to the Three Kingdoms again. Anyway, compiled a few images into background ideas about the Kingdoms!! Enjoy!!!

Update on The Three Cities dreamcast

Finally added to the dreamcast, this time it's the lead male character: Arista Dasciano.

Updates

Hey, another update for you for NaNoWriMo's Guardian of Volk! Nothing really special, just more updates on dreamcast!

Updates!!!

Hi ya folks. Good news!!! Agreement for Touched is almost done so, we can start on the publishing (thank God). And I am also almost done with with editing and reviewing WATD; was going to write only 2 chapters for the ending but then decided on 3, then hey, decided to just merge 2 chapters into one so ended up with 2 chapters for the ending yet again.

I plan to add more angst for the last chapter especially the part where Kai and Lei says goodbye. I know, all of you are going to hate me.

Anyway, have updated the dreamcast on WATD, and will later on add more to the dreamcast.

Still undecided about how the plot is going to go for Guardians of Volk, but am excited to do it for NaNo!!! Wish me luck!!!!

Have been experiencing vertigo lately, my blood pressure must be crashing down, down, down. Am also fixing sleeping habits.

My corner of Indonesia has been so hot and buggy lately, so I get sweaty a lot and when I sweat, I often get itchy and my skin gets rashes and not to mention my allergies act up.

At least it rained today, so I'm hoping that it would clear up some of the damp heat. Urgh. Still means that I shower three times a day though. Ha. 

Blogs Moved

This is my laziness talking, since I'm starting a new story for NaNoWriMo; The Three Cities Series, and it is my habit to upload a chapter into a blog, I realized, hell, why so many blogs when I can just put it in one? Duh.

So, this is my attempt on being more organized. I can sense the impending migraine a month away. Wish me luck!!

To those who wonder why I name this blog Inside MadHatter's Hat, well, I often call the inside of my head as my very own Wonderland where I skip-a-long inside my very own world not unlike Alice...but I relate more to Mad Hatter than the blond, blue eyed girl. *shrug*