Monday, December 31, 2012

Writing progress #1


The snow had fallen all night. I knew, because I’d sat up watching it. Now, as the sun began to peak through the clouds at the horizon, the snow was just beginning to let up.
Twelve inches of fluffy white snow coated my front yard- and my car.

She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you know who I am?” she asked, her voice taking that awkward squeak that only teen girls seem to be able to produce.
“Let me guess,” I said, “You’re some sort of angel sent to change my course back to whatever some bullshit god wants?” She giggled a high-pitched, ear-splitting giggle reminiscent of the sound two wine glasses make when clinked together.
“I suppose, in a sense, you may be right. I mean, at one time in my existence, I was an angel. Me and that ‘bullshit god,’ as you called her, had a bit of a falling out. I took it a bit more literally,” she said, casually checking her fingernails.
“What?”
“I’m the dark Lord Satan.” Her eyes shot to me, a smirk on her lips.
“No, really.” I rubbed my forehead skeptically.
Her expression turned serious, her mouth twisting into an inhuman scowl. “You think I can’t choose the vessel through which I experience this world? Am I supposed to be some middle-aged man who runs a tobacco company and donates money to organizations that club seals?”
“At least then you might have a decent voice,” I countered. It was truly difficult to take her seriously. She’d assaulted me with pompoms, for fuck’s sake. I was glad that she’d dropped those chasing me, though. Otherwise, there was a good chance I’d have one being forced down my throat by now with the looks she was giving me.
“Oh, burn,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Well really, what can you do as a bimbo cheerleader who’s still in high school that you couldn’t as a CEO of a megacorporation or something?”
“As if I’d give you my whole plan. You children sure are predictable. You’ll just have to wait and see.” It was then that I noticed it- her skin was glowing. In some spots it was only a pale white-ish glow that made her look even paler than she usually did, but in other spots it was orange and it nearly obscured all of her natural skin tone.
Maybe she really was Satan.


Sunday, December 30, 2012

On a Lazy Sunday

I'm sitting at BP. Think it'll be a good day to get a couple paragraphs done on a story.
It's gloomy as hell today. Completely overcast, murky gray snow on the ground and the roads are slick and icy.
I made a new blog specifically for my next BIG project, Stories of the States. You can find it at http://storiesofthestates.blogspot.com and it will be updated whenever I have news about the Stories of States road trip or funding or book. It will also be HEAVILY picspammed every time I stop at a place with wifi.

There is an indiegogo campaign for it at http://indiegogo.com/storiesofthestates where you can donate as little as a dollar and get a free signed paperback copy of Stories of the States once it's released.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

I've been blogging a lot lately

It's more like I'm thinking out loud, only on the internet. I think I'm doing it to avoid doing real work because real work scares me. Also it's work. whereas writing this blog and having it monetized and whatever takes about zero effort. So I've decided something:

Every day that I update my blog, I have to write at least one paragraph of regular story.

Not only that, but I have to upload it as its own blog entry to show you what I've accomplished for a day.

Are you ready for complete and total anger and upset from a writer?

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Fail Emma has failed

So I did have a short story written that I was going to release yesterday- BUT then like a dolt I forgot to save. And my computer decided to freeze and I was unable to save it.
I'll have something new for you lot soon though.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

I feel like this needs to be said

I am not a bestselling author. I don't have a lot of money. I rarely have any spare money, despite what you might think or observe. I'm the very depiction of the poverty line, actually. But I'm not going to give up.
I have a lot of debts to repay. I can't give up.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas!

I've got a surprise for you, dear readers!
Around 10:00PM on Christmas Day I will be publishing a brand new story!
Are you as excited as I am?

Saturday, December 22, 2012

A New Novel Project and Other Things

I'm working on a novel. I don't know when it will be done. I'm not working on it as my main priority so it's not going to be out within the next four months at least. But I am working on a novel. It's tentatively titled Breaking Glass, and it's based on a true story.
I'm also working on a bunch of 11-story collections that I will be releasing in the next few months. They'll each be only 99 cents.
Once they're all released in e-book form, they'll be released in one huge paperback that will be priced between 10.99 and 17.99, depending on how many stories it actually ends up being and how large a book it has to be.

Monday, December 17, 2012

First short story teaser paragraph and title reveal!

