Okay, I’m back with more things I love about the holiday season. Well, one kind of thing, but at least there’s three of them.
Favorite Non-Traditional Traditions
Christmas trees, Christmas cookies, and caroling on a cold December night. There’s no shortage of traditions tied to Christmas alone, let alone the dozen other holidays one might celebrate this time of year. That said, there a few, let’s say especially unique, such traditions that might have disappeared into the mists of history if not for one simple fact.
They friggin’ rule.
So, if you’re not familiar with these traditions, allow me to help you get acquainted with them so you can share them with your friends and family.
The Lord of Misrule
The Lord of Misrule was a title bestowed to someone, usually a poor beggar, during the winter Feast of Fools and who was charged with leading the Christmastime revelry. The Lord would then lead his merry band of revelers to the homes of the wealthy and make demands for food and liquor. These demands were usually backed with threats of yuletide violence visited upon those who refused. Frankly, I think threatening the rich with violence unless they feed the poor is something we should bring back.
Not just at Christmastime, but throughout the year.
Mari Lwyd
Image taken from the Chepstow Mari-Lwyd. The Mari is being lead around Chepstow
Mari Lwyd is a Welsh tradition which also involves people coming up to someone else’s home and demanding refreshments.
Except this time the party paying a visit is a Skeletal Horse.
A RAPPING skeletal horse.
That’s right, this boney bastard knocks on your door and then challenges you to a Rap Battle where instead of using your dope rhymes and sick beats to diss him, you need to come up with excuses as to why a skeletal horse can’t come inside and drink your best booze and tastiest eats.
Basically, it’s Caroling but METAL AS FUCK!
Heitstrenging (Yule Boasting)
Heitstrenging is the old Norse Yule tradition of getting hammered and then proceeding to swear an oath about all the kick-ass bitchin’ things you’re about to do in the upcoming year. These oaths are usually outlandish, sometimes even literally impossible, things that one only promises when they’re already dozen mugs of ale in on the longest night of the year. Whether it’s armies you might defeat, wild animals you might slay, or literal gods that you’ll fuck, marry, or kill (or if feeling especially boastful, all three), nothing is off the table, and the only limit is your imagination and blood-alcohol level.
Anyone can resolve to go to the gym more often come January 1st. It takes a special kind of gumption to promise to woo a Valkyrie and pimp slap Thor right across his stupid, sexy face.
Okay, that wraps up my Holiday Content Extravaganza™ (for real this time.) Thank you for letting me indulge in some holly jolly what-the-fuckery. Whether your holiday celebrations involve beating up the rich, rapping horses, not-so-humble Viking brags, or something a bit more traditional (by Western standards), I hope its joyful and that you share it with those you like and love.
Ho Ho Yo! Happy Holidays to one and all, regardless of what you celebrate, how you celebrate it, or even if you don’t celebrate anything at all. 2025 has been… uh… interesting, so this post isn’t just Content™, but also a chance to add a little positivity to the last couple weeks of this weird year by sharing a few of my favorite things that I associate with the season.
Favorite Christmas Special/Movie
Let’s start with one of the staples, as most of us who celebrate the holiday have an opinion on what is and isn’t a “Christmas” movie and which ones are all-time classics. While I won’t get into either of those debates, I do have two favorites. One I consider a more “Traditional-style” Christmas movie in tone and theme and one that’s a bit more off-kilter.
A lot of people consider A Muppet Christmas Carolto be a masterpiece and Sir Michael Caine’s performance as Scrooge is up there in all-time great portrayals (Though I’m more partial to Sir Patrick Stewart’s take on the character), but when I think of Muppets and Christmas, my first thought always goes to 1987’s A Muppet Family Christmas.
This might be the Endgame of Muppet specials considering that it features the Muppets, their CTW brethren from Sesame Street, and the Mother-lovin’ Fraggles. Watch that icy patch.
My other favorite is actually an awful movie, but it was salvaged (and savaged) by a pair of wise-crackin’ robots and their hapless human companion stranded in space by a pair of mad scientists. Come, gather ’round as we watch Joel, Tom Servo, and Crow riff to smithereens the cinematic disasterpiece Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Favorite Christmas Song
For many years I had a deep loathing of Christmas Music. I spent eight years of my late teens and early-20s working retail in an actual brick and mortar mall. From mid-November until January 2nd, I was deluged with Christmas music for 8-12 hours a day. I still avoid prolonged exposure to the holly jolly tunes, but at least my eye no longer twitches at hearing Feliz Navidad.
