Tag: indie author

Crop Week Four

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Obviously, I’m not working on Crop anymore. I’ve been editing like crazy.

The wrap for Seed is done, along with the cover of Crop. The wrap for Crop could be done in about an hour.

I like that wraps used to take me something like sixteen hours, and now it’s down to an hour or so.

I had an anxiety attack Sunday so bad that I was in tears. It continued into Monday. No reason for it, just over stressed about the day-job and the move coming up I guess.

Monday night, I played some video games and had a little wine. Just unwound basically. The attack passed sometime around midnight on Monday.

I didn’t get out of bed until one on Tuesday, and then only because my older cat demanded I get up.

So that he could sleep on the couch instead of the bed…

Jerk.

Sometimes caring for yourself means sleeping off the tremor created by attacks and the weariness from forcing yourself through a day. This was the first time in years that I didn’t want to get out of bed.

And last time it was also a cat that made me get up. Except that time it was so he could sleep in my spot.

Cats. They are so mean.

Once I got up yesterday I finished writing Contract Gifted which isn’t a big deal, it was only two chapters left. Then I put it through a chunk edit and started a regular edit. One chapter left for that edit and I plan to do it at work today.

I also started looking at photos for the cover. I have to figure out how many edits it needs, but it could be up as early as next week.

Novelettes are kind of nifty, but I’m not certain I have a plot or way to do another one. It’s just that Nicole popped up just before Christmas and was like, “Hello,” and it just worked itself out.

Tomorrow I start Awakened and I don’t have the energy to be excited about it. The attack is still riding the edge of my mood and it could be a while before I completely recover.

Or I could be tired because I forgot to take my pills and eat before leaving the apartment. Or it could be weariness in general. I want to move yesterday. And as much as I ‘booked’ six weeks off because I know all but one is going to be anxiety riddled and scary, I want it to happen and I want to be on the other side.

Awakened will have to keep me distracted until then. Four weeks, and supposedly twenty-four chapters to go. That’s about 100k words. 25k a week, or about 6 chapters.

Okay. Maybe I’m a little excited. Just a smidgen.

Writing Marathon

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Writing sprint just doesn’t cut it for what I plan to do…

Okay, so I have some time off work next week and can’t afford to go anywhere, can’t afford to do much either. At least, not until I get paid.

I’ve been planning on writing Fragments for the past nine months. D.o.t.A. needs its next installment, and it needs it before I turn fifty.

I’m not near fifty, it’s a joke.

Anyhow, I had planned on writing Fragments over that six day period, so August 15th to 20th with a couple ‘free’ days afterward between it and a base edit to catch up if necessary. You know, if I don’t make it.

Yesterday on my lunch break, I tried to do marketing but my computer had some kind of a weird malfunction and wouldn’t connect to the internet, then spent the half hour restarting. Note: this is my new computer, not a work computer of any sort.

So, one, it should have worked, and two, I am not using company time or resources for my writing. Just, you know, you’d be surprised who gets in a tizzy over the mere implication of that.

Anywho.

While the computer was doing its thing, I had a paper I had started that morning with sites I had already applied to. Fifteen and counting, none of them are likely to market me but it’s that slim chance I put in the effort for.

I flipped the paper over and started doing some math, because I was in work mode and wanted to do something with my time besides stare at a wall, or at my phone.

I broke down Seed, it may be possible to finish it by Sept 7th. I will try my best. His Grace is already done. Two projects laid out for both writing and editing.

Next week is Fragments. I fully intend to try to write this entire book in a week. So, ninety thousand words all told.

Broken down, I gave myself Monday as well. I’m working Monday but that’s never stopped me from writing. Aside from ritualistic things once I get off work, I’m good to go by about 5pm. Normally that time is 8, so even better.

Each day I need to write approximately 12,837 words, I belive it was. That’s about 8hrs of work (taking into account that I can write 3k words in two hours on my commutes) a day. Still leaving theoretical time to do other things.

Which is good, because I’ve got a vet appointment one day, and a social outing planned another day.

