Hi everyone.
So I have a few updates for you, not all of them are positive but it’s good to clear the air and be honest and open about things, especially things that affect my writing. I’ve always been someone that overshares with strangers, so this is nothing new, but I’ve veered away from being too personal on this website. But, meh, now is a good a time as any.
I’m going on a bit of a social media break. Currently, my day-job and my writing job aren’t meshing very well. Yes, I work 40 hours a week at an office, a position that has recently gotten very high-stress.
I don’t handle stress well. Blame my genetics, blame mental issues, blame whatever, but I don’t. There’s good stress, like when I’m writing and I have a deadline and it helps me get things DONE. And there’s bad stress where I panic and everything overwhelms me, I find myself throwing dishes, crying at work (no I’m not throwing dishes there), crying in my dreams, feeling like there’s no way out.
This is silly because there is a way out and there is a beautiful rainbow at the end of this tunnel.
However, part of this rainbow’s reality depends on the amount of work I am able to do NOW and by work, I mean my real job. My writing work. But how can I do that when I can’t seem to get out of the door every morning without a panic attack? It’s a Catch-22. And it sucks.
When I wrote Darkhouse, I was working full-time. When I published Darkhouse and became a cover-planning, editor-hiring, social media-guru, marketing-and-PR-powerhouse, and everything else that running your own publishing company entails (remember, I do this all myself…just me), I was NOT employed. Nor was I employed when I did the same with Red Fox, Dead Sky Morning, The Benson and Lying Season.
Alas, I had to get employment earlier this year and AT THAT TIME I was not selling enough books to survive on that. So, I thankfully got a pretty nice day job.
Then came time to write On Demon Wings. Well, I did it in six weeks and I did it while working full-time…but at a time when my day job wasn’t stressful or busy. And, yes, it was actually HELL to get On Demon Wings out. You think it was just Perry going through hell in that book? It was me too.
I once said that it would be impossible for someone to self-publish and hold a day job, and I think I was kind of right. Oh sure, lots and lots of people do it and do it well but I don’t think I am one of those people. I REALLY wish I was, believe me and if you are that sort, my hat is off to you. It’s one thing to try and write a book and hold down a job, it’s a different animal when you throw publisher/PR team/designer, etc into that mix. It is fucking hard. I’m at that point where things are really taking off and I need to focus on my real job, the one that makes me more money than my day job, the one that fulfils me to no end: my writing.
But, I find myself unable to.
Like I said, there is a rainbow but it’s going to be hell until I get there. I’m getting support from counsellors, doctors who will hopefully help me handle the stress in the interim. I’m getting support from friends who are wonderful sounding boards. And hopefully fans will be pretty understanding too about what I am about to do.…
Which is…dun dun dun. Take a vacation from the internet. Not in total, but my presence will be limited. Aside from an amazingly unique giveaway currently going on right now (more info at bottom), I won’t be doing any blog posts or tours or interviews or giveaways or anything because I simply can’t handle it. I KNOW this might hurt my standing in the public eye, but honestly…I just can’t do it! I don’t know what else to say.
I’ll probably be on Twitter less, my EIT Facebook page less…just less of me everywhere. I’ll probably read less reviews because negative reviews and a negative soul don’t go well together (or maybe they go TOO well together). I’ll just be…less.
This will be temporary…I can’t say how long…maybe two weeks, maybe till July? When I do come back though, I will have a surprise for EIT fans…so that’s something. But I do need to just drop out of this world for a bit so I can screw my head on straight. I’m in full-on panic mode at the moment and when I panic, I make mistakes. I don’t want to make mistakes or lose my head at either of my jobs.
Also, some books are affected. Nothing Experiment in Terror related but my adult contemporary novel, Lost in Wanderlust is being pushed back until the late Fall. I just don’t have the time to finish it right now. It sucks because I really NEED to prove that I can write other things than the EIT series but, thems the breaks.
ALSO ALSO paperback versions of my books will be gone — for a short while. Until now, I had been using Createspace for my paperbacks. Things went wrong with my On Demon Wings version, I complained, they didn’t fix it, I complained harder, they gave me an answer that didn’t make sense, I asked them to clarify, they cut and pasted the same answer as before, I sent them a screenshot and asked them to explain what is going on, THEY CUT AND PASTED THE SAME ANSWER AS BEFORE, finally I told them to fuck off and that I am going to take all my books (which actually do bring them money) off of their site and go to another POD printer (Lightening Source) and…you guessed it…THEY CUT AND PASTED A PREVIOUS ANSWER.
FUCK YOU CreateSpace. Your customer service is disgusting and you can’t even address that issue without a generic reply.
So.…the paperbacks won’t be available for a while. But eventually I’ll find the time to move them over to Lightening Source and get that all set up and when I do, I’ll let you know.
Also, if you’re wanting a paperback version, I suggest you buy from Amazon or Barnes and Noble right now while you can…I’ll be pulling them this week.
So this blog probably won’t be getting updated much as well, and as such I will leave you with some tidbits:
- I did an interview with talented + wonderful local author Lorna Suzuki (of the soon-to-be-a-motion-picture Imago Trilogy) HERE
- I did a musically-slanted interview with Emmy from Sinfully Delicious Reads which was a lot of fun, and you can read it HERE
- Jessica at Hackaroos Reviews is hosting a cool giveaway. I ordered those fucked up books from Createspace (the ODW with the funny margins). While totally readable, they look like crap inside and as such I have decided to give these defective books away — complete with comments, scribbles, drawing, cut out pictures and what not, courtesy of me. Hey, I may even through in random photographs of people you don’t know! Plus bookmarks, EIT stickers. It’s all fun. Enter that giveaway HERE (open only to North American residents — sorry, I can’t afford to ship outside of that).
- There should be another interview with Sara Vallejo on her blog HERE this week
I think that’s all. Thanks for reading this. I feel better knowing everyone is up to speed with what is going on in my life and hopefully when I come back, I’ll be shining brighter than ever.
Just don’t forget about me.
And please, if you love EIT, keep spreading the word. I know you guys are and I really appreciate it — I feel your passion and addiction, hell I hear it — but it all helps me get one step closer to my dream