That said, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have at least a few favorite tunes. Mostly ones that are a bit quirkier and played much less often by radio stations. In regard to the classic carols, I hold a fondness for The Muppets (Can you tell I was a child of the 80s?) and John Denver banging out their version of The 12 Days of Christmas, Bah bum bum bum bum…
When it comes to more original faire, I have a trio of interesting, quirky, and just plain weird songs I look forward t hearing upon December’s arrival.
First, is the Waitresses’ Christmas Wrapping
Next up is The Royal Guardsmen’s Snoopy’s Christmas
Lastly, let’s get Weird (and pretty violent) with “Weird” Al Yankovic’s The Night Santa Went Crazy
Okay, moving on from media, let’s talk Christmas food.
Favorite Christmas Food
Most people associate Christmas with carving a nice roasted turkey or baked ham, or if really old-school, a fattened goose.
I think of fish.
Specifically, fried smelts. As a kid, I always remember a large platter of these crispy, small fish at my extended family’s Christmas Eve gatherings. If I ever get haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past and we stop by one of those nights, I’m taking an entire to-go box of these suckers with me.
Favorite Christmas Cookie
I’m a simple man and when it comes to cookies, I’m what many would call “a basic bitch.” I come from the land of Wedding Cookie Tables, and I can pack away ladylocks, buckeyes, and snickerdoodles like the love child of Pac-Man and Kirby. When it comes to Christmas time though, just give me a plate of Frosted Sugar Cookies, a big glass of Chocolate milk and leave me to it. I’m not saying I would fight Santa if someone left a plate of these on Christmas Eve, but… well, actually, yeah, I would.
Favorite Ornament
So, the tree my spouse and I trim every year is an eclectic mix of childhood ornaments, tributes to our hometown, and assorted nerdery. One of absolute favorites is just a simple ball, but the story it tells is over 40 years old and is as much a part of my childhood as Charlie Brown’s sad Christmas tree or Boris Karloff lying to Cindy Lu Who’s stupid-adorable face.
Eat’n Park is a western Pennsylvania institution and in 1982 the restaurant created what would be its holiday icon.
It’s been recreated on T-shirts, postcards, coffee mugs, and yes, Christmas ornaments. For over 40 years that star has been helped to the top of the tree, reminding us that we all could use a helping hand, not only this time of year, but all year round.
Notable Gifts
I won’t say “Favorite Gifts” because every gift I’ve ever received is appreciated in the spirit in which it was given. However, that doesn’t mean that some gifts don’t hold particular places of honor in my home or heart. I still remember, as a kid, tearing away the wrapping paper and holding in my little Ghostbustin’ hands the object I most desired in 1987…
Who you gonna call?
Sadly, like 99.9% of my childhood possessions, it ended up in a charity garage sale and is long gone. I could always rebuy it with my middle-aged disposable income, but frankly, it wouldn’t be the same and it would really just take up space we don’t have. Luckily, as an adult, I received a pretty nice (and much smaller) replacement on another Christmas afternoon…
Of course, if we’re talking about gifts I’ve received as an adult, then my Awesomely Amazing™ (and Amazingly Awesome™) Spouse provided me the gift that never fails to bring a smile to my face (well, OTHER that their presence in my life)…
Lady LilyLord Burghie
They commissioned Renaissance-style portraits of our Fur-kids, Lily and Burghie. These immediately went up in the place of honor in our front room so anyone who enters our home knows that A.) we’re love our kids and B.) we’re both huge dorks.
Well, it’s time for me to catch a sleigh outta here. I got several inches of “Winter Wonderland” to shovel off my sidewalks and driveway from a pre-Christmas blizzard that rolled through last night. I’ll most likely post here again after the holidays with a 2025 year in review. Have a Happy Holiday season and may it be, if not joyful, at least stress-free.
The Christmas Draco-lich says “Happy Holidays One and All!”
Touching Christmas Gift from one of my Beta Readers
Welcome to December! We’re about 3 weeks away from Christmas and as we get closer to the big day, I do plan to share some Seasonal Content™. Today, however, I plan to keep things short and simple and focus on the topic at hand – Sales! As in my book is going on sale and will remain so until the end of the year.
Starting Monday (December 8th) until New Year’s Day, I’m offering the ebook of Tales of a Stranger Sisterfor $1.49 – a 50% discount! And while the crux of the sale is over at Smashwords, I’m offering the 50% discount across all storefronts and countries for the entirety of the sale.