I’ve written a book in a week before. Locked up in my little apartment, playing Sims and writing. No TV, this was before Netflix and my internet sucked. Not that I had any websites to visit back then.

I know in theory this can work. But theory doesn’t always work. With my luck, the landlord will spray for pests and somehow light the apartment on fire and then a flaming raccoon will leap from the roof onto my head.

Oh, yeah, there are raccoons living in my ceiling. They’re bringing bedbugs in with them and I’ve filed yet another complaint about the raccoons, adding in their infested ways.

So, my possible worse situation isn’t entirely impossible.

I have no idea what my plot is, it’s supposed to be a lot smuttier than Masked Intentions, but it’s too late to choose another, as I have absolutely no plans for anything but Seed.

Wish me luck.

On Running Behind

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m a lazy, lazy bum. Or, at least, I feel like a lazy, lazy bum.

The advice all writers are given, especially going into indie publishing is, “Just keep writing.” That’s not just to mean that you write forever and a day, but that you write, publish a book, then write some more.

I haven’t really been doing that. I feel like during the summer, I’m not myself. At least, not my productive self. All I want to do is head out into the sun, or clean my apartment. Thanks to two cats fighting over territory, it seems there’s always hair and kibble everywhere.

I need to start another mass edit of Death Mask, which was supposed to launch August 9th. There’s still a chance that it will launch on time. It’s a very slight chance, but still a chance.

I have almost a week in August off and I plan to write Fragments. This is the much waited for second book for the Daughters of the Alphas series. I thought that Masked Intentions received mixed reviews at best, but I keep getting questions on when the next book will be coming out, so…

When people ask for something, give it to them, especially if it was already on your to-do list. Just jump that sucker up some. Unless you were having issues for another reason.

I’ve fixed everything up so that I can edit at work. I’m so flipping pleased with myself. New tablet. Old one… uh… yeah, I could use it for writing if I was super patient.  But I couldn’t use it to edit or access pretty well anything except Facebook… ish. That’s the problem with that kind of tablet. Without the ability to install new tech, the thing became obsolete. And I think its company realized its mistake because the new ones can be upgraded.

In the meantime, the old one will sit to the side and gather dust but it’s still useful if necessary. I can breathe again, I can do my things again. I can touch a button and see all the things. Darn it, when I come on the new tablet, it’s like viewing the sites from a laptop instead of getting a mobile version that makes me pick up and shake the tablet in frustration.

I feel like I’m ready to get back to work. Like, maybe, I was a little burnt out from so many words so quickly, so much work while working the full-time job. Now the only problem is all those nifty ideas that I’ve had over the past year, that I haven’t gotten around to? They’re all arguing over which gets to go first.

Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns gets told that he has pretty well every illness possible? I feel like that almost. Except instead of diseases, it’s ideas and I’m the doctor and Mr. Burns is my muses humming and skipping away instead of listening to me and just fixing the problem.

I swear, if they toss me one more idea… I’ll… I’ll…

I have no idea what I can do to them that they wouldn’t enjoy. They were the ones giggling at the back of my mind as Mr. Wrightworth beat on someone ruthlessly.

Pre-Launch Jitters

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

It happens every time, and typically I plan out so that I work the day before launch so that I’m at least distracted.

Know what I did today? Cleaned my entire apartment. My kitchen floor hasn’t been this clean since December.

… right before I lost water for three weeks.

And my bathroom? You could eat off the tub!

I rewarded myself with Chinese food, I know I shouldn’t, I should save my money, but every once in a while, you know, you just have to. Circumstances that are completely your own doing.

I get pre-launch jitters. Worried about what I’m going to wake to tomorrow morning, wandering around in circles, unable to focus on anything.

I’ve been wandering in and out of Amazon all day, like things are just going to magically appear.

So, I went through and did the math. When I get worried, I start doing math. Yup, I can add, subtract, divide and multiply, dun that make me special?

I’ve… I’ve had people get uppity with me like I think I’m special because I can run basic percentages in my head. Not special, just worked in retail too long.

