My New Comic Book Cover!

Hey everyone, look what I've got! :D



The cover to my first comic book in the Leather Ladybird series "Steel Chrysalis: In the Beginning" releasing October 23rd!

A little description off the back:

"In the war between immortals, humans are not helpless.

Terrapyres are the children of Fallen Angels looking for redemption. Their Christianity is passionate and wild. they search for the HOLY Grail that pure Angels have thrown into space-time.

Celestials are four dimensional entities, masters of quantum mechanics. When the Grail threatens their existence, They come to earth to destroy it.

The battle between Terrapyres and Celestials is the heart of the Mardi Gras 3000 universe… but the immortals are not the only ones who struggle. The divine speaks to everyone who will listen and his warriors come in all flavors of hero.

Strawberry is an orphan, a computer-whiz and a master hacker. She’s also the keeper of a personal secret, a personal history that may be as dark as night… or that moment before dawn.

Darlin’ is an ex-military heavy weapons specialist, a woman of fierce elegance, sharp beauty, and unwavering loyalties. She’s knows who she is… but wonders who she’s meant to be.

Both women are Human, living their unique and separate lives in the near future. But their paths are set on a collision course when they’re called to save the life of a stolen child. The darkness they’ll face together will make and remake them, creating a partnership that will shake their reality."

What do you guys think?

For the Love of the Work

Right now I'm working four jobs. I'm a nanny. A club promo rep. A waitress. A writer. Sounds intense? Yeah, it is. When I was younger I thought I would write, publish a book or two and maybe have a job on the side and my life would be set. As I got older and started publishing, of course, I realized it normally works the other way around. I scrimp and save, bust my back and go days without sleep to support my writing and art. Don't get me wrong, I still believe that one day I'll have written and published enough that it will be able to support me. Or at least cover a major portion of my bills. But for now I sacrifice to the point of falling apart to bring my stories to the world. To practice sketching and painting until I can put what's bouncing around in my head onto canvas. Because I believe that bringing art to the world is worth it.

I learned early in life that some of the most important and meaningful things take the most work to accomplish. Yes, some amazing things come easily. But that's the exception. To do what you really love, to touch people, you have to work. It takes scheduling, dedication, a willingness to accept and sort criticism, a willingness to stand up for the unpopular if it's what you believe, study and a very thick skin. You have to know it's what you want and believe so thoroughly in yourself and what you're saying that you're willing to put up with the hardships that come along with it. Because if you don't, it's no longer worth it.

Recently someone said to me "Oh, Launa, you had such good grades in school. If only you'd gone to college you could be really educated now." I sat and stared at her for a long time. It has been assumed that because I chose to delay college to intern and work at a publishing house and start training as a comic book artist that I am uneducated and have no idea what I'm doing. That I made the wrong choice choosing to work so hard to be able to make writing an integral part of my life when I could have just gone to college and started a career that would make me enough money to live comfortably. I couldn't figure out quite how to say that living comfortably wasn't a major goal in my life. I don't mind working hard. I don't mind having to keep myself in check and on schedule. I value a "street" education more than a professional one. Yes, one day I want a diploma. I want to train and hone my skills. And I have mad respect for people who work hard and earn that certificate or diploma. But spending years working in a small publishing house, being trained in nearly every aspect of the publishing industry, felt more like an education than anything I learned in college.

It all comes down to your love for the work and the value of finding that thing you feel passionately about, that skill or talent or trade where you feel you do something good for the world. Where you contribute. That thing that makes all the bad or hard things in your life worth it. Because everyone has something and once you find it? That's when you really start living.

The Obligatory Introduction aka Hello World! Yes I'm Trying This Again

Welcome to my official author blog! If you've been following me for some time, you'll know this isn't my first attempt... On the whole twitter and its 140 characters or less system of writing has been the only one I can regularly keep up. But as my books kick into gear again, with a newly released anthology I figured I'd give it another try.

For those of you who don't know, I'm the author of "The Areane Journals," a series of character-driven, high fantasy young adult books and a contributing writer for the Mardi Gras 3000 line, an amazing multiverse built by professional writers, gamers, comic book designers and, of course, the fans!

Recently there was a fascinating discussion zipping through hyperspace about love triangles in young adult fiction. As a long time believer in complicated relationships of all kinds of fiction, I followed it across social networking sites and couldn't help but smile. The first time I read my rough drafts of "The Areane Journals" to my friends and family, I was physically threatened (being chased around the kitchen by a sister with scissors leaps to mind) many times because of the twisted relationships and tragedies I grind my characters through. I think every author is a bit of a sadist, making characters people can love/become intrigued with then laughing to ourselves as we drag them through every trauma imaginable. And as we know, nothing causes trauma and drama more than love. As Sarah Rees Brennan (who has an amazing blog, btw) "I do not believe in happily ever afters. The most I go for is 'happy for now, maybe, what's that ominous sound?"

Love means you're emotionally invested to the extreme. Whether romantic love, familial love or (my personal favorite) chocolate love, you are always bound for some kind of trouble. And as reality TV and the nightly news will prove, people love their trouble and drama. No one writes novels about simple happy times. Short stories and poems, maybe, but not books. That's why they *end* with "And they lived happily ever after.' (Though, personally I don't believe it and would be very bored if my life ever included that phrase. It kind of implies that nothing changed for the rest of their lives. How dull.) If there's not a twist, some love triangle (or pentagon. Or hexagon), unrequited love, personal trauma, betrayal or good old fashioned torture involved it doesn't tend to hold my interest. (In books, of course... I don't want to be tortured in real life. And love triangles may be fun to write, but they're misery to live through.)

Not that I don't think love can last. I absolutely do. I just think there will always be problems. The stronger your characters, the more likely they'll be to disagree with each other at some point, especially after marriage. When the princess marries her prince and then realizes he doesn't flush and flicks his toenails when he clips them and snores and his best friend hates her. And, of course, he realizes that every time she sings woodland creatures traipse through the house and the wicked stepmother keeps stopping by for hand outs and she eats brains (you know, if the princess turned out to be a zombie.) which is a nightmare for PR. Which leads to a rift in society. Which leads to a persecution of ALL zombies, even those who don't eat brains. Which causes mass hysteria and (one of my very favorite bringers of trauma) angry mobs. Let fester for a decade or two. Then it's time for a new story about a young zombie, living in a militant, anti-zombie world on the run because of her love of eating her own!

That's life, my friends. There is no happily ever after. There is no end, really. Only beginnings in new phases of our lives. We upgrade, Launa 2.0, and the problems grow or shift or, in some cases, mutate and we start all over again, hopefully a little stronger, a little more prepared.

It is this transformation that I find so immensely fascinating, especially in young adult fiction. The teen years are one big mass of upgrades and mutations all muddled together in a broth of emotions that aren't found at any other time in a person's life. I find this inspirational. Especially when it's written as it happens in real life: through trial.

So yes, I love the love triangles. (Though... in real life they really, really stink). And I love family drama. (Though again... I could live without it in RL). But I love even more when the story goes beyond those issues. How does the love triangle play out? And once it's resolved, what then?

The writing will never be finished, my friends. I'm getting excited just thinking about it. And if you want, you can come along for the ride with me.

Launa