Ingram Spark no longer charging for revisions. Makes me want to go through all my books and re-write them. Is that an impulse all authors have? A do-over for their old books, now they are better writers?
I don’t write about being chronically ill very often, mostly because I’m still thinking it through in real time.
This short piece is about effort, belief, and what it’s like to live in a culture that insists improvement is always possible…even when your body says otherwise.
https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/effort-without-improvement
#Health #Scotland #UK #Writing #WritingCommunity #Books #Reading #Women
THREAD
1/
My daughter took this photograph of me today, quickly, in my bedroom. We swept the mess off the table, moved the dirty clothes off the chair and tried to make things look presentable, including me.
I complained the entire time about how I looked. The light wasn’t good, my hair was greasy, I’m 42 on Sunday, I want to lose weight, I’m in perimenopause. But this is something I do. Saying it out loud has become a habit.
Time for realignment and focus.
THREAD
1/
My daughter took this photograph of me today, quickly, in my bedroom. We swept the mess off the table, moved the dirty clothes off the chair and tried to make things look presentable, including me.
I complained the entire time about how I looked. The light wasn’t good, my hair was greasy, I’m 42 on Sunday, I want to lose weight, I’m in perimenopause. But this is something I do. Saying it out loud has become a habit.
You no longer need a publisher to get your book designed, printed and bound. The really important jobs a #publishing house still does these days are marketing and distribution. Without that, a self-published author just owns a very large number of identical books that will probably stay in their spare room, where nobody knows about them, until someone throws them out.
You no longer need a publisher to get your book designed, printed and bound. The really important jobs a #publishing house still does these days are marketing and distribution. Without that, a self-published author just owns a very large number of identical books that will probably stay in their spare room, where nobody knows about them, until someone throws them out.
Ran out of ideas
“Say, what are you doing boarding up your shop?”
“Oh, I used to sell ideas, but I ran out of them. So I’m closing shop, for good.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I hear there’s a farm upstate where all the writers who ran out of ideas are free to frolic all day.”
“Hmm… there’s something you should know about that farm.”
“What’s that?”
“It doesn’t exist. It’s just a tale they tell young writers. You know… so that they have something to look forward to.”
“What am I going to do then?”
“You should open up a new shop.”
“What would I sell? I no longer have ideas.”
“Hope.”
“Hope?”
“Yes, there’s an endless supply, and folks always need hope.”
“That’s a plan. I almost said ‘there’s an idea’ but that’s not possible, because I ran out of them.”
“And I even have a name for you ‘The Hopium Emporium.'”
“That’s snappy.”
“It will be $500.”
“What?”
“My fee. $500. I’m a traveling salesman. I sell plans.”
#TheDailyIsotope #AutisticWriters #ideas #hope #plans #microfiction #TheHopiumEmporium #writing
#AutisticWriters #hope #ideas #microfiction #plans #TheDailyIsotope #TheHopiumEmporium #writingRan out of ideas
“Say, what are you doing boarding up your shop?”
“Oh, I used to sell ideas, but I ran out of them. So I’m closing shop, for good.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I hear there’s a farm upstate where all the writers who ran out of ideas are free to frolic all day.”
“Hmm… there’s something you should know about that farm.”
“What’s that?”
“It doesn’t exist. It’s just a tale they tell young writers. You know… so that they have something to look forward to.”
“What am I going to do then?”
“You should open up a new shop.”
“What would I sell? I no longer have ideas.”
“Hope.”
“Hope?”
“Yes, there’s an endless supply, and folks always need hope.”
“That’s a plan. I almost said ‘there’s an idea’ but that’s not possible, because I ran out of them.”
“And I even have a name for you ‘The Hopium Emporium.'”
“That’s snappy.”
“It will be $500.”
“What?”
“My fee. $500. I’m a traveling salesman. I sell plans.”
#TheDailyIsotope #AutisticWriters #ideas #hope #plans #microfiction #TheHopiumEmporium #writing
#AutisticWriters #hope #ideas #microfiction #plans #TheDailyIsotope #TheHopiumEmporium #writingThe Wuthering Heights people remember is not the book Emily Brontë wrote.
I read it just in time for the release of Emerald Fennell’s adaptation. She has said Wuthering Heights left its greatest impression on her at 14. Here’s my interpretation at 41, feeling world weary & no longer susceptible to the charms of beautiful men who behave badly.
It turns out it isn’t really about love at all, but about inheritance, race & power.
Posted the first of three chapters of my weird queer horror story on AO3 (because I haven't built a website for my original fiction yet). Details below.
Title: The Hand That Touches Flame
CWs: possession, body horror, unsure reality, swearing, disturbing imagery
Summary:
Four years ago, Morgan Lee's last remaining alternate self broke through his mirror and tried to kill him. Now, as a vigilante defender of reality with an immortal boss and a mind-reading best friend who could theoretically cause an apocalypse, he's learned to rank threats to his well-being in order of least-to-most dangerous:
3. Eldritch extraplanar entities from hostile realities bent on invading his own, and the cultists who serve them.
2. The British government.
1. Himself. Specifically: the excruciating embarrassment of having a crush on said mind-reading best friend.
Saving teenage girls from the demons they summoned via Tumblr is easy, after all. It's everything else that's hard.
Posted the first of three chapters of my weird queer horror story on AO3 (because I haven't built a website for my original fiction yet). Details below.
Title: The Hand That Touches Flame
CWs: possession, body horror, unsure reality, swearing, disturbing imagery
Summary:
Four years ago, Morgan Lee's last remaining alternate self broke through his mirror and tried to kill him. Now, as a vigilante defender of reality with an immortal boss and a mind-reading best friend who could theoretically cause an apocalypse, he's learned to rank threats to his well-being in order of least-to-most dangerous:
3. Eldritch extraplanar entities from hostile realities bent on invading his own, and the cultists who serve them.
2. The British government.
1. Himself. Specifically: the excruciating embarrassment of having a crush on said mind-reading best friend.
Saving teenage girls from the demons they summoned via Tumblr is easy, after all. It's everything else that's hard.
Just a reminder that if you like my writing on Substack, it’s very likely that you will also like my book ‘Drystone - A Life Rebuilt’
If you buy it on bookshop.org you support me and indy bookshops.
https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15919/9781846976469
#Books #Book #Writing #WritingCommunity #Reading #Scotland #UK
Just discovered that Nightmare Magazine is still open to submissions until tomorrow night! Gasped and then, with trembling fingers, submitted a piece of flash, adding to their pile of 2400 submissions this month. Nothing ventured and all that.