I was playing Skyrim muted and at three in the morning, so this made me laugh even harder. Recently found the Ancient Tome Chest so I could try out the Destruction fast travel exploit. Really fun.
So I got a dip pen on Wednesday! Super happy about that. First dip pen ever. Already had some W&N black india ink, so I tested the nib out, a Leondart & Co., EF. I want some more nibs but am pretty broke to buy each one individually from different sites—shipping costs stack up, so what costs £0.99 can turn into £3.99, etc.
I don't know at all which nibs I should be focusing on buying, but I know I want to do art like Bad Ink Studios, comic inking, maybe a few manga strips. Just want to see what works. Checked the Amazon description and there's nothing substantial said about these nibs. Would you consider them any good? Any other places to look for bulk nib sets? I'm a beginner so I want to spend some dosh on various nibs in one pack, try them all out.
Just wanted to share!
Edit:
Forgot to mention what the book's about! Here's the blurb:
After a robot awakens beneath the ruins of a changed world, Novalie sees it as nothing more than scrap. But when it unleashes a devastating bolt of antimatter in an ambush, she realises it’s exactly what she needs to take down Jude, the man who ruined her life.
Jude rules the Community from a bed, piloting a machine that now governs in his place.
The journey is brutal. Sickness and violence push them off course at every turn. As they struggle through a world determined to destroy them, their bond evolves beyond master and machine.
Then the companion begins to hear a voice that is both unknown and familiar. It brings back memories of dust, barrages of bullets, blood. War.
Told from the robot’s perspective, THE LIVING MACHINE explores a future where animals run the world and humanity has been thrust to the side.
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I'm absolutely in love with the colours. Even though I designed the cover myself (lol), I didn't expect them to be so bright in real life. I especially like the vibrant blue background, but I can never take a good picture, I swear... My hand always ends up looking like my foot.
This book took me significantly less time than my debut, coming together in around a year. The first draft took six months of daily writing. No idea what my average word count was. After writing came editing, polishing, and working on the cover, which, as usual, took another few months.
One thing that really surprised me is how smooth the (cream) paper feels. It's much smoother than the copy of my first book, so safe to say I'm really pleased with the paper quality.
As always, the dimensions are 5.5 x 8.5 inches. Paperback comes in at 321 pages, quite a bit longer than my first book, which I think was around... 254 pages.
I haven't signed this one yet. Been going back and forth on it.
THE LIVING MACHINE is available now in both ebook and paperback format. It's also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so if you're a KU subscriber, you can read it at no additional cost. It should now be available across all marketplaces.
For convenience, I've included some links below to help you find it.
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My website, where you can learn more about me and get a free exclusive sci-fi thriller short story.
Thanks for stopping by!
I love this game.
My phone is old, can't focus up close, but I'm really happy with this purchase. The nib is a "D. Leondart & Co.", going off what's been engraved in the metal. Extra Fine (EF), England. Got these both at Cass Art, Glasgow! It can flex a bit more than the photo shows, but I couldn't bend my hand the right way. I passed it through a flame, which is why it's darker at the tip. Still works completely fine.
Did a simple wooden dip pen test and found that my lines are shaky—I can definitely draw better—just need a whole lot more practice. The thick lines you see in the drawing (random girl I drew from my imagination) are from a brush. Wanted to see how Windsor & Newton black india ink holds up against my Art Creation pocket sketchbook.
Definitely want more nibs.
It took six months to write, a few to come up with the cover, a bit more to edit and polish. I'll be getting an author copy soon, so I can better show you what it looks like as a paperback next time!
This is a story I've spent so long working on. There were plenty of moments along the way when I wondered whether I'd ever actually reach the finish line, so being able to write this feels so incredibly special. If you enjoy thrillers packed with tension, danger around every corner, found family, and unlikely friendships that develop in the most challenging circumstances, I think there's a good chance this book might be for you.
THE LIVING MACHINE is available now in both ebook and paperback format. It's also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so if you're a KU subscriber, you can read it at no additional cost. It should now be available across all marketplaces.
For convenience, I've included some links below to help you find it. Thanks again for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the adventure if you decide to join the ride!
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My website, where you can learn more about me and get a free exclusive sci-fi thriller short story.
Thank you. You reading this means the world.
Planning on doing a Kindle Countdown Deal for my (short, 254 pages) standalone cyberpunk thriller and looking for places to promote it that don’t require an upfront fee since I’m pretty broke at the moment.
I’m mainly thinking social media, but I’d really appreciate any other suggestions! Are there any good sites, etc?
EDIT: I got the date wrong! It's not Tuesday anymore. I released it MONDAY. This is how you know I've been busy!
It was hard. It took a year. And I got two sales (from preorders) right off the bat.
I am a standalone sci-fi thriller author. I will only write standalones. Each book (I say this with two out but around ten more in my head) is written to deliver a full, satisfying arc without requiring anything before or after it. Am I shooting myself in the foot because of lower read-through? Possibly. Am I happy writing what I'm writing? Very.
I’m not interested in dependency chains between books. If a reader finishes one of my books and never reads another, that’s fine. If they read all of them, that’s also fine. But none of them are designed to require the others to matter.
This book is much longer than the first, ending at 321 pages, with much more relationship-building and character exploration.
I got eight ARC readers. It’s a small number, but I’m very happy with it. One even posted it on her social media, which was really great. Pro tip that I didn't do last time, while requesting an ARC, I asked if they'd be interested in receiving a cover to post for their Instagram, etc! It worked. I don't know if it'll net me any sales, hoping it does, but it's definitely added some visibility by way of someone putting the book on their TBR. Next time, I might include a small paragraph the reviewer can copy and paste that shows viewers to my website. For my first book, I didn't do either of these. I might have been able to grab more sales, but, alas, I didn't.
