Tanya Lisle

Creative on a health break

Category: General

  • Projects I’m considering during my break

    I may be on a publishing break, but I’m naturally going to fill this next year with other projects that I have been putting off! Now that I’m not concerned about publication, I can take some time to work on some of the other things, right?

    Games

    • Dawn game
      There’s a day in the Twisted Eden books that I’ve been wanting to make a game out of. A choose your own adventure where you can see all the outcomes of that chaos if things had been slightly different.
    • City Without Heroes game
      There is mention during the duology of something that happened with Damien. I’ve been toying with some ideas for games relating to that.
    • Looking Glass Saga game
      There is a month where Alice is in Wonderland and I don’t elaborate on it. I think this might make for a fun mini game.
    • Twisted Eden game
      There’s a lot of referenced to The End during the series. I have been playing with an idea for a game about what happens after that happens.
    • Shift the card game
      I already started working on this, so maybe I’ll get a bit further in the process of this!

    Writing projects

    • Portal fantasy trilogy and prequel
      This might be a book trilogy that comes out eventually, might not. It’s a whole bunch of story ideas that I couldn’t make work individually pushed together, so we’ll see!
    • Wipe
      I think I’ve mentioned this project before, but it’s a multiverse series of novellas. And I have no idea how I’m going to put this out if I do like it. It doesn’t feel like a thing that fits publication…
    • White Noise prequel
      There’s a lot of casual background talk about what happened in the labs initially, well before the series started. I have notes. I could write it.
    • Cloned Evil shorts
      Originally, Cloned Evil was going to be an ongoing serialized story. As it is, I have a lot of notes for middles of possible stories that never got beginnings or ends, so I might explore doing some of those!

    Other projects

  • Scrap Paper Christmas Gift Guides

    Looking for a unique gift for someone in your life this holiday season? Check out these handy gift guides for something they might not have yet!

    Through the looking glass

    For the aspiring author

    For the superhero nerd

    A little bit of glitter

  • You may have noticed…

    It’s my birthday! And for my birthday the past several years, I’ve announced a book that I would be writing for NaNoWriMo this year. It’s a tradition to have the poll run, for me to be pushing the poll, and to reveal the results on the 25th, one week before writing starts.

    But I’m taking a break this year. I’m still debating whether or not I’ll write at all, and I may, but it’s going to be something just for me this year. And it will be mostly because I want an IngramSpark coupon.

    But if you wanted to help me still celebrate my birthday this year, you can always get one of my books or, if you’re doing NaNoWriMo, check out the Storyteller’s Workbook! Happy writing, everyone!

  • 8 spooky books for Halloween

    It’s spooky season at last! With halloween less than a month away, here are some books to help get you in the mood for the holiday!

    House of Hollow

    This follows three sisters that have always been a little strange, though they didn’t think anything of it. At least, not until the oldest of them disappears and the younger two must find ut both what happened to her and what happened to them all when they were children.

    House of Hollow review

    Vampires Never Get Old

    This anthology series has a little bit of something for everyone, provided that you also like vampires. There’s a range of stories from the deeply unsettling to ones that are just a lot of fun.

    Vampires Never Get Old review

    Witches of Ash and Ruin

    Of course we needed a witch book! This one follows younger witches as an ancient evil is coming back into the world via a string of sacrifices of other witches.

    Witches of Ash and Ruin review

    Roses and Rot

    This isn’t technically a horror as far as I’m aware, but it does follow several artists that are determined to achieve greatness in a school setting that turns out to be much more than it appears to be. Also, it’s another book about sisters.

    Roses and Rot review

    Strange Practice

    This one is not actually that scary, but it is a lot of fun! This one follows a medical professional that specializes in the supernatural and the vampires and other supernatural creatures that come to her for help.

    Strange Practice Review

    Sawkill Girls

    This is a lovely horror novel about a small town with old families and one that has been subject to a demon’s whims for generations. Along with him comes a pattern of sacrifice that must occur in order to secure a family’s legacy, whether they want it to happen or not.