So, if you know someone who likes Small-Scale, Slice-of-Life Fantasy, perhaps you could play Santa and drop a copy in someone’s digital stocking. Or, if it’s more your thing, then maybe you might just treat yourself to a new read for less than the cost of a cup of hot cocoa (Though I do recommend reading it alongside a hot beverage and a cat if one or both are available.)
Anyway, if you haven’t already wrapped up your Christmas shopping or have and want to treat yourself, I hope you’ll give my debut novel a try.
Okay, Gonna ends this post here. Next time: All the things Christmas! ALL THE THINGS!!
American Thanksgiving is upon us and thus kicks off six weeks of perpetual “cheat” days as we barrel full speed into that glorious amorphous blob of weeks lovingly referred to as “The Holidays.”
I’m not one to go gung-ho over Christmas and I’m firmly of the belief that the famous fat man needs to stay away until at least the turkey carcass has been carted away. That said, there are things about this whole time of year that I do enjoy and look forward to. I love decorating the house the weekend after Thanksgiving with my Spouse, blasting nerdy Christmas music, drinking hot cocoa and figuring out which geeky ornaments make the cut this year for the tree. Giving gifts to friends is something I like doing, even if sometimes it’s frustratingly hard to find the quote-unquote “perfect” one for them.
But tops of the list is the food, both consuming and preparing. From making Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving to helping figure out our contributions to various holiday meals, tis the season to nom often and voraciously. Yeah, I know, the guy who dedicated maybe 20% of his first novel to descriptions of food likes to eat. Shocking, I’m sure.
Anyway, in honor of the season, I’d like to use this space to share what I’m thankful for in 2025.
First, for the 19th year in a row, I’m most thankful for my amazingly awesome (and awesomely amazing) spouse, S. E. Robertson/C. A. Moss. Having them in my life, makes it better and they help make ME want to be a better person.
Next, I’m incredibly thankful that I was able to finally achieve the dream that sat unfulfilled for 30+ years and published my first novel. I am thankful for anyone who gave it a chance and especially thankful for those who had kind things to say about my debut effort.
I’m thankful that I’m back in therapy and seemed to have found a therapist that is a good fit for me and what I need right now. 2025 was a rough one, mental health-wise, but I feel like I’m starting to right the ship as we approach 2026.
Lastly, I’m thankful that I’m finally, if slowly, finding my feet again writing-wise and have begun earnestly crafting the next novel. Expect to hear more about that in this space in 2026.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we still have 6 weeks or so of 2025 and that means holiday sales and deals! I’ll be participating in Smashwords’ End of the Year Sale. I’ll be back with more details on that next week.
Lastly, as we are about to be inundated with mistletoe and holly 24/7 (if you aren’t already), I just had to share the strangest and yet most delightful interpretation of the holiday season’s most famous icon. May I introduce you to a Santa… with muscles?
No! Not him! (Seriously, fuck that dead racist.)
This guy! Jolly Ol’ Saint Kick Your Ass. Jacked Frost. Badass Santa. Kazushige Sanda.
Once again, my spouse has found another bizarre, but utterly amazing Anime for us to consume and SANDA is quite possibly the most interesting interpretation of Santa Claus I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience. If you have a Prime subscription, it’s worth checking out. At least it’ll give you another reason to use it until Fallout season 2 starts.
Okay, that’s gonna wrap up things here until after Turkey Day. If you celebrate, whether with blood family, chosen family, or found family, I hope the holiday and the whole upcoming season stress-free and there is joy to be found for you and yours.
It’s finally, truly honestly FALL! Well, at least it feels that way here in the vast wilds of western PA. It’s been cold enough to switch from the AC to the heater at night and I’ve had to break out the hoodies of various colors and warmths. Time for soup, tea, hot cocoa, and mulled cider.
Honestly, just a simple shift in weather has boosted my mood a little, and lord knows it needed some boosting. Of course, finally finding a new therapist has boosted my mood a lot more. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to say that right now I need help dealing with my mental health, so I’m going to get it. 2025 has been kicking every sane person’s proverbial ass to some degree, and I’m certainly no exception. Not saying that I have worse it than anyone else, but I can recognize when I’m flailing and I’ve been for a while.
I have an amazing and an incredibly supportive spouse who has been a tremendous source of strength to be me during this last year. I couldn’t have made it as long and as far as I have without them. Still, it’s not fair to expect them to be a partner, a friend, a confidant, AND a mental health support system. It was time to get back into therapy. After a couple false starts, I seem to have found a potential good fit for what I need, so we’ll see where that takes me.