I have written the very first short story in the first weekly short story collection I will be putting out: Signs of Life. The short story is entitled "Zippo." Here is the first paragraph:


A slow smile spreads across my face as I close the top of my stash container. My pipe full of something sticky and sweet, I feel around on the floor with my feet for my lighter. My socked foot bumps into something- success! I wrap my toes around it and pull it up to where my hands can reach. 

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Tumblr Was Down

And I panicked.
No, really.
Allow me to screenshot my Facebook timeline from the time when Tumblr was down.
Yeah, I kinda flipped shit about it. (Click to see a bigger, more readable size)

Anyway, this weekend I am setting out to begin writing one short story every night, to be released at the end of the week (Friday evenings) in a story collection on the Kindle, free for the first 5 days and then 1.99 after.
These will be absolutely random stories, just whatever happens to pop into my head. I will also be working on that Sci-Fi story that lenniershairlessballs over on tumblr prompted so I might release it in the third or fourth collection I release hopefully.
When I've got enough collections to warrant a paperback, I will release a 200-400 page paperback filled with these stories. And I will repeat this until I'm a super famous writer who's loved by millions of people!  Er, I mean I will repeat this until I finally actually write a novel and release that instead of short stories.
Anyhoo, I'm writing too much on this blog right now. I will try to update every day or every other day with story titles and character information and stuff.
See ya!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Classic Doctor Who and Fangirly Things

I'm still writing. Writing, writing, writing, but almost everything I've written is crap. I'm still trying to trudge through but my heart's not in it. I'm hoping that I can write something good soon, but until then I'm going to watch Doctor Who. Classic Doctor Who. The old series, the original series. Mostly because I can.
I've begun to write Doctor Who fanfiction. Which, of course, means that other fanfiction has been pushed off to the back burner, but hey, that's life isn't it? I still plan to write the endings to all of those fanfics I've said I'll write. But at the point I'm at right now, I can't.

I'm considering starting a new blog simply for short stories and fangirlings and whatnot. I will, of course, link it here.
For now, I'll leave you with the news that I bought a new pair of tennies today and they're super comfy.
Now if only I can fix that cash flow problem.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Still working on that Sci-Fi story

It's taken some interesting turns and I'm developing the characters far more than I intended to, so it may well be a longer story, might even be broken into two parts.
I haven't really been writing all that much lately, in comparison to how I used to write constantly.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Burnout?

I have made another decision. I will no longer be attempting to participate in NaNoWriMo, not this year nor any future year.
I will also not be releasing either of the novels I've been working on until at least mid-year next year.
Instead, I will be releasing short stories at a frequency of about once to twice a week. They will each be 99 cents with their first five days FREE on the Amazon Kindle store.
The first one is sci-fi and was prompted by lenniershairlessballs on tumblr. It should be out by the end of the day Thanksgiving.
Details to come soon!

Remember, you can follow me on twitter @skrain_dukat and on tumblr (the-youtube-book-bitch) as well as on youtube at youtube.com/thebookbitch

Hope to show you a badass bookcover soon. :D

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Fanfiction Announcement:

Hey all, especially those following my fanfiction:
I will be updating all of the ones that are incomplete in December or January. I just need to finish writing the two novels I'm working on right now and I'll be able to work on my fanfiction again.
Thanks a million for being such super fans!

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

That's The Plan, My Man

So, basically, I have planned to finish the first two books in the Cedarcrest Chronicles by the end of next week. With the speed with which I've been writing, I should have the first draft of both done on schedule.
I will be releasing three books before christmas, the first two Cedarcrest novels and another YA Thriller that I've begun to outline tonight.
I'm not much of a blogger, can you tell?

I'll keep y'all updated.

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Hey America, It's Not Too Late!

Get out there and vote!
As long as you're in line at your polling place before the doors close, you cannot be turned away!
Go! Vote!
And may the odds be ever in your candidate's favor!

Sunday, November 04, 2012

NaNoWriMo and Indie Book Reviews!

