SPFBO

2 posts
A pink haired femme-presenting person with glasses has a speech bubble over their head. Inside that bubble is a cute sad drawing of the human GI system.

Nothing Happened, the End.

A Third Kind of Madness Personal

“I had big plans. I did one of those things on the list. Now I’m paying for it.


Oops.”

– Me, usually

So what happened is this: as previously mentioned, I went to Balticon. There was a live reading! It was great! There were lots of interesting panels! I got fairy hair!

I didn’t even go all four days, y’all. I didn’t stay for any later-night shenanigans. I was at con from about 10:30a – 6p for two days. The con is literally about a 20 minute drive from my house.

But my body? It didn’t like that much, I guess.

ENTER NEW CHALLENGER: STRANGE NEW TYPE OF CROHN’S FLARE

I almost thought I escaped unscathed, y’all. I felt great during the con and got to talk to new people and enjoy readings and panels. It’s the first time I’ve been out socially in so long! And even though nothing ever felt taxing and I didn’t even have issues while I was there, my body reacted. Saturday night, I was feeling “tight” in my middle, like my clothes were restricting.

By Sunday, I knew what was up.

The reason I call it a new type of flare is because it was in a new area for me – lucky me! – and was behaving a lot more aggressively than usual. By aggressive, I mean extremely painful and crampy.

And two weeks later, I’m better, but not great.

This is why things don’t get done. Again, oops!

So basically I’ve been in a state where I’ve done a whole lot of nothing, and that’s terribly frustrating and I hate it. I was so excited to finally be healthy enough to do things! With people! And now my health’s regressed because I dared to try to live, which I guess was a stupid thought.

I’m not letting it stop me, though.

I’ve taken a break, but I’m back to working on A Third Kind of Madness. I’m at the end of the book, y’all! The first draft is almost done! Once I get that wrapped, I’ll go back in and start revising, but revising is a lot easier in some ways so it’ll be refreshing work.

And while that’s going on, I’ll be working on cover concepts some more, plus getting together my promotional ideas, which are going to be FUN and you won’t want to miss out on them. I’ll also be showing you some of my personal projects related to the books, which I do to amuse myself when I can’t do anything else. One of the big ones I’ve been working on is an 11 inch fashion doll restyled to be our Lucee Fearney.

She’s so cute. But next time say something before I write a character with a million little green and black braids all over her head, okay? Because trying to make her hair is taking a time, y’all.

Anyway, that’s been about it, but I wanted to update everyone and keep you in the loop with my plans, progress, and all that. Don’t think that this setback will keep me away from getting out more often! I’m very determined to stay social and visible. I just need to maybe do it differently next time – live and learn!

Before I go, I wanted to mention that I’m, as far as I know, still in the running in the SPFBO, and if you’d like to check out some of the other books that are in the competition, you can easily do that here: https://books.bookfunnel.com/spfbo9collectthemall/xzujgxbn9f

The contest is full of SO many different types of fantasy! You will be able to fill your TBR list to overflowing! [Don’t ask about my TBR list, oh jeez] If you’re interested in learning about more fantastic indie authors, this is a great way to do so.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll check back in soon!

A hand holds a camera, the viewscreen facing us. It displays the logo for SPFBO inside the screen. There is a small icon of the cover of the novel In Sleep You Know in the left lower corner, and the text Take A Risk.

SPFBO and Being Brave and Bold

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Goals In Sleep You Know

One of my pledges to myself this year was that as soon as I was stable enough, health-wise, I was going to start making up for all the things that I’ve missed out on thanks to being sick – and to be brave and bold and go for opportunities, even if I’m unsure how they’ll work out for me.

It’s not that I’m risk adverse. In fact, I’m laughing as I type that, because anyone who truly knows me absolutely knows how bold and occasionally rash I can be. As the Eleriannan might say, “audentes fortuna iuvat” – and that’s been proven true for more times than I can count. Being brave and bold gets you more than sitting around waiting for things to fall into your lap, y’all.

All this is my long winded way of saying that I entered In Sleep You Know into the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off or SPFBO 9, which is a contest designed to put a spotlight on, as the title suggests, self-published fantasy novels. It is organized yearly by Mark Lawrence, and this is the ninth year. Three hundred book submissions are divided amongst ten blogs, who read, review, and eliminate the selections until they find the one book they’ll put into the final round.

The second round is where all the judging blogs get the finalist books to review and make a decision between. At the end of the process, a winning book [and also a winning cover, in a separate, concurrent contest] will be chosen and crowned the winner of SPFBO. Yay! The entire process takes about a year, so expect occasional updates as things progress.

I’ve gone into this with zero expectations in any direction other than finding some new reads, getting some exposure, and making some new writing and reviewing friends/contacts. The experience is worth it! [though of course I want to win, but truly that’s not the reason to enter]

If you want to see all of the entries and what blogs will be doing the reviewing – which I highly recommend, get you some new reads – you can go here [there’s also stats about SPFBO and other interesting info] and here [a gorgeous visual layout where you can see all the covers and click easily on each story’s link].

In other brave and bold news:

  • I’ll be participating in the Broad Universe members Rapid-Fire Reading at Balticon! As soon as I get the scheduled time and details I’ll make sure to post them.
  • I decided that I’m going to start taking a writing class monthly, to continue to hone my craft and re-invest in myself. The one for June is going to be Embodied Characters, taught by my brilliant friend Marianne Kirby! It’s being hosted by Neon Hemlock and if you’d like to take it too, the link is here – https://www.neonhemlock.com/neon-salon
  • I started going back to the gym this week! This is a huge deal because I’m trying to regain strength and stamina that I lost while I was mostly housebound. I’m glad to report that I’m not nearly as weak as I thought I might be!
  • I had an iced chai latte with almond milk and it didn’t wreck my guts. *throws confetti*

What brave and bold things have you done lately? I want to know! Hit reply and leave a comment so that I can cheer you on, too. 💜

Today’s brave and bold soundtrack: D-Day by Agust D. Stream it here: https://open.spotify.com/album/446ROKmKfpEwkbi2SjELVX?si=t4gM9tqBT6ysbTDP3tz3JQ