How to get rid of Black Beard Algae (BBA)

      When Black Beard Algae first appeared in my tank, I had no idea of the destruction it would cause. It's brutal algae!

      For many years my tank was under a window, so I never had need of a light as the plants got everything they needed from the sun. With lots of plants, the aquarium had a nice little eco system going, I never had any problems with algae as the bristle nose catfish constantly cleaned the tank for me.

Origins #1 - Delenair

      As the goddess of mankind, Delenair resides in Bascilla, the realm of heaven, keeping a vigilant eye on her children below.
      Even under the watchful eye of the goddess, the denizens of Sapphiron do not live a blessed life. Delenair, choosing not to interfere with the affairs of the humans, allows them to endure hard lives under the rule of kings in a land plagued with monsters and sorcery. She feels it is not a gods duty to control the people, but for them to develop a moral conscious and thrive, or, to fall into ruin by the means of their own hands. The goddess descends to intervene only when Manishka and the malevolent entities of his sadistic dominion arise to unleash chaos and death.
      Delenair is not the original god of mankind. It was Pessial, who eons ago, created the men of Sapphiron. Pessial brought Delenair and her two brothers into existence to be mankind's saviours and guardians. Naming his champions 'The Delphi', he blessed them with the gift of humanity, to better understand the struggles of the lesser mortals. Although he hoped empathy and benevolence would blossom within the hearts of The Delphi, Delenair's brothers became lost within the void of one's soul, taking heed of the nagging emptiness that can never be filled. They began following a path of greed, lust and pride, which consumed them as they reveled in their superiority over man. 
      Treachery and murder ensued, changing the destiny of the gods. 

      The fall of Pessial, the war of the Gorigarni and Delenair's full origin story can be found in 'Born of the Phoenix - The Book of Lore' which is currently under construction.
      
   

Horizon Zero Dawn and HellBlade

       These are two games I can't wait to get my hands on! Horizon looks stunning and the artwork for HellBlade is awesome! 

      Female protagonists- yup yup, just the type of games i like! The bow in Horizon looks cool, I find bows to be really fun weapons in games, like in resident evil 5 when you unlock the bow, it's a great zombie killer! Skyrim's bows were alright, the latest tombraider games make great use of the bow! The stealth/hunting element looks interesting too! Harvesting parts from the robot dinosaurs.
     

Writer's Challenge

      My first youtube videos were 'writer's journey', well now it's time for writer's challenge! With the final ultra mega-mega completion of Crimson Sapphires done & dusted, it's time for Misanthropy! But I don't want to dilly-dally with it. I want it finished, yesterday! Crystal's story must be told! Yes, Crystal will be the main protagonist in this one. I've completed the plot, written up the chapter play by play, constructed some new creatures, monsters, landscapes yadda yadda yadda, so it's all ready to rock & roll. 

      However, a man must go to work, isn't it. Spend time with his girlfriend, play the video games, do the things at home, free hours are few and fleeting, not to mention that time passes VERY quickly! I have devised for myself, one of those things, of productivity, with the words and the numbers, a schedule of sorts, to keep me on track. So let's hope it helps! I'm giving myself six months to complete the book and as long as I don't procrastinate, I should reach my goal and you should get the next book to read! It's going to be longer than the first book, probably more violent too, though I did read somewhere, a man complaining about violence in books, and that it shouldn't be necessary to create conflict. HA! Try telling Akella not to kill someone she abhors, that girl does what she wants and with a blade the size of Sunderfall, well, ain't no-one gonna survive that! In Misanthropy, Crystal's mad, really-really pissed the fuck off and she's going to be dealing with that anger by spilling a lot of blood. Well, time to get started! But before I go, here's a bunch of cats on computers & stuff^^

Release of Crimson Sapphires

      So, today I published The Crimson Sapphires through Createspace. I released the novelette a few days ago on Kindle but had to wait a bit longer for the paperback, you see I was waiting for MatoelGrande to finish up the illustrations. There's no illustrations in the kindle version, it's a bonus for anyone who wants to buy the paperback, a reward for those who still roll the old way. Same will go for every book henceforth, and I plan on all the books to have illustrations from now on. I always loved pictures in books and now that I know how to get it all done and sorted and have found a great artist, the future will be pics pics pics! The book is in review atm, they usually take about 24hrs to approve it them boom! It'll be available to the world! Really happy with how Crimson turned out, I mean, it was only suppose to be a short story for wattpad, then it grew into a novelette. Oh yeah, that girl smoking, it's Patsy (^_^!) I hope you enjoy reading the story!

Akella & a new direction for Crimson Sapphires

      The Etsy store is up and running now, t-shirts should be available mid-June. I've received the shirts but am yet to have them printed. I was pleased by the quality of the shirts, they're cotton and feel pretty good! Looking forward to peoples reactions to them at supanova (^_^!)

      Crimson Sapphires.... I took it off Wattpad because I'm going to release it as an illustrated novelette. Pretty happy about that! Only the paperbacks will have the illustrations, mostly because I want to reward the people who stick to the good ol' physical copy. The pictures look really awesome too, very happy with them! The story's a good eye opener into Ravage & Patsy's past, plus it reveals more of Sapphiron and it's unique denizens and history.

      On another note, I've decided to end the writer's journey youtube series and replace it with a new series! Episode one was pretty fun to film! Was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be!

Here's the link if you wana check it out: BotP episode one 

Book 2: Misanthropy.

      Below is the synopsis for book 2: Misanthropy. If you haven't read Born of the Phoenix yet, then I probably wouldn't read the synopsis for book 2 because of SPOILERS!!! Huge spoilers!!! seriously, you have been warned!!!!

Born of the Phoenix keeps on rollin!

And the journey continues!

      This picture of Akella sitting down, chillin in thought with Sunderfall resting on her shoulder, is my favourite representation of the cursed blade. Akella is on the book cover but you don't really grasp the size of Sunderfall as you can't see the entirety of the blade. You can see why it cuts through armour and tears peoples bodies apart so easily!

Three of a kind (^_^!)

      So, a few things have been happening lately. I received my first customer review from amazon - 4/5 stars ☆☆☆☆ Pretty good! Definitely something to be happy about! I did pay close attention to the comments, which stated a few editing issues. In response I decided to travel down the avenue of formal editing (which I should have done in the first place) I'm very lucky to have Roderick Byatt going over my work. I must say, I'm quite humbled by his intelligence. To put this as a 30 Rock reference: I'm Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) an up & comer but green as hell and naive to the game. Roderick is Jack (Alec Baldwin) Highly educated, sophisticated and motivated professional. (A strange analogy seeing as how I'm not a girl right, I'm just all on team Fey after watching some 30 Rock lately, and Sisters hehe) So far the book is looking marvelous. An emerald is stunning, polish it and you have yourself an even more brilliant gemstone - that's how I'm feeling about Born of the Phoenix.

Paperback release and self editing

      \(!!^o^)~Paperback release wooooooo!!!!!

      Since this is my first novel I did quite a bit of research when I was first thinking about getting the story published. Originally I did go the 'literary agent & publisher' route but alas no one wanted a bar of me, what made it even harder was that the agents and publishers wouldn't give me any feedback, I just got the "sorry your manuscript is unsuccessful, because of the large number of submissions we receive we do not give feedback on the manuscripts we reject." Which is fair enough, but some sort of feedback would've been nice.