(I really should have done that, but I forgot.)
Anyway, ARC readers were small in number because I found it damn difficult to gather a lot for post-apocalyptic sci-fi without a big budget for NetGalley, etc, and without Facebook. One came from my newsletter, and I found the others elsewhere.
I’m very resistant to joining new social media platforms. Reddit is really perfect for me. I know I’ll probably have to get over this fear at some point, but not right now. I’m going to focus on cleaning up my first book, then put my entire plan into motion.
I’m not as stressed / nervous now, but my stomach’s still in knots. Really great to change my flair on here as well. Here come the marketing efforts. I'm going to really focus on newsletter building since I've been stuck at twenty-four for months.
Celebrate the small wins, guys! Stay positive.
I've been on a horror primate kick recently, watched PRIMATE a few days ago and a bit of NOPE last year. This book looks really interesting. For those who don't know what it's about, taken from the Wikipedia: the novel centres on an expedition searching for diamonds and investigating the mysterious deaths of a previous expedition in the dense tropical rainforest of the Congo.
I've looked at some of the plot and it sounds right up my alley. Did the ending work for you? I've never read anything of his but have watched a few of the Jurassic Park movies, which, now writing this, realise they may not be as similar to each other as I previously thought. Anyway, how did you find CONGO? Please, no spoilers!
I want to update my author website and am a bit stuck on how to handle displaying multiple reviews. The reviews already up are for my debut. I'm about to show reviews for the second standalone. These are all standalones. I don't write series.
I’ve got a decent amount of 5 star reader reviews from Amazon and Goodreads, but I’m not sure what actually looks good on a site without going overboard.
How many do you usually show (per book)? I've picked a few strong ones. Which would be better—box width sliders, carousels, or just letting you scroll? But if I do the last idea, it'd be a very long scroll, right?
Thoughts?
Just started. Already on chapter three. Great so far, super interesting, but what I want to know is that, to fully understand the story, how important is it to keep flipping to the index? I've been going back and forth and, though somewhat jarring / frustrating, I've grasped terms such as Chantry, Jaddian, Galactic Standard, so it's useful, but it's not quite the reading experience I expected. It seems as if every new page adds another mysterious term that I must flip to the back to understand, i.e. Wong-Hopper Consortium.
I’m talking Amazon ads, Facebook ads, paid promo in general. Did you see decent sales / read-through, or did it mostly burn money? What worked for you? What didn’t? Would you do it again? Also a bonus if you happen to write thrillers and have any insight since I write standalone sci-fi thrillers.
Been at a crossroads for a bit because the most commonly echoed sentiment here is that ads are worth running, that they’re basically a necessity if you want to get your books in front of people, but I also some saying they barely broke even or just ended up feeding the algorithm.
New player, ~2 weeks properly in. Nintendo Switch 1. I'm doing ★ ★ ★ Village Quests. Moved from the Defender I to the Aknosom Long Sword version, I think it's got 100 Atk, so that's a -10 downgrade, but it's got fire attached to it. I've had this game for over a year but have never played it seriously until now. It's been very here's-everything-right-off-the-bat, so I've read all the Hunter Notes I've got so far.
Wirebugging is fun. Can't seem to get the hang of Soaring Kick yet? Been doing lots of Expedition Tours + exploring. My Palamute and Palico are both Lvl 9. Haven't done any Hub quests yet.
I just feel like I could be doing better. Is there an armour I should be working towards? What about a weapon? Which is the best? I've looked around on this sub and there has been a shared sentiment of: choose which weapon you have most fun with and which armour suits your playstyle best. How do I find my playstyle?
My idea is that once I unlock the best weapon of one category (LS), I move onto the next and get that to the best it can be as well, which sounds fun to me. I'm using the Black Belt (IIRC) armour with Guild Cross armour layered on top. My pets have the Izuchi armour + weapons. Will need to upgrade those, right?
I need to carry more items in my pouch. Is there a way to upgrade the capacity?
I just don't know where to go from here. I know I should be doing quests and I'm about to visit something called the Stronghold, but... I don't know. I'd like some external guidance. I keep getting tossed around and spat on.
I've seen other people use ink muddlers, ink mascaras (discovered this recently, really cool), plastic spoons, and q-tips. I don't have a fountain pen yet—my eyes are on the TWSBI Eco Bahama Yellow, <B>—but figured I'd ask something here. I did an ink test using q-tips last time, but that was with my W&Ns and glass dip pen. Which way suits you best? I know there are these books you can buy with ink bottle templates and that looks nice as well.
First time actually browsing on their website, so perhaps this has been up for a while, but I'm pleasantly surprised. Most of the stationery shops I've been looking at come in USD and I've been struggling to convert to GBP mentally. Pretty cool!
Looking for notebooks (not planners) with thin paper. Have heard HB have thin paper naturally. Any recommendations?
I've bookmarked these two:
https://www.1101.com/store/techo/en/2026/pc/detail_toolstoys/tt_papers_okumi/
https://www.1101.com/store/techo/en/2026/pc/detail_toolstoys/tt_graphnote_makino/
Are they good? Thoughts?
Not Temu, please.
I'm in the UK.
This pen is perfect in my eyes. No bleed through. Minimal highlighter smudging. Thick and smooth. But the only problem is it comes in a drawing pen pack. I don't want the chisel tips, the brush pens for writing. Drawing, obviously yes.
I'm looking for a pen identical / similar to this 0.8, not too expensive. I really love it.