I’m also, slowly, starting to find my way again, writing-wise. Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of when I first started writing Tales of a Stranger Sister and I’m still amazed how quickly those three years passed through drafting, beta-readers, revisions, rewrites, and SO. MUCH. EDITING. It still kinda blows my mind to look at my shelf and see MY BOOK just sitting there. Like, how did that get there? Did I actually make that happen? Now, all I want is to give it a shelf sibling.
That said, while the next novel may still be a ways off, I did get some inspiration for a short story/novelette that I’m currently working on and hope to put out in the world next year. Turns out I wasn’t done with Riv, Sam, and the world of Litia just yet after all, though that’s all I’ll share about it for now.
Cozy the Day Away has come and gone and Tales was a part of it. Overall, the experience was positive. I wish I had sold more copies, of course (show me a writer who doesn’t want that), but in the same breath, I managed to have my best month sales-wise (and with a week left in the month at that.) I also made my first sales through Draft2Digital, so that’s another milestone, too. I may not making money hand over fist, but that doesn’t mean I can’t focus on the positives of this whole endeavor.
Moving on, I’ll have a more detailed review of the fall anime season when we come to the end of it, but I have to gush a little about what might be my favorite show of the current crop, If I May Ask for One Final Thing.
Last season, Anne Shirley was my favorite show because I needed something sweet and wholesome to help me cope with a world that was anything but. This season I was surprised to learn that I NEEDED to watch Scarlett beat the ever-loving fuck out of rich assholes for no other reason that simply because A. They Deserve It. and B. She Wanna.
Needless to say, I highly recommend it if you have Crunchyroll and have a desire to see awful people get much deserved justice delivered five knuckles at a time.
Ok, so with that, time to head back out into the world, but please allow me to leave you with these words of wisdom:
“Be the ass-kicking, Aristocrat-punching, oligarch-pummeling chaotic force of nature you wish to see the world.”
October 11th and 12th is the next Cozy the Day Away sale, in conjunction with HearthCon, the world’s only free online cozy fantasy convention. From today until Monday evening, Tales of a Stranger Sister will be only .99¢ (or the closest international equivalent.)
So, please check out the 150+ cozy and cozy-adjacent books (Like mine and my amazing spouse’s) and help support indie writers working in a unique niche of the fantasy landscape. All the books and deals that are part of the sale can be found here:
And if you’ve come to my page from the sale, then hello to you! My novel isn’t 100% cozy, but I believe it is a positive experience and we could all use more of those these days. Anyway, next pot of tea’s on me.
Okay, after all that waxing angst, I thought that it would be nice to use this space to also talk about the things that make me happy that don’t necessarily involve writing and… uh… writing about them.
Anyway…
The Summer anime season just wrapped up and the Fall shows are just starting, so I thought it’d be neat to share what my spouse and I watched the last 3 months or so, which ones we enjoyed, and which were meh.
Anne Shirley
Let’s start with one that actually began during the spring season and continued through the summer. Anne Shirley is a 24-episode adaption of three of L.M. Montgimery’s Anne Novels, Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island.
I never read the books as a kid or as an adult, but I fell in love with this show. Sweet and very slice-of-life in a time before smart phones, A.I. and social media. I give this one my highest recommendations for both fans of the books and complete strangers to the characters and world. It’s just so damn well done from the opening theme to animation to the pacing.
Dan Da Dan Season 2
This one was probably one of my most anticipated shows this last season, the first season completely catching me off guard and quickly becoming one of my favorites of the last 10 years by a wide margin. The second season did not disappoint, expanding the cast in interesting and fun ways while never losing focus on the true heroes in Momo and Okurun who retain their championship for most adorkable couple in anime after season one.
My Dress Up Darling Season 2
Which brings us to the only couple with a chance to challenge for that belt in the form of Marin and Gojo. We had watched the first season after it had come and gone after seeing some positive reviews and fell in love with the characters and premise. Honestly, the best and most refreshing thing about both this show and Dan Da Dan was how they both treated their females leads as people and not eye candy or prizes for the male protagonists, which is something more Shonen and Seinen series would benefit from emulating.
Sakamoto Days Part 2
Sakamoto Days is sorta guilty pleasure shonen show for me. It’s basically what if John Wick became a family man, let himself go, and was still the worst’s deadliest hitman. It’s cartoonishly violent, features a million one-shot antagonists with weird gimmicks and a million other side characters with even weirder gimmicks. Honestly, it’s dumb. Very, VERY dumb. But like dumb in that fun way that doesn’t make you feel dumb for watching or even enjoying it. I’m AM enjoying it and looking forward to Part 3, but I’m not staring at the calendar counting down the days.