I've become quite terrible at this blogging thing as of late. I am going to try to get better at it, as my career continues to move forward. 
I'm working really hard right now on the Cedarcrest Chronicles series, which will be an indefinitely long series of books set in a fictional Minnesotan town, Cedarcrest. So far, I'm working on the first two books of the series: Howl and Torn. 
I've really been working to develop the setting and the main characters (mainly Alena MacGregor, who is the main character/narrator for at least the first two books). 
Over the next few weeks I'll blog more about the books as I finish them (the sequel is my NaNovel this year and I'm already nearing 15,000 words for the month. Day four biatch!) and I'll even post some excerpts once I get into the full swing of editing.

To those that I still owe books from that giveaway I ran a while back, I'm trying for around Christmas. I need to get my finances in order first, but I'm aiming for Christmas.

I also have exciting news! I now have a new Youtube channel:


On that channel, I take a stab at some of the worst self-published e-books out there. So far, I've reviewed three books, with another book review coming sometime later this evening. Please subscribe if you like watching videos by the likes of Phelous, The Nostalgia Critic, The Nostalgia Chick, Linkara, or others of similar ilk. 
I will also be making one more youtube channel specifically for scarf/hijab tutorials sometime in the near future.

Anyway, I've made this blog quite long enough. I shall see you all soon! Hope everyone's doing fab, and if you're doing the NaNoWriMo thing this year, GOOD LUCK! YOU CAN DO IT!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Here we are, old friend, you and me, together on my 100th post

Yes that was a Doctor Who reference. No I don't care if that made your feels feely. Yes, I've been spending a lot of time on tumblr. I love tumblr.
I've also been spending a lot of time trying to find a job. I've got a minivan now, it's pretty spectacular. Its name is Rose. It's a 2001 Ford Windstar. Supposedly, it's green. It looks more gray though.
I'm also working on a couple new story outlines, particularly one about werewolves and another which will be kind of the same idea as Fear Street, but for the new millenium.
Beyond that, I haven't done too much, really. I'm still homeless, I'm still trying to find a job... And not much about that is changing. I do have a decent shot at a job in a kitchen at some big-ish company in Anoka, but I don't know.
I've got an IndieGoGo project going. http://www.indiegogo.com/BackToJimmy
It's to help me raise money so I might be able to get housing for me and my cat sooner rather than later. Any little bit helps, and the more you donate, the more I love you. Not that I don't already love you. Because I do. Dang, baby.
This is my 100th post, and I'm making it as I'm getting ready to go to bed after being awake for only about half of my birthday. But it was an all right birthday. Would have liked to have been able to do more, but I wouldn't have really had anything else to do, anyway.
I'm hoping to be able to give you lot an excerpt or an outline or something soonish. I don't know when though. I haven't really had the time or energy to update you lot.
My book is live through PublishAmerica now, and as I've promised, I've not given them a red cent. I have seen a couple of websites promoting it. Well, not promoting. Linking to it? I suppose that's a form of promotion. I don't know. I'm not expecting a lot but it would be cool if my luck could turn around and I could actually not be homeless anymore.

Monday, October 01, 2012

Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1053183733/the-girl-i-used-to-be-book-series
I'm trying to raise money for the next series I plan on writing and releasing: "The Girl I Used To Be."
It's about a girl named Jaida who is the victim of incest, develops anorexia, and later loses her mother to her abusive father. It will span five books and takes place in my hometown of Fridley, MN.
Trying to raise $3,000 so I can get the first book professionally edited and get a proper book cover made.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

An Update!

Well, I don't know how many people that follow this blog are Whovians, but lately Doctor Who has taken over my life. To the point that I've even begun to write DW FANFICTION. And the first one I actually posted to a site outside of Tumblr (titled: Footie Pajamas and The Rain) has already had 60 hits in less than two hours, and three positive reviews. I'm floored.
I don't generally tend to believe that I'm a good writer. Really. So when I get good reviews, especially in large quantities, I have a tendency to die just a little from amazement.
If you care to check out any of my fanfics, you can do so at: http://www.fanfiction.net/~skraindukat
Beyond that, I am still jobless and technically homeless. If you'd like to donate $20 and become a character in an upcoming story, you can do so by sending your cash to emmaline.westlund@gmail.com through paypal.

Monday, September 24, 2012

I'm still alive!