Anywho. Last year I did some math for, uh, retirement sake. I needed to sell 150 books a day to be able to retire with my current lifestyle. My plan has changed a little bit. The new lifestyle would take a great deal less. I think. Maybe.

Life just likes bending me over tables in a very un-fun way though…

The new math says that I only need to sell 77 books a day. Not because my math has changed, but because I based in on averages of books and their cost. I think my initial numbers were based on Kindle Unlimited books.

Why does that number excite me? Because it means I’m closer. I trust my math, because… well, I did the math. Closer is good. Closer is something to get excited about. I’ve halved my number and increased books in less than a year.

You have to celebrate the wins, even if they’re small. I can’t celebrate the launch of another book because of nerves, so I found something else to pat myself on the back about.

I’ve gotten closer. I’m on the right track. I just have to keep writing stories that you all want to read, which seems to be what I want to read, so that at least helps me decide which ones to go about writing.

Cheating Death launches in three hours for my timezone. Amazon will start registering the pre-orders in a couple more hours. Readers could review as early as tomorrow morning, depending on how quickly they read.

Please like my book.

I think that is the prayer of every author. But us indie authors, we have a different prayer, don’t we?

Please say nice things about my book.

Did you know people are more likely to say something or comment if they’re unhappy? Yeah, that’s something I learned in all my years in retail. You could bend over backwards for someone and they won’t say a thing, they’ll come back in and see you, but they will never tell your company that you did a good job.

Or, in the rare cases they do, they’ll call you by the wrong name.

It’s an odd thing, but true. There are those who will say nice things and broadcast to the world about how they love this thing, but a majority of the population would only make comment if they have a complaint, or don’t like something.

Which is probably why indie authors have taken up the mantra of:

Please say nice things about my book.

Marketing is Repetitive

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m marketing At Death’s Door more today. I’m going to say this, but only because I’m bored: Ugh.

If there are any marketers reading this and I’ve accidentally submitted to your site twice, I apologize. Beth’s had me do this for her, so I thought the site looked familiar because I was there for her, but no.

Ugh.

Marketing is repetitive. You can pay other services to submit to other pages, however you pay them to submit your book to the free services of other sites which doesn’t guarantee you promotion. This means that… well, do it yourself! If you submit to 45 sites the chances of being picked up by one are pretty slim unless you are some sort of best seller with six million reviews. For all you or I know, those sites are automatically ignored because they’re basically spam bots.

Now if it’s a network, that’s a different story.

So paying such and such a price to do that when there’s a Fiverr option (of five bucks) to do the same thing is pretty well pointless. But beware Fiverr, there are some who say they’ll post your book to Facebook pages, ect, then send you doctored photos. Beth caught someone last year doing that. She’s very focused on anything Fiverr. If she can’t track what you did, then you did nothing and she wants her money back.

And if you send her images of “open” Facebook groups and she can’t find them on Facebook, she’s going to demand her money back, then report you to Fiverr, and give you a one star rating because stop ripping indie authors off you mean people.

Submitting to sites goes by fairly quickly, after an hour I had about twenty sites. Maybe a few less, I’ve been wandering in between submissions because it’s such repetitive work. I don’t mind repetitive work if it’s with my hands. Sorting blueberries, removing paper bits from fiddleheads, that kind of thing. The copy and paste and switch windows in a different pattern every time, that’s what’s getting to me.

I like patterns, they make my job easier.

Here’s the thing with marketing (for those brand new at it) you want all your links open in tabs in behind. Open a new tab for each site you visit, then close it once everything is complete.

I visit sites often which have the go forward then back thing going on, but marketing, I often close the tab I’m working on. It’ll also help you trace back and forward. So at the moment I have the original search through Google (good ol’Google) then the first result I opened, and from there I actually found another site with many links and that’s the site I’m working on. Once I’m done I can just close the tab and go backwards, or keep it open and use it to compare the links between sites and maybe save myself a few clicks.