    Sawkill Girls review

    I’ll be Gone in the Dark

    This is non-fiction, but true crime feels appropriate for this time of the year. The tale of the Golden State killer, the focus on the stories of those who have been left behind after the atrocities, and the unfortunate shift at the end will leave you unnerved.

    I’ll be Gone in the Dark review

    Tales from the Twisted Eden Sector

    Most of my books have at least a little something spooky in them, but my very first published series was the closest to intentional horror. The series is a series of short stories that take place in an alternate universe Vancouver where magic exists but is kept hidden by the Syndicate by any means possible.

  • Worldbuilding Workbook

    I’ve been needing something to help me out with creating the worlds in some of my new stories. The Storyteller’s Workbook has been great to figure out the basics of the story and how it will unfold, but I have some more complicated universe building I need to do, so naturally, I needed to make a new workbook for them!

    The Worldbuilding Workbook is a journal designed to help you to create your fictional worlds with simple worksheets for the world, the people, and other elements like technology and creatures. However you create your universes, this workbook has spreads that will work for you.

    This Journal Contains:

    • A table of contents that you can fill out for easy reference
    • World planning spreads
    • Area and location spreads
    • Subcultures spreads
    • Technology and creature spreads
    • Printed on high-quality White Paper
    • Perfectly sized at 5.5″ x 8.5″
    get the Worldbuilding Workbook

  • Taking a break

    This is more of a heads up for anyone who is following me! I’m taking a break.

    I’ve been publishing multiple books a year for 9 years. For my 10th year, I’m gifting myself a break. A whole year of not pressuring myself to get something ready for publishing. It means I’ll get to write things that I might not ever publish or show anyone, and it’s just what I need! I’m tired, and I think a break will do me well.

    On top of that, I’m privating a lot of my social media. Some of you may have noticed that many of my accounts are now set to private and that was intentional! Planned! I swear, I haven’t been canceled. I’m just, again, tired. I’ve been making myself a consumable entity on the internet for a while and I want a break from that part of things.

    If you want to keep in touch, I’ll likely still be keeping up with the book reviews and other articles for this blog. I’ll also still be updating the official Scrap Paper Entertainment Instagram and the Facebook page. The newsletter is going down to once a month, but it will still be going out. Things are just not going to be personal for a little while and I’ll exist only as my content, not myself.

    Is this a bad thing to do as an author? Probably. But I’m tired, and I’ve always valued my ability to walk away from things in my personal life that aren’t working for me. I may come back to social media one day, I may not, we’ll see. But the books will likely return in 2022, so check back for those!

  • An Absolutely Remarkable Thing review

    About time I checked this one out, I think. I’ve been wanting to see what so many people were talking about, and I’ve been watching the vlogbrothers for years now. Not big on John Green’s books ((Just not my thing)) but this was a genre book so maybe it would be a better fit for me!

    The book follows April May, who finds an interesting statue on the streets of New York and becomes an internet sensation and the face of what turns out to be an alien invasion of sorts. The aliens have come bearing a message and they have chosen April as the person to deliver it, even if she has no idea what they’re trying to say. Fortunately, there are dreams and a whole network of people trying to solve them in order to figure out the puzzle.

    The story does a thing that I like a lot ((And also a thing I personally do a lot)) — use the fantastical elements as a backdrop to frame a more human story. The core of this focuses much more on what celebrity does to April, how she reacts and changes because of it, and the people who come into her life because of it.

    With the focus so squarely on April, it makes the world feel both larger and smaller in that there are several things that happen that have nothing to do with her that she hears about secondhand or in passing. I love seeing that in fiction, especially since I feel like a lot of books these days feel the need to bring everything into the foreground and force the leads to participate in every piece of the narrative.

    Overall, I liked it! It’s an interesting look into what that kind of sudden celebrity can do to a person, and the aliens provided an interesting frame to the story. I also really liked what was being done with the aliens, how they communicated, and that feeling that the story was bigger than what was on the page. It’s a great read!

    Get it now

  • Horrorstor review

    Did you know there was an Ikea horror novel? Because I have known about it for a while now and I’ve finally gotten around to checking it out!