Turkey! Time to Strike
Turkey! Time to Strike was quite possibly the oddest duck this season. First off, as this was an anime original and not based on a manga or light novel, no one had any idea what the story was about until it finally aired. When the first trailer came out, it was presented as a “Cute Girls X Hobby” anime about a high school girl’s bowling team with all the expected drama of both being teenage girls and being on a sports team.
So, it was only at the end of the first episode that everyone learns that the studio absolutely and completely bait and switched the audience.
It’s not a “Cute Girls X Hobby” anime. Well, it is, but it’s also actually a “Time-Travel X Isekai X Cute Girls X Hobby” anime, when our five protags find themselves transported via magical pin reset mechanism to medieval Japan (The Sengoku period to be exact). From there an adventure commences as our heroes have to figure out a way back to the 21st century without wrecking the future and their possible existences.
Also, they still bowl. Like, A LOT. It’s still a bowling anime, albeit, for sometimes utterly bizarre reasons.
And it’s GOOD. Like it’s a genuinely fun watch even if you find yourself asking several times “Yeah, but why BOWLING?!” The characters are, for the most part, fun and not annoying or grating. The story itself is pretty good and even with so much potential to go completely off the rails and crash and burn before the end, it manages to actually stick the landing, though not perfectly.
Honestly, this was a bizarre and fun idea, and I can respect it for taking risks in a genre that seems strangely averse to doing such. That said, this show would’ve definitely benefitted if it had been 24 episodes (or 26, if you’re an Old-taku like me and remember when that was the standard length of almost 90% of shows). With 10 protagonists total, basically all the character development feels either very rushed or inadequate. Honestly, I almost feel like 2-4 characters were unnecessary and served no purpose other than to check off a box on the archetype checklist, which is a shame as I would have liked to spend more time with some of them to really understand them as people.
With all that said, I do recommend it. It was fun and weird and sometimes that’s all you really want. Though, I’d still like a straight up bowling anime one day.
City: The Animation
City is another odd duck. It’s a comedy and there were several times I found myself genuinely laughing hard. But there were just as many times that I found myself staring at the screen, baffled. It’s very Japanese in its humor and some of the best jokes were meta humor around anime and manga itself. I don’t regret watching it, but I’m not sure I would recommend it to everyone.
With You and the Rain
This was both a strange, and yet very grounded show. A writer adopts a stray tanuki and they cohabitate as pet owner and pet. It’s slow, sometimes sweet, and there’s always a hint of surrealism in every episode. It’s very much in the vein of The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today and if you liked that, I’d definitely recommend this.
Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon
The last in our flock of odd ducks, we’ve got another Isekai with a bizarre premise. A Vending Machine otaku (Yes, they do exist) dies and is transported to a fantasy world as an actual vending machine. I’m always a fan of shows with bizarre premises and am happy with creators take chances. That said, I do think Season 1 was much stronger because it focused on our protag, Boxxo, learning about both his new body and the world he’s found himself in. This season, he’s pretty much established and figured out how to communicate, move, and fight and its settling into a pretty standard comedy fantasy, it’s just that the hero is, again, a vending machine. I’ll watch season three when it comes out, but it might fall into that category of shows that we watch when we don’t have a full itinerary for the season.
Kids on the Slope
This show is already over a decade old and came out in 2012, but we watched it over the last 4-5 months, so I wanted to at least bring up a few feelings I had on it.
Feeling one: I wish they would’ve pulled the trigger and actually made this a queer coming of age story set in the 60s. Then again, considering how campy they made the one queer-coded character, maybe it would’ve ended up a total disaster instead of a mild-disappointment.
Feeling two: Die in a fire, Brother Jun. You’re 60’s hipster trash along with many other kinds of trash. I hate you and I am glad I never have to see you again.
Okay, that pretty much covers the anime we just watched last season. We have about a half dozen lined up for the upcoming Fall season and a few on the back burner should we need a show to watch during our down time. If you like this kind of content, and want to see more like it, drop me an email or a DM/Comment on my Bluesky.
We’re nearing the end of September and we’re finally entering Fall proper, even if we have to drag it out from wherever it was hiding kicking and screaming.
September hasn’t been a great month for me mentally. I mean 2025 as a whole hasn’t been great for a lot of people and I recognize that so many people have it like a gazillion times worse that I will ever have. I’m not going for a gold medal in the Suffering Olympics here. This is me simply verbalizing my feelings and those feelings are that I’ve been in a bad headspace for a while.
