Writing Updates!
I am delighted to share my newest publication with you: The Most Important Word.
Amber Moore has screwed up a lot in her life. She’s due a win, and maybe this is it: a magic portal to lands unknown, created and run by fairy-tale monsters. As far as she’s concerned, survival is a decent trade for her freedom—but servitude is not what she finds.
Étienne is sad. Handsome. Lonely. Also, a vampire… and she is determined to befriend him, finding hope for them both. In the middle of an apocalypse complicated by curses, beauty, and unexpected romance, what difference can one woman’s choices make? As it turns out, all the difference in the world.Amazon | Apple | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords | Itch.io | Other Stores
I am delighted with this teeny story, which exists for one purpose: to explain something that Simon Night did not know. From The Almost Wedding of John Barron Grey:
It’s always cold here.
I’m okay with that. I’ve read about how bad the climate emergency got before the People of the Sun got involved—about the cyclonic storms, the hungry ocean eating islands and coasts, the endless droughts fucking over crops, the merciless temperatures wiping out entire species and killing more and more humans by the year.
Then the Sun stepped in, and saved their stupid asses.
The People of the Sun are all about healing and stability and all, but the fact is, they didn’t have to offer it. Humans—the ones in charge—were not asking to be pulled out of the hole they’d dug. It was a life-raft given when none was expected.
I mean, Earth had an okay relationship with the other Peoples after the New Delhi Incident, when dragon ascension and infighting revealed magic to the world, but no one expected help for the whole planet.
I’ve read a lot of theories on just what happened when the People of the Sun approached the human governments with their solution. Nobody knows what was given in trade; nobody knows what agreements were made. What we do know is that within thirty years, they’d calmed the atmosphere, soothed the rising waves, and began the slow turnaround toward a livable planet.
All this was before I was born, of course. I not only came around after the New Delhi Incident, but also after the place got cleaned up enough for business. Lucky me.
I still would like to know what the trade-off was, though. It took an incredible amount of power to make the changes they did, and it’s not like now the Earth belongs to anyone but humans.
Guess what? Now you’ll know something Simon did not.
The Most Important Word is available now for $1.99, pretty much everywhere books are sold!
Amazon | Apple | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords | Itch.io | Other Stores
Personal Updates
So I had a realization this past month. This is very personal, but I think it’s important enough to share.
The video version, if you want to just watch:
I grew up in an abusive home. One of the ways I took abuse was my father told me, my entire life, that strength was physically beyond me. That my family, genetically, was just weak, and nothing I could do would avoid diabetes, heart attacks, etc.
I fought this to some extent. I’ve done plenty of cardio. But you know what I didn’t realize I’d accepted? The idea that I could not get strong.
Since the 8th of June, I have exercised every day with actual strength training. I didn’t realize that my perception—my false belief—in my inability to gain physical strength would alter my behavior that much, but it did.
My challenge to you, reader, is to think about your life and places where you have presuppositions, too. Some of them will be wrong.
And those wrong ones? Will absolutely have held you back.
Up Next
The next piece will be Floriography, a queer dragon/human love story taking place after Half-Shell Prophecies. I can’t wait to share it with you.
See you next month!