    Horrorstor focuses on Amy, a woman working what feels like a dead-end job at an Ikea knockoff store called Orsk. There’s been some vandalism happening overnight when no one is in the store. She is asked to stay and Amy along with her coworkers discover that the store has been built on an asylum and it’s being haunted by the inmates and the old warden, who thinks he can heal them of their illnesses.

    The book feels very much like it was written by someone who has spent a long time in retail and I appreciate that. Amy needs the job, but she does not buy into the corporate platitudes that insist that Orsk is a family and that it should be an integral part of her life like some of her coworkers have taken it, which feels familiar to even my office positions.

    I also really like how the parallels between retail and imprisonment worked. They are obvious to anyone who’s been in retail for a while, but it’s entertaining to watch them come alive on the page as the people in the store are dragged deeper into the store and try to get out. ((Or not get out…)) Each of the characters is an archetype and it all plays very nicely together to make a fun ride.

    Overall, I really enjoyed it! It reads a lot differently than some of the other books I’ve been reading lately, but I think it was just what I needed to get out of the reading funk I’ve been in. And it was a great time, so I’d recommend it to anyone looking for something… maybe not light, but a quick horror story that isn’t going to give you nightmares.

    Get it now

  • About the preorder

    As you know, I’m doing a preorder for Cloned Evil: Fredrika! Like, as an actual campaign this time and not just as a link to purchase before it comes out as I’ve typically done in the past. But why?

    The short answer is that it looked like fun! I’ve been seeing so many people doing them this past year that I have wanted to get into it as well, if only to try it. It’s a lot of fun to get interesting mail and getting mail related to something I was reading is even better! So I wanted to make that for someone else.

    Plus, I like making cool stuff. This seemed like a fantastic time to stretch those merch design muscles to see what sort of things I could make. I have started getting into art again, and I wanted to design some new products, but also I wanted a way to get those products into people’s hands.

    It’s also a chance for me to get some products in for the shop! If I have any leftovers, I’ll probably be adding them in there to get for a price later if anyone misses it. ((With the exception of the sticker sheet.)) I still have more ideas for things to make, though they won’t be ready in time for the first book release, but this is a great time to test the waters with some of that.

    And, you know, I wanted to see if this could get more people interested in checking the books out. This series is a departure from what I’ve been doing, with it targeted at a new adult age range with different themes revolving more around family than what I’ve been doing until now.

    So do check out the book, and preorder it if you can! I’m really excited for this and I hope everyone else likes it too.

    Preorder Fredrika

  • A Darker Shade of Magic review

    Someone recommended A Darker Shade of Magic to me so here I am having read it! I don’t remember who suggested it, but thank you, it was a great read!

    The book follows Kell, an Antari from Red London and one of the few people who can travel between worlds. In his travels between worlds, you learn about Grey London, which has almost no magic, Red London where magic is a happy thing, and White Lonon where magic is power and things are bad. He is handed a relic from Black London, one that has been essentially lost because it was too dangerous, and he needs to cast it back into Black London before it can do any harm. However, the power it grants could tip the balance in power and give White London the chance to be even more dangerous.

    And a whole lot more stuff. But that’s the main bit.

    I really enjoyed the book! Kell was a lot of fun, especially since he was able to move from the darker to the lighter moods in a way that I haven’t seen a lot in other stories. The worlds are interesting and the culture between each of them makes them unique and very easy to make the shifts from one universe to the other really clear. I do love a world hopping story, and there’s a lot of world details that make things really entertaining.

    Also Lila. I know she was a main part of the story and she was a lot of fun, but you can explain the main plot of the book without her. She’s fantastic, though, and I do enjoy how casually bloodthirsty she is at all times.

    Overall, I really liked it and would highly recommend it. At least, it was something that struck the right balance of what I was looking for at the moment.

    Spoiler

    Also, before I read the rest of the series, I’m about 90% sure that Holland is coming back because he was sent “Home” which was Black London. He, Kell, and Lila will all be from there, probably related, and in the end it’s going to be not so bad or something.

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    Get a darker shade of magic