Just haven't had any real reason to blog lately. Got some new stuff in the works, more details soon.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

It's BLO-OG, IT'S BLO-OG

Bonus points to anyone who read the title to the tune of that "It's Log!" song from Ren and Stimpy. XD

I figured I'm probably overdue for a blog about what's going down lately. We'll start with PublishAmerica. Yes, I have read all the warnings and errors and red flags. I decided to check them out anyway. Worst thing that could happen? One of my least favorite of my short stories, Fatima, gets stuck with a crappy publisher until they inevitably cancel my contract. I won't spend any money on them, so I doubt they'll keep me long anyway.
I submitted the final manuscript yesterday along with the author questionnaire, and was kind of shocked to see that it didn't ask me for all sorts of weird red-flag stuff that others have reported. But who knows.

The second thing I need to report, as it's been all over facebook (well, maybe not my author page, which you can find at http://facebook.com/emmalinewestlund, if you haven't checked it out yet), is that I flipped my car on Tuesday. I don't want to put all the details on the blog here, since I'm going to write a short story out of it to really try to show people what went on in my head as the accident happened.

Pretty much, I was going just a touch too fast for the stretch of road (somewhere between 40 and 55, speed limit is 55, but there's FAR too much gravel to go much over 40, whereas I was going faster), hit a patch of loose gravel, and began to lose control of the car. I over-corrected and ended up heading to the ditch. My first thought was ok, I'll just go into the ditch and drive back out. Then I completely lost track of what was going on. Suddenly, I was sideways and I was in water. I recall thinking "oh crap. I'm in a lake. I'm dead. I'll never get out." Everything went black.

I had lost consciousness for just a short amount of time, couldn't have been more than a couple minutes, and I realized I was still breathing. I opened my eyes and found myself hanging from my seatbelt in water that was rising. It was rising slowly, but it was rising. My CD player was spouting random bits of songs from the FOB CD that was in, and that was when I began to panic. I couldn't reach my seatbelt and my fat ass couldn't quite wiggle myself free. I screamed for help- despite the fact that the nearest cabins are more than a mile away from where I went in.

I managed to free myself and found myself wading through knee-deep water back to shore, where two different couples had stopped, one man running down the embankment to help me. He pulled me up and helped me crawl up to the road, where we waited for the wrecker.

I managed to walk away with only a couple nasty bumps on the head, a scraped shoulder, a couple really bad bruises where the seatbelt got me, and a bumped elbow (as well as two scraped toes and an embedded piece of glass in a pinky toe). I walked away. I was very lucky.

Friday, August 17, 2012

P-P-P-PublishAmerica!

Now, despite what you've heard of them, despite what I've heard of them, I'm giving them a go with my story "Fatima." I want to see how it goes. If I like them, I'll offer my other books. If not, I'll go elsewhere. I'm not losing anything on it because I will NOT give them any money. and they can whine all they want. I will not pay for anything, just as everything on their website claims, that I won't have to buy anything.
But because of this, Fatima will be unpublished when I sign and send over the contract. So if you want a copy for nostalgia's sake, you'd better get you over to Amazon and get your copy! Paperback or ebook.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Darkness

Darkness is my very first foray into the world of zombies. Well, okay, it's the first that wasn't written when I was seven and very, very bored in second grade. And I do mean bored. Reading class, in particular, drove me batty, as I had learned how to read in Kindergarten, thanks to having a wonderful mother who helped me learn my ABCs and very basic words like "ball" and "red" and "spleen" before I hit school age.
Darkness marks my contribution to zombie lore. Darkness begins to ask the question: What if some zombies still held the intelligence and brainpower that they had in their lives before becoming zombies? What if the drive for brains (or flesh, or blood, or whatever) wasn't the main personality point of some zombies?

It is currently free in the Amazon Kindle Store and you can find it at the following link:
http://www.amazon.com/Darkness-ebook/dp/B008SH6VH8/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1344614458&sr=8-13&keywords=emmaline+westlund


Saturday, August 04, 2012

Wow I'm vocal lately

Because apparently I cannot stop writing right now, like, I literally cannot be stopped, I've released another short story, entitled Darkness. It will be 99 cents in the kindle store for 90 days, then it will be released everywhere else. I'm trying a few different tactics with the KDP Select thing, trying to find a way that works. So far it seems like starting them out in the program works the best, but I could be wrong. Next two stories I release will be released everywhere initially and then moved to Amazon exclusively after three months.
Anyway, more about Darkness. Darkness is my first zombie-themed story. It's got zombies, it's got a very small love story, and it's told from the perspective of someone who gets attacked by zombies. It's zombielicious! And I think I may write more about zombies in the future. Anyway, that's the purpose of this post, to talk about Darkness.
Here's the cover for it:

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Living Will is live on Amazon Kindle!

