The Home for Mell Eight's Original Fiction
Mell Eight is an author of LGBTQIA original fiction, primarily M/M.
If that is not your thing, hit the back button, otherwise welcome and enjoy!
If that is not your thing, hit the back button, otherwise welcome and enjoy!
Out Now:Gifting a Dragon's Heart
March 19, 2024 Soul Bond
January 30, 2024 Coming Soon:
The Chef
More Information Coming Soon Current Projects:
Submitted Projects:
I have been working with Nine Star Press since August 2019.
I worked with Less Than Three Press from December 2011 to July 2019.
Supernatural Consultant Volume One received this award.
Ground of Insurrection was Nominated
Hadash Aviv was Nominated
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4/27/24
I decided it was time to start knocking places off my bucket list, so I went ahead and planned a trip to Japan. While I was planning I had an epiphany: if I was going to fly fourteen hours to basically the other side of the world, was there an opportunity to see more than one country? I added South Korea to my plans. Finding a trip took some time, since I wanted to see everything (impossible) and to do everything (also impossible). I settled on a trip that was ten days in Japan with an authentic Japanese-style onsen experience, and five days in Korea that included a day at the DMZ. The entire experience was magical. I went during the peak of cherry blossom (sakura) season so I saw a ton of gorgeous flowers, got to sleep on a proper futon in a tatami mat room after soaking in a traditional hot springs bath, and in Korea I was able to explore a tunnel in the DMZ the North Koreans dug during one of their failed plots to invade the south. The picture on the right is the White Crane castle, aka Himeji Castle, in Japan. I got to climb inside all the way to the top floor. The views were spectacular, and the construction inside absolutely amazing. The picture on the left is of a weeping sakura in front of a traditional Japanese lantern. I took it with my iPhone, so it's not anything fancy, but it's one of my favorites! I also saw a ton of Japanese and Korean castles, which were very different to what my very western sensibilities have been conditioned to think of as a castle. I can definitely see the architecture featuring in a future story I write. Massive wooden columns holding up multiple floors, intricate carvings everywhere, and the beauty of the sweeping roof lines could all make an appearance. Also, some of the defensive formations were unique to this style of building, so I would like to incorporate that into a book too. I don't know in which book just yet, but you will see it at some point. Possibly in a story tentatively titled Cantrip, which I haven't yet added to my actual to-do list. I had hoped between the fourteen hour plane ride to Tokyo, or the fourteen hour plane ride out of Seoul heading home, or on one of the lengthy bus trips to get to various destinations, I would have time to write. All I was able to work on was the opening scene of Cantrip, which was inspired by some beautiful misty mountains I drove through in Japan. After I returned from my trip, I had a couple of days to do laundry and check my email at my day job before I hopped in my car to drive to my parents' for Passover. Again, I had hoped to have time to work on The Spy, which is soooo close to being completed, but instead I made a chocolate-orange sponge cake, a lemon sponge cake, apple cake, chocolate meringue cake, rainbow cake, and a lemon meringue pie while also helping to make traditional kugels and other foods for the two big dinners (Seders) my parents were hosting. I didn't get a chance to sit down until this past Thursday, and I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight, let alone try to write. Baking like this is always a lot of fun, so I'm not complaining, but I am very behind schedule of where I thought I'd be with The Spy and the rest of my writing plans. Now that my trip has sadly ended and Passover is coming to a close on Tuesday, I am back to the real world and will hopefully find some time to write. I'll let you know when I start making progress again! 3/30/24
For many reasons this week has both dragged and gone way too fast. Every time I looked at a clock, it felt like the hands were moving backward, and yet I blinked and suddenly it was already Friday! I can't really put how odd this feels into words, so instead let me explain everything I've been up to this week. First of all, the response for Gifting a Dragon's Heart has been beyond positive. Not a single bad review, which is almost unheard of! You all really seem to have enjoyed my quirky sci-fi/fantasy crossover story. For anyone that missed it, Gifting is available for purchase at most major retailers. My next story on the docket for release is The Chef, which is completely different in style to Gifting a Dragon's Heart. Beyond the fact that The Chef is almost double the length of Gifting, it also has a lot more world building and a slower build up to the romance and the plot. I received the first round of edits for The Chef this week. It's amazing how much more time and effort editing 60k words is compared to all the shorter stories I've been releasing. I was so excited to be working on The Chef again, but this was another instance of the clock moving in the wrong direction. I'd think I had made a lot of progress and was enjoying the opportunity to play with this story again, and then I'd realize I had only finished five pages. In a 20 to 30k story, five pages is a ton. In a 60k story that's barely scratching the surface. Lol It took me all week to return The Chef to my editor for round two. Despite that, my goal is still to write more longer works so this process has been very rewarding. Speaking of writing, I added another chapter to the third book in the trilogy, The Spy, which concludes the fun that began in The Chef. I've finished the needed introductory parts to the second half of the story and now it's time to dive into the meat of the plot as the climax for this book and the series takes off. The Spy is currently 35k words long and I believe I have enough outlined to get it to 50k, which would put it in the longer range for my books. I had to pause writing this story when the edits for The Chef came in, so I hope I can jump back in where I left off. I want to finish writing The Spy as quickly as possible because there are a ton of other plots dancing around in my head, asking for their turn. If a book is listed on my Current Projects page, it is one of those stories demanding I write them too. The problem is if I start working on one of them, The Spy won't get finished. That's what happened with my Magnified trilogy; I got distracted by other series and plots, and now it feels too daunting to go back and finish the last book. Codified is absolutely still on my to-do list, but so is Dragon Spy and Vivary Tales, and the list goes on. There's a lot to look forward to, so I'm excited to see where the next few weeks of writing take me! |