Loathe by Left To Suffer

I hate Wednesdays.

But not as much as Thursdays.

I swore it was Thursday today, but it’s Wednesday and I’m not as close to the weekend as I thought. That’s fine enough with me- I don’t have any plans except enjoying the relief of not being at work. My job isn’t a bad one. I have a good boss, and my coworkers are all friends. I just prefer the silence of my house where my pets, video games, comfy bed, and comfier clothes are.

Last weekend, I spent the majority of my time flipping between mindless hours of Minecraft, bemusedly watching Adventure Time while trying to piece the timeline of Ooo’s history together in my head. I could always look up the lore for it but that’s more work in the subject than I care to do. Besides binge-watching a children’s TV show and placing three thousand digital blocks in a digital block world, I also read a book! I’ve discovered the joys of being an ARC reader for indie authors like myself. I usually read books on Kindle Unlimited but funds are, unfortunately, limited. Rather than spend money I need for bills on entertainment, I sign up for ARC reading and have a blast reading unreleased novels. The latest series I’ve read is the Valaria Descending series by Ella Walker Henderson. While I can’t go too into detail about the novels I’ve read, I can say that they’re fantastic books, especially if you have any interest in Viking-type stories and badass female main characters. The book before that was Remnants of a Scarlet Flame by Cindy L Sell. That book was so good and full of delicious lore and world-building. I love heavy fantasy novels with unique magic systems and even more unique takes on the typical fantasy races. Again, I can’t go into too much detail about it, but it releases in October and you should do yourself a favor and read it.

I’ve been hard at work on Ghosts, the second book to Scars in the Hunters series. I have a tentative plan for five novels in that series and had the realization the other day that people have read Scars and will expect a second book sooner than later. I have several projects in the works, including a novella series I still haven’t figured out a name for. Bonded, the first book of my Blood & Crow series is currently in the beta reading phase, but I haven’t heard anything from my readers yet. I wanted to give them plenty of time to read it because life is crazy. After that, I’ll send it out for ARC readers and hope to gain some traction that way, more followers and subscribers to my mailing list, get together a street team, so, when I publish in December, there’s people waiting in the wings to throw some reviews up there for me.

I’m super nervous about Bonded in a completely different way than I was with Scars. I published Bonded over a year ago and I sort of rushed the end of the book and the publishing of the book entirely. It wasn’t my best work and a three star review sort of decimated me and left me to question everything. I took Bonded down and all but started over with the book. I took the three star review and worked on all the points that person had made. They were right about most of it, about my complete lack of world building and the flatness of my characters. Now, Bonded has an extra hundred and fifty pages, a detailed world around my complicated and rounded out characters. That doubt still lingers, though. What if people think it’s stupid? What if people think my writing is stupid? What if I’m not fit to be a writer? Imposter syndrome is no joke, especially when you’re an author. Writing is personal. My characters are an extension of me in many ways. I sometimes struggle to give them their own personalities- likes and dislikes that aren’t just the things I like or dislike. I get inspiration from books, movies, people I know in my life. While I’m excited that Bonded is being read by people who don’t know me personally, I’m nervous for that same reason. I swear I check the questionnaire form I sent my readers twelve times a week in case they reviewed it. I’m anxious for their thoughts but I don’t want to rush them with their reading.

I’m actually thinking about renaming the book to somewhat distance it from its shameful past. I’ve been kicking around Bound by Blood, Bloodbound, Bonded by Blood. Books two and three are named Possessed and Hunted, so I could always do Bound by Blood, Possessed by Blood, and Hunted by Blood. I don’t know. Bound by Blood is already a book name, but Bonded by Blood is an album name by a band named Exodus, which leads me to wonder if I’ve ever listened to them before. Off to Spotify I go.

Evidently I’ve never listened to Exodus because none of their songs sounded familiar.

I’m thinking about doing some freebie short stories and excerpts from my books to followers and whatnot, to generate some views and interest. I don’t know what, yet, but I’ll be considering it. I think that’s all for now, though. I’ll be back with another boring blog post next week.