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Will-Sketchbooks-ebook/dp/B008RDXWLG/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1343842882&sr=1-10
$3.99

Even if you do not intend to buy it right away, could you hit the like button on the page? Every little thing helps!  :)

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Living Will Cover Reveal + More News!

I've uploaded Living Will to the Amazon Kindle store, so it should be live in about 12 hours. Until then I can point you in the direction of Twitter where you can retweet one of my tweets at @skrain_dukat (Read the tweets, it's one of my recent ones) and get a free e-book copy of Living Will! So far there's only one spot gone, so the next nine people who retweet the tweet will win a free pdf copy! (You will need to @ me some contact info (a dummy email or screenname or something, that or DM me or message me on my facebook page) so I can email you your copy!
Without further ado, here's Living Will's cover!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

NEW BOOK COVERS!

Over the next month or so, I will be redoing the book covers that I'm not thrilled with (Paper Lanterns, Random and Disturbing Thoughts, and Paper Dolls, to name a few). I've already redone the cover for That Whole "World Ending in 2012" Thing, and I'm about to reveal that to you here and now! ISN'T THE SUSPENSE JUST KILLING YOU?

What do you think?  :)

Friday, July 27, 2012

SO MANY THINGS ARE LIVE AT SMASHWORDS RIGHT NOW

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/EmmalineWestlund
Check it out! I've been able to republish many, many stories on smashwords.com again now that the 90 day exclusivity period has ended again for the KDP select program on many of the stories I've got out currently.
This is great news if you do not have a kindle or kindle software or just do not like amazon. It's wonderful news if you have an iPad, as most of these stories will be available in the iBookstore within the next couple weeks.
I'd also like to hint at a potential anthology paperback that I may or may not be working on right now... :D It would only contain all written works I have available right now, including possibly a few stories that have never been published before.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Rather Exciting News!

So, about half of a year ago, I enrolled every book I had out at that point in the KDP Select program, which allows your books to be borrowed for free by kindle prime members. HOWEVER this had a downside, as I was only allowed to publish those books through amazon kindle at that point. So for 90 day increments, I had books exclusively on amazon.com for Kindle (and other places for the paperbacks). Well I liked it so well that I enrolled many of my books for a second period, but have taken the automatic re-enrollment option off of all of them, so that tomorrow, which is July 26th for those without a calendar, the enrollment expires. For all of them (except one short story that I'm keeping exclusive to Amazon, but that will be in tomorrows blog post).
What does this mean to you? Well, if you've got a nook or another reader that doesn't do .mobi files or have a kindle app, you'll be able to read my books! If you're anti-amazon, you'll be thrilled (i hope) to learn that my books will be available through Barnes & Noble and also Smashwords. The prices that are on amazon right now will remain the proper prices through at least October; I'm in the middle of negotiations to take on another lovely writer for Destruction Productions and have not had time to decide whether or not my prices will go up. So I'm pushing that off until October so I have time to decide.

THE OTHER NEWS I have that's quite exciting is that "Living Will" (Sketchbooks, book 3) is coming out before the end of July. It is also the second-to-last book in the series, another large decision. I was originally planning to have it be a 7 book series, but then I re-wrote the ending in my outlines and there's just really not that much story past the end of "Living Will" anymore, so "Sins of The Mother" will be book 4, the LAST book in the series.
"Living Will" will cost $3.99 and will be available everywhere through the end of August, followed by a 90 day period in which it will be exclusive to Amazon so I can take advantage of the Kindle Select program with it.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

This is where books get written (really rather boring diary-type entry)

In hurried spurts, in frenzied sprees of 500, 600, 800 words at a time, and then nothing for weeks...
The perfect sentence, buried beneath countless word changes and the occasional weird comma overuse.
This is also where Jimmy hides, bugs bite, people are friendly and warm, and work doesn't suck, though the kitchen is hot as all get out. Seriously.
So far I absolutely adore living up here. Despite the fact that I've already got a flat tire (well, by the time anyone in this timezone reads this, it won't be a flat tire anymore hopefully) and my feet are just COVERED in mosquito and fly bites, I still thoroughly want to be up here. And I love my job. I haven't really gotten to the part where I have to interact with people that aren't my boss or coworkers (or the occasional inebriated patron who decides I'm gonna be their friend), so I haven't quite determined whether I like THAT aspect of the job... But people seem nice. I need to get over my aversion to striking up conversation with people I don't know. It's unpleasant. As is talking to people I don't know.