Some people ask for ASIN, then they ask for the link to your Amazon book, do not go to Amazon and look up your book. Go to your bookshelf in KDP and click on the US site from there, this will give you a clean link. If you look it up on Amazon, there’s a bunch of numbers at the end.

Want reviews? If six people click that link with the numbers and try to review, you’re going to have a bad time. It’s some kind of referral number. Use a clean link. And in that clean link, the ASIN is present. I think that might be the most frustrating, yet easiest part. I just keep the Amazon link on the clipboard and then delete the webpage and leave only the ASIN when they request it.

If you find yourself getting bored, take a break. Wander the internet, check social media, write a little bit. Boredom makes it a laborious process.

Some sites require a certain number of reviews. The magic numbers seem to be 3, 5, or 18. Nothing outside of that, which I find odd. But hey…

So those who pay for reviews get a head start. Annoying, nope, I will not pay for reviews, not if I can help it.

At Death’s Door currently has four reviews, bringing it to 4.7 Stars on Amazon. Yesterday morning, it had two. I’m dancing, but now I’m just one off of meeting about two thirds of the sites’ requirements. I used to itch for that third review, now I’m itching for the fifth.

Some sites require family friendly books, or no erotica. Most of the sites I chose accept erotica because I’m now keeping a list for later reference. Just a list, not the links themselves. For my next free day I will search each one, which will take me to a new page, in case they move it.

Some sites require you to sign up for free account. For the most part I avoid these. For starters, I never remember the log in and I’ve never heard of these sites.

Many require you sign up for their author newsletters and/or the newsletters sending out the free books. So look at it this way: a site says they have 40,000 readers of their email. They also have a lot of different authors who have advertised on their site. How many of those 40,000 are actually readers, and how many are just authors who are sitting on the newsletter and not paying attention to the emails?

In order to tell if you’ve been advertised, though, you have to sign up for the email and check the days that you requested. The last time I did this, the sites I applied to all sent me an email saying, “Your book will be promoted the days you requested” except it wasn’t. If it’s not guaranteed promotion, just say so! Most sites do.

Don’t tell me you’re going to do something, then don’t.

There are ever a very few that don’t tell you anything at all. They want you to submit an inquiry for more information. I take that as I do jewelry that has no price. Either I can’t afford it, or the seller is snooty and thinks I can’t afford it, either way they aren’t getting my money. I prefer to give my money to those who are transparent and up front about everything.

One site kind of threatened you with the possibility of being drawn for reviews, and that those reviews may not be kind, if you don’t do the paid option. That was a little odd, I’m not certain if I should take that as they will find everything wrong with your book, or if it was just friendly advice. I’m hoping it’s friendly advice…

When Avoiding the Ending, do Other Work

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

It’s not that I have writer’s block, but that this happens when I get close to the ending of something. It happened with Contract Renewed and prematurely with Contract Sealed. There’s just something about ending a book that gives my brain a stutter and a little death.

I’ve been working on Wraith’s Rebellion since September. My fingers are trying to tell me that’s ten months. I’m not really trusting them at the moment, as I’m having difficulty moving the joints and that interferes with a lot of reasoning skills because of the pain.

If the damp could go away, I’d be ever so happy.

So working out the ending and saying goodbye to Quin and Helen is seriously messing with me. It’s not like there have been a lot of characters, this has been a very intimate story and unlike with Izzy and Nate… and Mr. W, it isn’t done and in the past. 

They just feel cozier to me, and I don’t want to give them up, but this will be the end of their story. The world might continue, but I don’t think they really come up again unless Anna does tell me her story, then it’d be text based communication only.

In the meantime I’ve been playing video games. Mainly because the arthritis is causing enough pain to drain me to the point of nothing, so by the time I get home from the day job there’s a fog in my eyes and I still have the nightly things to do, like dinner, dishes, and cats. 

Please buy my books so I can quit my day job.

I had never intended on full quitting, but it’s working with my hands. I know they say with arthritis to use it or lose it, but I can do stretches or colouring books, nail painting and fine work for cover design. Things which help with my career rather than help someone who yips and yaps at me because someone my age couldn’t possibly have arthritis and why am I not moving faster to serve their purpose?