Dramatic representation of my current mood and outlook about the world
At a macro-level, the world at large is just… uuuuugggghhhhhhhhnnnnn. It’s literally exhausting to wake up in the morning and know that by the time I come back to bed that evening, the world will be a little more, well, shittier in some way or another.
On a personal level, I’m flailing creatively. I don’t think I’ve truly ever adapted to my new routine because of my career change 5 months ago. Before that happened, I was hybrid 40/60 WFH (2 days at office, 3 at home). Most days I would have like 90 minutes to 2 hours of extra personal time to spend as I wished (a portion of which I spent writing/rewriting/revising/editing). I was done at 4PM and was able to get things like the dishes and dinner prep done before my spouse came home and still had time to unwind, and I could even keep on top of things like laundry during the day.
But now, even though I’m still getting up at the same time every day, I’m getting home almost two hours later, and then my spouse and I need to do all the things I used to have already done before they would’ve come home. In short, I’ve lost a lot of the free time I used to have and the already reduced chunk I have now is further eaten away by simply trying to keep a household running like a normal adult. Furthermore, as I have less time, I feel like I need to maximize what I can do in the time I do have, which has never been conducive for creativity for me. I need to properly unwind and clear my head of work before tackling creative efforts and thus, when I force myself to sit down and write, I struggle to the point where I find myself resenting having to sit there.
And honestly, I’m not even sure what I want to write about right now. One of the reasons I wrote Tales of a Stranger Sister was because I wanted to create something positive and affirming. I wanted to make something to mirror the world I want. Right now? I feel angry and tired, pretty much all the time. I don’t feel like creating something affirming and beautiful, but rather I want to take all that anger and exhaustion to create something visceral and ugly and throw it at the world as hard as I can for being so damned shitty right now.
Ultimately, I don’t think I want to release something like that because I honestly don’t want to add more ugliness to the world that is already overflowing with it. So, this might be a situation when I need to spend time putting something brutal on paper, just so I can get it out of me. Then I can shut it away in a drawer somewhere, never to be seen by another’s eyes. A literary purge of the soul, if you will. Hopefully, after doing that, I can find the focus to create something better and more positive.
There are a couple other factors that are contributing to my current mood of blergh. I must admit that my novel’s disappointingly underwhelming performance during the Narratess sale was a blow to the ol’ ego. Was I expecting to sell hundreds or thousands of copies? Well, no, but I was expecting to do a little better than it did for a three-day event that was supposed to cater to readers seeking out indie and self-published works. That feeling of disappointment was then further magnified as September has come and gone and I’m looking to pitch my first zero sales/zero reads month despite going wide almost a month ago.
Lastly, I need to address how returning to social media has been impacting me and my mood. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was finally able to write a novel after truly quitting Twitter in 2022. It was not a healthy place for me mentally and cutting out 2+ hours a day of doom scrolling and snark dunking did wonders for me both creatively and focus-wise, as well as emotionally.
That said, now that I have a novel that I’m trying to sell to the world, there are very little options one has to get the word out and promote it that don’t involve throwing disproportionate sums of money at an algorithm and hoping it sticks to someone’s attention enough to generate a click and a sale. So, I rejoined social media somewhat by creating accounts on Reddit and Bluesky and have been trying to use them to both promote my work and rejoin the online community as a whole. Unfortunately, I once again find myself falling into the same bad habits on Bluesky that made Twitter such an awful place for my particular brain.
So, what’s this all mean in the grand scheme of things? Probably not much to anyone outside of me and my immediate family. Blog post like these tend to serve more as form of talk therapy for me than useful news to anyone actually interested in my book or my (hopefully) next one.
I had hoped to use this fall to get a first draft of my next novel written and spend the beginning of 2026 revising it for my alpha and beta readers. As the calendar turns to October, I look at what I’ve managed to get done so far and that plan seems… Unlikely.
Time for a new plan.
First, it’s time to adjust my routine, so when I sit down to write in the evening, I’m actually ready, and more importantly, willing to do so. Second, I need to purge some of this anger and frustration from my brain, so it looks like for the immediate future I’ll be doing some exploratory writing of those feelings to clear out that distracting rubble blocking better things inside my brain from coming out.