In other news, I'm still ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY thrilled that I quit BP. I was at the end of my rope with that place. When even the customers start to walk all over you, it's DEFFO time to get the hell out of there.

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Just a couple more days until I move out of Fridley

You have no idea how excited I am.
To give a point of reference for how excited I am, while I was still up there, I wrote more than 7 million words.
Yes, you read that correctly.
My mind would not shut off for about 2 full days straight, so I sat and I wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote. More than 9000 pages later, I had the most pointless Garak/Bashir fanfic on the face of the planet. Pointless in story, pointlessly long, just plain pointless. But I wrote it. :) The screenshot of the last page with wordcount and page statistics (It's not done, but I'm done writing it for now) can be viewed on my tumblr (skraindukat).

Monday, July 02, 2012

BIG, HUGE NEWS

Not really, as far as my books go, but big news for ME personally! I am moving. I'm moving FAR from Fridley, MN. I will be living behind the Trestle Inn in northern Minnesota, near Finland, MN. I will also be working at the Trestle.
I will finally be almost to my goal living space. It's just another 30 miles up highway 61 to Grand Marais.

Baby, looks like I made it.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that, despite my general distaste in giving release dates and such, there may or may not be a series of short stories released shortly after July 4th this year. I am going to be going on a 13 day vacation at the end of June/beginning of July, and will not have internet, but my computer will be coming with and I will be doing a LOT of writing. In NATURE. Cannot wait.
So don't get your hopes up, but there may be a few stories coming out in July. :)
Hope everyone is well!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Hey everyone!

Guess who's livestreaming right now!
ME!
http://livestream.com/thatemma

Later Today...

Monday, June 11th, I will be doing a livestream broadcast to talk about my books, my book ideas, and of course some Star Trek fanfiction.
I will answer any and all questions asked and everyone is welcome to view.
It will happen around 6:00PM Central time, and I can promise it won't start any later than 6:15PM and last roughly one hour.
http://livestream.com/thatemma
Come check it out.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Just a quick note

I am beginning pre-production work on Living Will, the third book in the Sketchbooks series.
Tentative release date is set for October 14th of this year.
Actual release date is yet to be determined.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Been a while

Just want to let everyone know that I will be resuming normally scheduled writing and editing and what have yous as soon as I'm done moving in September.
Until then, please feel free to check out these sites:
My DS9 fanfiction tumblr
My Personal Tumblr
My Fanfiction.net account

Sunday, May 13, 2012

More information about release dates and Mortality and WHY I'M NOT FINISHING IT RIGHT NOW.

So, I'm involved in this fandom. It's pretty intense. It's called I'M A TREKKIE AND I'M GEEKING THE HELL OUT RIGHT NOW. So pretty much everything is on hold for right now. I'm working on a fanfic that is epically long, and it's ALL I can get words out for right now. I've tried. I tried really hard to work on Mortality. But I think until I get this Trek business out of the way, I'm going to be useless writing my own things.
So I'm on professional hiatus until at least June 30th. I will attempt to work on things and get them release ready starting July 1st, and for now, pricing isn't going to go up, purely because it's too much work to screw with prices on Amazon.
I appreciate everyone's patience in this matter, and I hope you'll come check out the DS9 Star Trek fics I'm writing on fanfiction.net. My username over there is DS9twilightCSI and it's not changing anytime soon, so come check out things I wrote before deciding to become a real writer.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Star Trek DS9: A War We Cannot Win

Is the title of the novel-length sequel to "The Spy," my other Star Trek DS9 fic (which I'm also giving a complete overhaul so expect it to be longer and more polished). I've started writing it, but do NOT expect any release dates any time soon. Chapters will have set release dates, but it will be long after I've got at least four chapters done that even one chapter will be released.
All releases (fanfic) will be done at fanfiction.net. My username is DS9twilightCSI, as those are the only three fandoms I will ever write for again. There would have to be some new splendiforous fandom emerging for me to even consider deviating from those three. And I hardly write fanfic anymore.
But seeing as it is writing, I figure I can direct y'all over to my profile. The Spy has 20 reviews. 20. That's five times the total reviews I have on all of my books I can legally sell right now.
Think about it.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Why I've come to the pricing decision I've come to

And how it effects you, the readers.