I’m talking clients, not boss. The boss is quite understanding and we’re discussing training for another position because… well, hands.

In the meantime, while this stupid rain continues and the damp gets into my joints, I’ve started promoting At Death’s Door even though I swore I’d wait for more reviews on all the books before I did that. I’ve been considering setting out a cover goal for myself. 

One pre-made cover for each day off the regular job. Once I reach ten covers, I’ll start selling them. Take that money and reinvest it in the books. Etc and so on.

I’ve been considering getting a website. But here’s the thing. My credit card expires next month and I haven’t received the new one yet. I’m worried about starting and subscription service, in case the credit card company has decided my paying the card on time all but that one time isn’t good enough and and they don’t send me a new one.

It could seriously mess with my plans, but that’s life. Always kicking me in the face.

After all that trouble last year, I had a couple quiet months. Then on Sunday my kitchen ceiling started leaking. Did my job, notified the landlord. No response. Then on Thursday same thing, except four this time.

Did my job, notified the landlord and pointed out the mould growing on the ceiling now. Said he’d be there Friday.

I have no idea if he did anything. The ceiling isn’t leaking anymore but it’s not raining as hard. My kitchen smells like mould and mildew.

Know where you don’t want that stuff? In your food.

I’m so sick of chasing people with the same comment or question sixteen times, then having them act like I’m imposing on them because I want an answer as to what will be done about this thing that is their responsibility.

Answer the first time, and I won’t have to ask again.

So I need to look for a new place on top of everything else. Due to the area being an “up and comer” people are moving into it which is jacking up the rent. I can’t afford to move on my income, and I’m “well above” minimum wage.

I was told recently that minimum wage was meant to be living wage, how much you had to make to support a family. I can’t support myself on more than that! 

Not anymore, not with people jacking up the rent because people are moving from Toronto because they can’t afford to live there either.

Dear world, I was told there were breaks that people catch. You lied, I want a refund on hope invested so I can convert it into something more useful.

As an added note, I think my autocorrect is starting to lose its mind. Oh boy.

Difficulty Focusing

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

 

I’m trying to focus for Contract Signed, but I’m outside of the plot I had written down so I’m kind of in my own marsh style area. Seven more chapters to go, I kind of have a gist of an idea of what and how. Because the what and how of before didn’t really change all too much.

On the vampire front, I’m on chapter six of Death Mask now and that’s going fairly well. Again, I’ve broken outside of my plot just a little bit. But this break was by mashing two chapters together because it worked better as one rather than separated.

What I should do, is when I get home start edits on At Death’s Door.

Or work on edits while at work on break and before my shift starts. I could do that too. Except I need to have laser focus for this edit and there are people who talk to me while I’m sitting there. I think they think I’m joking when I say I’m working?

I also have to take the time to set up the… I don’t have a clever name for it yet. The book where I’m going to put all my worlds in one place so that I stop whining about all the ideas I’m chasing and the possibility of losing them. This way I can add and snippets of plot to the book. When I’m done writing Wraith’s Rebellion and the new Contracted trilogy, I can just open the book, grab a page and off I go.

In theory.

I’ve been starting to think of what I’d do if I quite my day job, how would the writing run. Just sleeping until I wake up doesn’t do it for me, not if I want to be productive. So I was thinking if I can manage it, I’d have a seven am start, maybe earlier some days, with coffee. That’d give me a couple of hours to do some writing before a majority of people are even up.

Or stores open, because I’d still have to go out and buy groceries and stuff.

I’d probably work a set schedule, like Monday to Friday, seven to whenever I went to bed. I’d probably end up wheeling that back to like five and then taking the rest of the night “off” to pursue whatever projected I wanted to or to just play video games. Take weekends, holidays, and festival days off.

I know I sound like a crazy person. I know my first book just went up in September. I know that I don’t have a firm date for the next book to come out, or a real plan to get the others out at this moment. I know I’m writing every day instead of editing.