Lastly, it’s time to step back somewhat from social media. Not completely because I still need to use it as a tool to promote my work, but I need to better recognize the bad habits I’m falling back into because of it. That means better curating my feed and muting/unfollowing those who mostly post content that feeds into my bad headspace and habits, and also no longer using the explore tabs because that’s where I really get in trouble as that it has become a major source of “Hey, get a load of this asshole and the horrible thing(s) they did/are doing!” content, which only further feeds my righteous indignation about… well, everything.
Now, while I hesitate to call my book “cozy” out right, it is at least in the same neighborhood as books that are. The nice thing about CTDA is they offer a category for Cozy-Adjacent books like Tales, Healers’, and Therapist for the readers who dig the vibe but don’t mind a difficult feelings and themes with their tea and magic. The ebook of Tales of a Stranger Sister will be 99¢ (or the closest international equivalent) in all online stores that weekend (and if you happened to have bought my book during that sale and have subsequently visited my site because of it, hello from the past!)
Okay, time to get off the floor, dust myself off, and get back to it. And by it, I mean writing. Also, life. Mostly that second one.
Welcome to September. The spiritual end of summer, if not the meteorological or calendrical one. That also mean its the beginning of fall, and while we sadly get very little of it in my hometown these days, it remains my favorite season, nonetheless.
Well, both yes and no. My sales for all three days combined were anemic, and that would be putting it very politely, so my first real chance at exposing my book to a large number of new eyeballs was met with a deafening yawn, which was exactly the reaction I wanted least.
That said, it wasn’t zero and I am grateful for that. So, to the handful of people who took a chance on my debut novel this month, you have my sincere and heartfelt thanks and I hope that my story is an interesting experience for you.
Staying focused on the positive, the sale did generate my first sales in the UK and Germany, so now I can say my book has a presence on three different continents (waves at Australia and my first international reader.) That’s pretty neat.
And while I did not get the desired results from joining the Narratess sale, there were things about it I did appreciate (as well as some criticisms) that I think will help me plan future marketing attempts.
In terms of the things I liked about it, the sheer volume and variety of titles being offered was amazing and truly shows the breadth and depth of what is being offered by independent & self-published writers and storytellers whose stories would never have had a chance to earn their creators money, let alone even be seen just 15 years ago due to the nature of traditional publishing. That in itself is a win for everyone, regardless of sales generated.
The other thing I really appreciated was how the sale website was set up, displaying the titles being offered in the sale randomly with each refresh, meaning that new books were always being shown each time the page was loaded. It made it feel like a thumb wasn’t being put on the scale, which is very much appreciate by those who work in niche genres and styles. It also had a filter search, making it easy to find books in your preferred taste in genres.
That said, the website did have some issues in regard to the filters, which seemed to treat everything as an AND, and never as an OR, meaning that unless you absolutely wanted a book that was both A AND B, it would not show books that were A OR B, which can be frustrating.
And while the website was built to show all sorts of books with no deference given to any specific titles, the author community participating was very much not of the same mindset and most social media posts promoting the sale and making recommendations seemed to keep pushing the same dozen or so titles. By the end of the weekend, it felt less like “Here’s a great sale with over 300+ unique titles to check out!” and more “Hey! Here’s your chance to grab these dozen books on the cheap and if you have a spare buck or two after that, maybe grab on these other books, or whatever.”
Finally, there were the bundles. I’m not opposed to bundles. I think they are both effective tools to promote multiple artists/projects and great for consumers who may have such limited disposable income that taking a chance on unknown piece of art is legitimately hard to do financially. My problem is running both a sale and bundles within the sale. Basically, the bundles got a ton of promotion before and during the sale and if your book wasn’t in a bundle (and there can be many reasons why you might not wish to participate), then you were relegated to “Oh and maybe buy these other books if you have any money left.”
That said, there is no sour grapes here and I will not begrudge anyone else any success they had last weekend, whether they were in a bundle or they had wrote one of the more popular titles being offered. Their success was earned and deserved and did not come at my expense. I can be both disappointed in my own lack of success and happy that others found some of their own.
This experience has not soured me on group promotions. I do plan to participate in another in October, though that one is much more genre focused and while my book isn’t a textbook example of the genre in question, it shares enough characteristics to be in the same neighborhood if not on main street. I’ll have more here about that when the time draws closer.
The other thing this experience has not done is deterred me from writing my next book. Indeed, the lack of interest in my book during the sale has only added fuel to a fire that had been smoldering for most of the summer. Taking a month off has also given that fire some much needed oxygen and it’s once more burning brightly to the point where I’m writing 4-5 sticky notes a day at work, so that I remember to type them up when I get home in the evening. I’m back to work, starting the first draft of what I’m pretty damn sure will be my next release. Some writers need coffee and scented candles to find the mood and energy to write. I apparently need video games and spite. I can accept that about myself.
