Lately on Twitter, I’ve seen many hopeful authors announcing they’ve finally gotten some kind of request from a query. Though the most excitement stems from “full requests” (meaning an agent has requested to read the full manuscript), even partial requests are a cause for celebration. And… Yeah. I think authors need to embrace even small […]
Category: Think Pieces
The Shift of Publishing Towards the Writer
I was thinking… Well, I was feeling a little bit irritated, really, about the way a few things had turned out. But that’s neither here nor there, except that these musings brought a certain clarity to me about how the publishing industry has shifted the bulk of the work onto authors. These thoughts came about, […]
A Little Light Dream (and Life) Interpretation
Last night I dreamt about Anne Rice. I don’t normally dream about people who have passed away, so I always take note when I do. In this dream, Anne and I were traveling together—I recall passing a cemetery, in fact—to a school, I think? I remember a school being involved in some way, and there […]
Working Through It
This is just a story in which I try to make sense of, or come to terms with, yet another disappointment. Late last year into early this year, I was querying agents with THE GHOSTS OF MARSHLEY PARK. I got such great feedback, and yet… ultimately, no one took it. Most of the feedback boiled […]
Thoughts on Loki (and Loki)
Once upon a time, there was a little “boy.” He had been adopted by a powerful family, the family of a king, in fact. This boy was meant to be a prince. But his greatest bond was with his adopted mother. He delighted in time spent with her, and in “feminine” things. (His mother was […]
Realization
I had an epiphany yesterday. About myself and my work and what it means for my future in general. The bottom line is: I do things for me. And that… works against me in the wider world. Allow me to explain. I enjoy writing. I enjoy making YouTube videos. I enjoy reading tarot and astrology […]
Ableism? Maybe…
I recently was made aware of a publishing conversation that occurred on Twitter last month. (I know, I’m so out of the loop.) It was about ableism in publishing and there not being space for neurodivergent (ND) authors. I don’t know if that’s true; I’ve never really thought about it until now, when it was […]
Why I Don’t Read Reviews*
*Of my books, anyway Once, while at a writing conference, I heard author Charlene Harris say: “Never read your reviews. That is a poisonous pit.” And I agree. Over time I’ve learned that, if I read a good review of one of my books, I’m happy for a little while. But if I read a […]
Not a Failure
I recently decided to move ahead with self-publishing The Ghosts of Marshley Park. And almost immediately was met by two differing responses online: people cheering me on and people who wished me well in a way that absolutely suggested the passive-aggressive tone of, “You weren’t good enough for ‘real’ publishing, eh?” To be fair, tone […]
Timeline/Perspective
Years ago, when I was feeling bad about my lack of success as a writer, I made a timeline of my writing history to remind myself of how far I’d come. I don’t know where that timeline is now, or even what software I used to make it, but I do still find looking back […]