I also know I’m not marketing, but everyone wants 15+ reviews on Amazon, I don’t meet that requirement yet and I’m not going to pay for reviews. So I have to actually wait on that.

But at the end of the day, I am a planner. I want to plan for the eventuality of not working a day job so that when I get off the job, when I get home that first night, then the next morning? I can get up and I know what I’m going to do and I know how I’m going to do it. Without planning now, getting it thought out and the kinks figured out as much as I can, I’ll spend weeks, or even months caught in a bog of trying to figure it out as I go.

So I’m planning and thinking now. How can I do this, what is the best use of my time?

Oh gosh, I’d be able to eat meals at a table instead of at the computer as I typed one handed…

Back to Work (again)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Seven weeks behind, I think it’s safe to say I’m throwing out some expletives in frustration. I need some project I can tick off as complete before I start getting disoriented by this pile of work that’s building up.

Need to get back into the routine. Death Mask on the phone, Contract Signed at home. Whatever I can manage at work.

Today “whatever I can manage at work” is formatting for both Contract Broken and Contract Renewed. I got the wraps back, thankfully my cover designer found time among planning a wedding, working full time, and running her own writing job.

Thinking about how much was on her plate does not make me feel better about me being seven weeks behind.

Seven weeks! That’s like two books written and one edited with how quickly I normally work.

I’m also concerned because I have another doctor’s appointment next week. My concern, of course, being that the last appointment took me out for a week. My skull was vibrating like a tuning fork even on Saturday.

I do have a plan, but I also had a plan last week and it did not work.

Then again, I didn’t expect to have two trips to a lab and an extra trip to the doctor because she forgot to tick a box off…

Still, I’ve never done this before and don’t know what my reaction will be. 

So there’s that concern. 

In the mean time, if my bus ever shows up, I am going to write on my commutes, I’ve got the tablet to do the formatting at work, and I do have a plan for edits and writing once I get home. I even had a plan to write this morning. 

I find, however, that I can work better if I read the last chapter to get in the mindset sort of thing. So I drank my coffee and read chapter eleven of Contract Signed. 

I don’t recall writing it, but my goodness.

There are so many things I could be doing, if not for the day job. It’s aggravating because all my energy when I get sick or injured… or have no water for three weeks… goes towards the day job because the bills have to be paid.

Gotta get back to work. That’s my mantra now. 

Gotta get back to work.

At Death’s Door

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I opened At Death’s Door and discovered that I was almost done with the first round of edits. These were mainly typos, autocorrect issues, and some formatting. The story is now on my phone in pdf form and I’m going to give it a read to check the global edits. This includes adding things that I couldn’t during the initial writing, going back and revisiting all descriptions, and such on and so forth.

I found a premade cover today that I quite like the look of, one from someone Beth has used in the past. They’re even offering to do the wraps now! Beth had to make her own… or maybe Beth didn’t read the entire site like she lectured me on doing several times. She gets like that sometimes.

So I need to rush through and get the edits set up so that I know the approximate length of the print book to get the cover ordered. Once I have the additions to it and the cover on order I’ll run back and start over as if I haven’t done any edits at all.

Which means a read and mark down edits. Then a read to make certain I didn’t create a typo in the mean time, because I do that because I’m stupid. Then through a grammatical editing program which does all right. Then another read to make certain I didn’t make a typo again, because I do that because I’m stupid.

Then I’m going to ask for a beta reader.

While they have the book I’ll read it again in the freaked out way I do. Which is basically as follows:

OH GOD SOMEONE IS READING MY BOOK WHAT ARE THEY READING WHAT DID I DO OH GOD WHY DID I DO THAT THERE’S A COMMA MISSING RIGHT THERE IM STUPID AND SHOULD JUST GIVE UP.

No punctuation whatsoever, just screaming at the top of my lungs inside my head as I start ripping it apart for more errors.

As Beth says, the editor in me hates the writer in me.

“Don’t Quit Your Day Job”

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

The advice that authors (and artists) are given. Not always in that snotty tone that implies one’s craft sucks and should be given up on, but still. 

