1,438 words
8 minutes read time

I kind of copped out on you all last week, not really posting anything because I had nothing to say. Unfortunately, this week I’m in the same predicament. As Avery McKay says in my novel, Wicked Games, “I love writing. I can scribble all day. But that doesn’t mean it’s worth printing.” And that’s kind of where I’m at at the moment. I have plenty to say, but I don’t think it’s worth your time.

I scroll social media and there are so many voices out there. Screaming, and not even into the void, because I hear them, loud and clear. It has always mystified me how people can post on a social media platform, four, five, six even more times a day, assuming, hoping, maybe praying that what they are saying has some kind of worth to somebody . . . anybody. Most of the time, I don’t think it does, and a lot of what I see is just annoying, like a mosquito buzzing around my head that I can’t kill because I don’t kill things.

I was thinking about that this morning, too, that there are so many books out there, and so many opinions about them, and at some point, you have to think that none of it matters at all. That maybe, instead of posting every five seconds, it could be better for your mental health and everyone else’s if you only say something when you have something meaningful to say. There was something I read on Threads that said, “I’m not actually surprised when some authors don’t say anything about injustices in the world because they barely have anything to say in their books. Why start now” and it actually made me mad. Just because I don’t post incessantly on social media doesn’t mean I don’t care about what’s happening in the world or that my books don’t have substance. That maybe I’m doing things in my real life that make a difference that don’t need to be blasted all over the internet.

Is it a crime to be a private person now?

It perhaps isn’t a crime, but in the age of digital when you aren’t shoving yourself out there every five seconds, your chance of discoverability goes down. But I don’t want to be known for telling my followers I vacuumed the living room, or I finally got around to cleaning my bathroom, or that I have a dentist appointment that I finally kept after a year of canceling because I was fed up with doctor appointments and I just needed a break (actually, that’s what I’ll be doing Thursday afternoon. Pray for me.).

And the woman who got ran off the internet for musing about plotting a book where the hero and heroine meet at an ICE protest has probably never regretted anything more in her life. Some thoughts should just be kept inside your head. In fact, probably most thoughts you should just keep to yourself.

Then we have platforms where pictures and videos need to accompany what you want to say and honestly, it’s really no wonder people don’t have attention spans. Even I’ve had that problem lately, watching an episode of The Outsider, then stopping after ten minutes to scroll Threads only to find there’s nothing there, then going back to my show, but then stopping again and scrolling DepositPhotos for an alternate guy for my hockey book’s cover. Then I feel stupid for not being able to finish my show and go back and force myself to watch until the end. In my case, I want to be working on my books but I also know I’m burnt out and need the break–hence watching a show in the evenings to chill out. It’s not that I didn’t like it, I’ve watched it before and knew that I did, but that feeling of not getting anything done, especially when I do have things waiting for me, wouldn’t leave me alone. Which, I can just blame on social media anyway. People are always posting what they’re doing or what they wish they were doing or what they’ve done, and you feel left out if you can’t join in.

Anyway, I am getting some stuff done. I finished that read-through of Wicked Games, and now I’m definitely going to put it away for few months. Right now I’m 33% of the way through proofing my proof of Loss and Damages and it’s been worth it as I’m finding a few typos, a scene break that didn’t need to be there and a couple of slow spots where deleting a sentence or two keeps things on track. I’m second guessing myself a lot, putting in a change and then adding a question mark as an indication that I might not really want to change it after all. A lot of the time I don’t, thinking that it’s not going to be the end of the world either way and how I wrote it was probably how I wanted it.

After I put the changes into Vellum I can order another proof, and I’m deciding between two chapter backgrounds. Let me know which one you like:

The first one is what I have now because it complements the chapter style I chose, but then I got to thinking about the flowers because she’s an artist who paints china. The model I chose for Dominic on the cover is standing in front of a black brick wall which is a nod to him being a land developer, so I could have “him” on the outside and “her” on the inside. I’ll order another proof and see which one I like better in print. That will just be for the paperbacks. The Kindle version will just be the chapter style. I don’t care about finding a heading image like I have previously. I don’t know what I would put there anyway and don’t feel like scrolling through stock photos.

I decided I’d make ARCs available July 15th. Let the excitement of the holiday fade and that will give reviewers two months to read for a September 15th release.

I have realized that if I wanted to write my hockey romance this summer that I might actually need to start writing it as summer will be a third over soon. Though, I didn’t realize how far into the summer the hockey season goes, as the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers are still battling it out for the Stanley Cup and it’s mid June. So, maybe a hockey romance could be released all year without sales dipping too low during launch. Maybe I’ll publish Wicked Games first after all, but honestly, at this point, I’m just going to do what feels right. I don’t mind having books sit on my computer. I’ve never felt the need to publish something the second I got it done. Well, that’s not true, I used to feel that way when I first started publishing, but after a while, maybe the novelty doesn’t wear off, but you get more strategic and if a release doesn’t feel right, I have no problem waiting. My King’s Crossing serial can pick up a lot of slack and do some heavy lifting for the next year if it had to come to that.

I have another promo for the first book, Cruel Fate, lined up through BargainBooksy for the 20th. I changed up the copy from what I used in my Fussy Librarian so I’m hoping that I get a few more sales out of it. I think it’s important that you tell readers the series is complete (if it is) as that encourages them to buy because they know they can binge. The first three books are still on sale, and I have no interest in changing the prices, though most of my “sales” right now are from KU.

That’s about all I have this week. I read an interesting Substack article by Jan Harayda about Taylor Jenkins Reid’s publishing deal. It’s more talk on why “subpar” books sell, and what that means for the authors who get those kinds of deals, for other authors who get left behind, and the readers who are offered those books. I read Daisy Jones and The Six, and I thought it was good. I know the difference between commercial and literary fiction, and I can chose my books accordingly. There’s no harm in writing fluff, but that doesn’t mean people will always think you deserve to get paid for it. You can read that article here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165915819

See you next week!