Dear, Reader,

I'm doing a fundraising for some unexpected bills that have arisen by discounting my print books for the week. This is your chance to buy one copy or all copies of my books and have them delivered to your doorstep. 

Nuria books are very good at getting your orders to you fast and they ship worldwide. 

This will probably never happen again. 

Hurry while stocks last as they say.

Beware the Ides of March Madness

Being a writer is  hard, right? We all know this. It's not the writing that's difficult - at least not for me. It's all the other shit that goes into it like publishing, marketing, getting repeat readers, all that good stuff.

I'm not good at it. It requires me to be social which ugh.

But I am good at the making of content portion. I just wish y'all could find it on your own. Since you won't...

1. Let's talk about erotica. 

    Do you know how hard it is to market that shit? Everyone reads it but nobody wants to cop to reading it. So they won't join your mailing lists or want to be advertised to. 

It's a pain in the ass I tell you. 

So I took down my erotica books (aside from the collection) and transferred the stories to Ream. You can read them there, at your leisure, just as long as you subscribe. I promise never to send you any mail or look at your names...unless you tell me you want updates.

I'm currently writing a very unhinged mafia paranormal postapocalyptic gay romance there. It's fun. I update weekly. That's in addition to all my other erotica tales which are now on there. Bonus, I will be adding a new every month. Personally I think the subscription fee is a steal. 

Go see for yourself. 

I think this will be a good home for them. 

2. New Podcast Episode

As you can see from the links on the side of this blog, there's a new podcast episode about suicide. You should listen to it if only to see whether you relate or not. I think you will. I surprised myself by doing so. It gets rather philosophical in places so I hope you bear with us. 

3. New Harlequin

I told you about the romance that I'm writing didn't I? The man is Palestinian and I'm a bit worried that Harlequin will reject it on that premise alone. I know we all like to pretend that Palestinians are the villains. We'll see how it goes.

It's nice to be writing something new again. Marcus Devereux has kind of stalled as I try to get over my intimidation of my own writing. 

That girl who wrote the first ten chapters was on a roll. 

She was cooking. 

She ate down.
I don't know if I can match her level of badassery. You're supposed to look back on your writing and cringe (at least according to so-called writers on twitter) but me I look back on my writing and I'm like whoa girl! slow down.

Self belief has never been my problem.

Anyway I got work to do. I have provided you with news, so click on link, click follow, enjoy the content.

In The Shadow of the Styx

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I haven't done much advertising of this promo on smashwords and today is the last day. I'm a hot mess, sue me. Anyway, In the Shadow of the Styx is 50% off for a few more hours. This story is about death. But really it's about life, because death is not the end. It's a great book if I do say so myself. So, if you're late to the promo, message me and I'll send you the discount code. Because I want you to read this awesome body of work.

Do feel free to leave your review as well.

The 'Writing A Book' Diaries: Nuance, Let's Talk About It

The 'Writing A Book' Diaries: Nuance, Let's Talk About It: So I was sitting on the loo, releasing the hostages and watching John Mayer's Instagram show, named Current Mood. John Mayer was one of...

The Struggle. Is Real. Newsletter Edition

 I'm sure I don't have to tell you what a charley foxtrot social media is becoming. Just this week the Americans were removed and then returned to tiktok. All the social media influencers are talking about having your own newsletter so that you don't lose followers if you lose your account.

Very good advice I guess...if your aim is just to talk at people.

For me, social media is a way to connect, to argue, to know what's going on out there...I'm not really that good at selling my shit using these apps - as you might have noticed.

However, I'm trying to take my authorpreneurship more seriously lately and so I'm attempting, once again, to have a subscriber list and put out a newsletter. Thee irony is that I did have a subscriber list, and this blog, was my newsletter. But madmimi shut down and Go Daddy has ridiculous hosting prices and so I was left in limbo, alone and abandoned, having to begin again.

So yesterday, I found substack - I mean I knew of it in an abstract sort of way, but yesterday I realized that it might be the way to build up my subscriber base. I know that I had a few regular readers of this blog. I don't know if you ever look for me now that each blog post doesn't land in your inbox but if you do...you can subscribe to my substack and have my posts delivered to your inbox once again.

Yay?

I hope so.

I'm neglecting my paid work to write this and inform you so I hope someone's listening. As an author what is your answer to the perpetual need to be in people's faces and remind them of your existence?