Authors and artists do not make it big. I’ve heard a lot of indie authors are funded by the bank of Spouse. Or parents. 

These are the same ones who always seem to be saying: “Just pay for marketing!”

Uhm, with what money? 

So I’ve been told several times that the best advice for an indie author is to not quit their day job. You know, so you can pay your bills and eat and access the Internet you probably need to publish your stories.

Then it’s keep writing. They say that like it’s difficult, but then get irritated when you ask what else. Like they’re hoping after the writing you just go back and struggle at it.

You may, writing may take you a great deal longer than it takes me. I’m classified as an exception to the rule. A full length book every month, or even in eight days, is highly unusual.

But what happens once you get that rhythm down, and you do keep writing? What if writing has never been the problem? Then what’s the advice?

It’s still: don’t quit your day job. 

Unless you’re writing a ten thousand word erotica a week, or more, for publication  and you have a name for yourself, you’re situated, chances are you aren’t going to be quitting your job any time soon.

Beth knows a bit about business and retail. Which is kind of interesting.

“It takes five years to build a business and about four seconds to fucking it up,” she says. “So, Aya, don’t quit your day job.”

Not because she thinks I’ll screw it up, though that is still a distinct possibility, but because she’s trying to look out for me.

My stories are a great deal darker than most I’ve come across. It takes a certain reader to enjoy them, and those readers are out there. Finding them, reaching them, takes a great deal of time.

How dark are my stories? I dunno, but the last time I had a fluff moment and shared it, the reaction was, “Oh God, you’re going to kill them both, light their dog on fire, and steal their house, aren’t you?”

For a fluff moment! 

I didn’t do that, just two weeks of hell, six months of recovery and then about and six more months of stress as they went through a trial.

My day job is paying my way, it’s going into my writing. I don’t get new clothing or expensive Christmas gifts. I cannot afford a new computer, or to go on vacation.

There is no sponsor for me. No Bank of Mom and Dad. Or of Dorian. I think the poor man being a muse is enough.

“You want me to what, with the what, now?”

“Be a little more sadistic, just for tonight.”

“Why?”

“I’m writing another BDSM trilogy.”

“Okay, but this time I want warning if you’re going to show up at my place and make demands while my parents are over.”

“You’re the one who didn’t tell me they were visiting.”

He is quite entertained, I think, by my new pursuits. It eats up my time so I don’t bother him.

But it all winds back to not quiting your day job.

Which is why I’m sitting on a fucking bus at 6am, having gotten up at 4am after working twelve hours yesterday to go back into work to fix the problems someone else caused and continues to cause.

The other option was to continue on as we were, but I was starting to get physically sick from the stress. 

I want to quit my day job.

Two full time jobs for most of the year aren’t really a problem. The past three months though have been terrible for my stress level. This isn’t the way it should be going, I shouldn’t need to alter my schedule to do this, but one bad apple and it’s absolute insanity. 

It’s not training, it’s simple not caring. I also don’t care to attempt to retrain someone who is resolutely refusing to even play nicely with the others and will be leaving us come January. Retraining simply takes far too much energy when you can’t spray a person in the face with a squirting bottle.

And… when you can’t actually say the word “bad.”

When I get this stressed, I like to write. To take my frustrations out on my characters. Which could be why my books have become exceedingly more dangerous for the main characters. Now I have the perfect setup, Nathaniel as slave to his Master, but I can’t write.

Because I had to alter my schedule and work longer hours because someone can’t be bothered to do more than the barest part of her job.

Suppose then, I have two pieces of advice. Don’t quit your day job, and do your day job. 

Though the last portion may be unwarranted as the amount of work necessary to be an indie author tends to mean that we work all day, every day. We are go getters and self-motivated achievers. 

At least writing this post on my commute has let me ignore how tired I am, and how desperately I want wine.

Christmas tradition, don’t drink between Halloween and Christmas. Don’t know how it started, but healthy for you! If you aren’t in a low stress job with a high stress coworker.