Water washes things away.
But at the end of the day,
what is a an ocean, river, or a lake
but just a really deep grave?
Leave your secrets to the deep,
the sun or the tide will bring them to light
and their secrets will be whispered alive
by the coroners who speak the language
of death and time
We are sitting in your dining room. The table is the same one you’ve had since college, a cheap wooden thing bought at an Ikea. The tea kettle is on, bubbling and boiling. While your Amazon Alexa is softly playing an old song, the title of which I can’t remember. It will bug me for weeks, until in the middle of the night, I’ll wake up with the title in my head.
“What are we?” I ask, softly, so soft I am not sure that you even hear it.
“I don’t know that we’re anything anymore,” you said.
And I grabbed my things, and left, as the tea kettle whistled. Like it was announcing the end of a relationship.
The old gods are pacing in their ruined temples, waiting to be unleashed. While some of them flicker faintly, ghosts of themselves, in and out of peoples memories.
“Remember when we were something?”
“Remember when you worshipped us from everything to death and grain?”
“Remember when you once feared our names?”
We are still here. Still waiting.
There are no fairytales anymore. All that remains are relics, buildings covered in cobwebs, with carpets covered in glass and blood stains of revolutions. Shells of bullets left from battles fought long ago. And lonely ghosts wandering the halls and ballroom floors. Kings and Queens put to the grave, in the ground, where they should be. With a different kind of fairytale to take their place.
One without crowns and dynasties.
Okay. So, week eleven of kindle vella. What does this look like? I’ve got more free time to focus since I don’t have any contracts with Dreame right now. To Aura With Hate is finished, and I’ll be getting my completion bonus for that soon.
I am working on Royals and Rebels book 6: The Phantom Prince which will take place in France. However, that hasn’t gotten a contract yet and I’ve not posted any of it so I can take my time to post it. I am actually trying really hard to finish it before I post it and to post my writing on a schedule. So, we’ll see.
The Anointed is the main thing I am working on right now though. Since writing my post yesterday, it has actually increased its likes by one whole point. But every number matters, right?
16 thumbs up, and 5 follows!
October is coming and I also am working on a magic school novel for a writers conference I am going to. I get to have an editor look at that one and I’m excited. I’ve grown a lot as a writer since the last time I went, and as a person so hopefully things will turn out better. Fingers crossed.
Conferences are really more about finding out where you are at as a writer than getting signed. I know it happens, but it’s not probably what is going to happen unless maybe you’ve been to a million of them and have a big following or something. The best advice is to go and learn as much as possible, which is all I’m hoping for at this point. If anything else happens, that would be cool. But I’ve been around the block enough that I’ll just be happy as long as I’m not told to never write again or something.
I also put up a CV on Clear Voice for my writing projects and am hoping to start doing some freelance writing gigs. We’ll see what happens. The world is my oyster, right? Anything could happen.
How am I? How am I? I know, I just repeated myself. Today the real job left me sobbing after a performance review. Maybe that is a little too real, but there we go. My “real job” is customer service. I work remotely. At home. And while people wax poetic on the joys of it, for me it’s been hard.
Like on and off anti-depressants, sobbing to my therapist hard.
I do it because I have a heart condition and with COVID, it isn’t safe for me to work in an environment with a bunch of people. I’ve been stressed about it for almost a year and a half, because I live alone, and my community consists of my Mom and Step-Dad. Who I go out and see on my days off, but that is it.
My friends were work friends. People I talked with casually in the breakroom. No one has my number. No one calls me. And it’s all very sad. How do you make friends in your thirties? In school it was easy. You show up to class, you’ve got things in common because of your environment. It is easy.
But as an adult? How do you politely tell people that you spend all of your free time making up fictional characters and you enjoy it without sounding insane? How do you socialize when you aren’t social? It’s all very hard and it sucks. Also, all my hobbies are things I do ALONE. I can’t think of one thing I like doing with people. Which, I realize, makes me sound like an asshole but you know.
And the hard thing is sometimes I really wonder if it is going to pay off, you know? I’m working through the UX class. I’m trying to learn a new skill that will lead to a better job. And yet I need the job I have to do that and its just all….hard.
Plus, writing itself isn’t social. But the actual word of mouth part? That is social. How do I convince a bunch of strangers that the fantasy novel I’ve written is worth their time when we live in the “golden age of content” or whatever?
You’ll have to forgive me. I’m having a human moment here. The numbers for Kindle Vella are up, but again. Not stellar. Not cool-enough-to-be-interviewed-on-Hot-Ones numbers which is what we’re all aiming for, right? Although I doubt authors are really their thing, except for, apparently Malcolm Gladwell.
I do not foresee myself ever being cool enough to be on that show but….
Okay. I guess we need to get to the nitty gritty. The numbers for the week 10 wrap up.
5 Episodes read, 15 thumbs-up, and five follows.
I’ve been writing Royals and Rebels since 2018. The first book I wrote, The Queen of Coleum, introduced the world that I’ve since built up. It begins with a revolution and interweaves the politics of different countries followed by a lot of teen angst and romance.
Initially, I intended only to write one for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. As I grew more invested in the series I realized there was a lot of potential there.
While each book can be read individually, the big bad is a group known as The Guillotine determined to destroy monarchies. So, who the villain is really depends on who you talk to. Ahem.
Anyway, it’s been a while since I revisited the series as a whole. And I do this thing where I introduce characters from future books in them. So, if there is a Prince in there, you can bet that he will be in another book. And I usually introduce his love interest or make mention of her.
I went through and read my old work as a means of prep. Believe it or not, authors can’t remember EVERY piece of information they ever wrote. Also I went and created powerpoints for each of the books so I had a way to keep track of important things. I.E. character ages, descriptions, important plot points.
Also by re-reading the series, it gets me pumped to write the new one. I write Royals and Rebels on Dreame and its perfect for the platform because romance does really well on there.
As I finish To Aurum With Hate, I am looking at started my thirteenth book on Dreame and my SIXTH book in Royals and Rebels the series. Pretty crazy.
As you know if you’ve been following me, aside from Kindle Vella, I write for an app called Dreame. They are owned by a publisher called Starry. I’ve got twelve stories with them. It is Starry’s THIRD anniversary and they are having a special contest right now for its writers. You can win cash prizes or laptops and the winners will also be promoted on the app. Right now, my story The Red Cloak girls is ranked at 885! I need to get into the top twenty to win. So, if you’d like to vote and read click the link here to do so: https://dreame.onelink.me/mOD1?deep_link_value=https%3A%2F%2Fm.dreame.com%2Fnovel%2F%2BFK2ZN8EQc20%2BV20HFZ4Pw%3D%3D&af_dp=dreame%3A%2F%2Factivity%2Fres&af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dreame.com%2Fnovel%2F%252BFK2ZN8EQc20%252BV20HFZ4Pw%253D%253D.html
Thanks for the support!