This year I'm not about 'achieving goals' though. I'm about living and enjoying so my blog posts will not be in linkedinese. I might rant and rave a bit, as I am wont to do. 

But.

I can promise that it'll be interesting. Maybe even fun. Come join me.

Erase and Rewind

 

Chapter One: Awkward Menses

 

Her period was getting embarrassing. This was her third week bleeding, and the flow didn’t seem to be abating even a little bit. If anything, it was getting worse. She was seeing double and she couldn’t quite walk in a straight line. She couldn’t tell anyone though; her father would run screaming from the room if she tried to talk menstruation with him and her brother might drive her to the hospital in a panic. This was one of those awkward times, when she wished her mother had asked her to come along, when she walked out on all of them seven years ago. Well, she hadn’t so Rosemary would just have to handle this the best way she could. She excused herself from class to go see the nurse, hoping she’d be able to get there considering her vision was blurry. 

 This was a good time to have a best friend she could call on. Unfortunately, her best friend was also her panicky brother. So, she was back to square one. She walked slowly arm trailing against the wall to the nurse’s office. Nurse Sylvester was always very concerned; her eyes went squinty and she’d lean forward to listen intently when someone was confiding their problems to her. It was as if she was trying to compensate for all the neglectful parents who abandoned their kids to her care. Rosemary didn’t buy it though. She knew for a fact that it was nurse Sylvester who’d spread the rumor that Angie Lemon had gonorrhea. 

To listen to the rest of the story, click here 

Holiday Seasoning

 I'm without work for the next week or so and I'm just taking the time to rest, reset and rejuvenate. Weirdly enough, I've gotten some shit done that I haven't been able to do due to just mental exhaustion. I'm having a time.

My son cooked us Christmas dinner that was outstanding.

Just outstanding.  

 So much food, for just the two of us followed by a camera copy of Gladiator II in Spanish. The subtitles were so wonky we couldn't really understand in any words but we still understood the story. 

Still going to watch it in English though.

 So then I did some painting, submitted ten chapters of a new story to a publisher, and I will be recording a new podcast episode tomorrow. I don't feel sick all the time...it's great.

the painting I made

Anyway, so I'm sitting here, writing my own shit again, watching the most random romance movie on Netflix and it's just a lot deeper than I was expecting. For one thing, the guy's mother is dying and she had a memorial for herself while still alive. Very triggering for me, but also inspiring. If I die of a terminal illness, I'd also love to have a living memorial before I die. But I know I'd get a lot of superstitious push-back about it.

If you're going to say nice things about me, I'd like to be alive to hear them.

Been thinking a lot about dying lately. 

It was always something to be feared. That phone call that changes your life forever. Something to be avoided at all costs...but the way the world is moving these days, what's to stay alive for? (and I say this in a very non-suicidal way).  

With climate change, disease, the rise of fascism, Ruto, no future for our children...there just doesn't seem to be much to look forward to.

But.

I am enjoying watching these two people fall in love in a very wholesome, real way. No cheese. I'm looking forward to reading several books I bought over this holiday time. I do hope they're really good. I am loving the new romance novel I'm writing. She's a Bajan, he's Palestinian and there's a good chance Harlequin will reject it for political reasons but it's a really good book. 

interim book cover for my second chance romance

 The movie is called Love At First Sight by the way. It's on Netflix. Watch it.

I've been kicked off twitter, which I think is the second thing that's enabled me to do all these other things. I spent too much time doom scrolling. Twitter did me a favor. Though they kicked me out for some bullshit reason. I was apparently an inauthentic account, spreading untrue things. 

I can only imagine that the eye of Sauron spotted one of my tweets on Post Election Violence and had them kick me out. That's the only thing I can think of because otherwise they kicked me out for telling people I took the last fudge at Carrefour. 

Whatever. 

It's for the best I guess. 

 

Whatever has caused this change, whether it's waking up at 3pm every day, or maybe its the hibiscus blend I've been drinking, maybe, its the fact that my son won a lucrative contract and I have work for at least the next two months. Maybe it's because I'm doing things new, things different, things I've been meaning to do for a while but just didn't have the energy for.

After this, I might update one of my fanfics! I know some people who will be very happy about that. 

Keep an ear out for that podcast. It'll be beneficial to you if you've ever thought about how the hell to pay a hospital bill.