Anyway, I’m not ready to drop any details about the before-mentioned next book, but I do feel I’ll be talking about it in more depth sooner rather than later, so stay tuned to this space for that.
Before I go, I wanted to take a quick moment to give both a hearty congratulations and much deserve plug for my awesomely amazing and amazingly awesome spouse who releasing their 12th book today! The Strangers’ Sanctuary is an authentic and beautiful story and I am incredibly proud to have been part of its creation as both an alpha and beta reader, but as also as a general cheerleader and sounding board as they worked on it. I honestly cannot recommend this book highly enough because any praise I give it would feel inadequate. This is a book that will make you feel… all sorts of things, but you will feel something, that I promise you. It’s an experience and its one I think worth exploring for everyone.
Okay, that’s it for me for now. If you have it where you are, then enjoy your fall. Take a walk, wear a sweater, enjoy some foliage, sit by a campfire, drink some cider, & perhaps even read a book or two.
While this won’t be my first time running a promotion, this will be the first time I’ll be part of a large-scale group promotion. I had hoped to be a part of the last Narratess sale that was held in April, but of course, when I had learned it existed, the cutoff for signups had already passed, so I ran a solo promotion that same weekend to, well, ah… let’s say results, and just leave it at that.
Honestly, this is something I’ve been looking forward to ever since I published my debut novel. Living with a self-published author for these last 11 years, I’ve gotten to see how these group promotions tend to go, and my spouse/editor/publishing guru always seems to come out on the other side of these ventures seeing very positive results. So, now’s my chance to be a part of this and, honestly, it couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
We’re coming up on the six-month anniversary of the release of Tales of a Stranger Sister and sales, so far, have been… uh… Well, I won’t say they’re disappointing because I legitimately worried that no one would actually want to read my book at all, so the fact that a dozen people were willing to take a chance and give me actual currency in exchange for my work is something I will never not be both thankful for and in awe about.
That said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish that number was more. I’m proud of this book and, dammit, I think there are people who would absolutely love it if they found it. It’s just been hard finding those people and putting it in front of their eyeballs, despite it feeling like I’m doing everything short of hurling copies at people’s heads and screaming “READ THIS!” So, this is my first real, true opportunity to expose my book to a large number of people and, in turn, hopefully generate sales, and, more importantly, eventually generate more reviews and ratings which can only help boost its footprint in a vast internet ocean (Footprints in the ocean? Sorry, I think that metaphor got away from me.)
So, I’m excited for this weekend to finally see what my story can do with actual exposure to a its potential audience.
And I’m equally terrified.
Because there is also the chance that it completely fails to generate any interest with the indie book-buying public, and I will no longer have that excuse that sales have been slow because no one knew it existed. I would have to face the fact that I might have created something that no one wants, or worse, even if it was something they wanted, what I’m offering is mediocre or even bad. That I am a bad writer who wrote a bad book and the best I can hope for is a dozen readers who are too indiscriminate with their disposable income and too kind to tell me to eff off with my bad book.
So, yeah, I got that running in the back of my mind. Good ol’ imposter syndrome with an unhealthy dose of insecurity. Boy, what a fun blog entry this turned out to be, huh? Aren’t you glad you stopped by?
Okay, enough of that! I’ve always said that I wrote and self-published this book the way I did because I wanted to have the freedom to make the creative decisions I wanted to make and to let the book succeed or fail on my own terms. So, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?
That said, as there are over 300+ books in this sale, written by fellow indie authors from all across the vast spectrum of humanity, I should also do my share to support them as much I hope they’ll support me. So, here are a selection of some of the titles I plan to pick up this weekend to help carry me through the fall and winter reading season (Please click on the book below to see the full-sized image and description):
And, of course, I’d be a real dingus if I didn’t also give a hearty, full-throated endorsement of my amazingly awesome and awesomely amazing spouse’s own entry for the sale:
Seriously, it’s great, and you should grab a copy this weekend if you haven’t gotten one already.
And also speaking of my better half and partner in literary crimes, their newest novel, The Strangers’ Sanctuary, is now available for pre-order and will be out on September 1st! It’s amazing, honest, & authentic. A genuinely good read, so check it out if small-scale fantasy is your proverbial cup of tea.
Anyway, I hope you all find some books this weekend that scratch whatever itch your imagination has at the moment and if mine happens to be that particular backscratcher, then thank you! Thank you so very much!