I'm really not enjoying having to hike up my prices. And really I suppose I don't HAVE TO, nobody's actually forcing me. But I've been lurking a lot of reader forums lately and it seems as though a good amount of readers tend to snub indie authors and self pubbers who price their books <$2.99. So they won't even check out a 99 cent story. And dangit, my books are good. They're not bestsellers by any means, even if people do start buying them, but they're not crap quality.
Some might, have a few, too, many, commas, all up, in them, but I was learning, I'm still editing and updating, and it's not a huge typo flaw or massive spelling error.
But here's the good news. Once I get some reviews on my books, good or bad, I will lower the prices again. I just want there to be something a potential reader can use! Even a "book sucks don't bother" or "liked it" helps. There've been plenty of downloads of all of my books to have at least 1 or 2 reviews by now, so this shouldn't be too difficult.
But from now on, every new release will start at at least $2.99.
Coupons will be issued from time to time, and books will still be made free from time to time, but the lowest price without at least 5 reviews will be $2.99.

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Random and Disturbing Thoughts

A couple of days ago, RADT was available for free for kindle, and over 130 people downloaded it. I thank you all for your downloads, and I hope you enjoy it. I would also like to ask you to please review it after you are finished. Good or bad, I appreciate each and every review that gets posted for my work.
I also invite you to check out my second "memoir" piece, That Whole 'World Ending in 2012' Thing. Both are going to be available in paperback within the next 3 weeks.

Saturday, May 05, 2012

FREE DOLLIE! Also, That Whole 'World Ending in 2012' thing is live in the Amazon Kindle Store

For five days, starting Monday, you can go to the Amazon Kindle store and get a free copy of Dollie for your kindle or kindle reading software. The promotion ends on Saturday morning around 2 or 3 AM Central time, so you've got five days to download and enjoy Dollie for FREE!
It will be the last time Dollie will be available for free through the Amazon Kindle store, as I am pulling it from the Amazon Prime program (It's not called the Amazon Prime thing for us writers, but I don't remember what it's called on our end... OH KDP select.) at the end of its current term, which is in July. So if you were planning to borrow it for free, Prime members, please remember to do so before July.

That Whole 'World Ending in 2012' Thing is now live in Smashwords, Kindle, and Nook stores, soon to be distributed to all ebook retailers, and coming out in print as a special 2fer paperback (RADT and TWWEI2012T) sometime in June? That's my best guess. I'm working really hard to get Mortality finished and polished and I'm still working to pull Nikki's Choice together for the Fatima + Nikki's Choice dual story paperback, which I'm hoping to release in August.

Nikki's Choice, the ebook version, will be put out as soon as it's done. It will ONLY be released in paperback through the dual story paperback with Fatima and a poem by my dear friend Robert Meyer.

For Mortality, I'm doing the whole 9 yards. I'm even gonna shell out money to release an audiobook of it. AND I'm gonna try to shell out money for a real book cover. Key word in that sentence: TRY. Because I don't know if I'll have that kind of money to spend. But that's where you guys come in!

Please show your support for me, you know you love me, and buy a copy of Random and Disturbing Thoughts or That Whole 'World Ending in 2012' Thing. Also if you could review any books by me that you may have purchased or gotten in free promotions, that would mean so much to me you have no idea.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine

From a very early age I was saturated in Star Wars and Star Trek, along with many other things like Disney movies and trippy 80's fantasy movies and Rogers and Hammerstein musicals- because of my mom. She was a woman who exuded passion about a lot of things. Star Trek and Star Wars were two of those things that she was really rather passionate about in her fandom bunch. She also was passionate about painting ceramic things for a long while but that almost seemed like it fizzled after a while. Anyway, when I was very young, the first thing I can remember watching with my mom aside from The Little Mermaid. In Theaters. When I was 2. I am serious. is Star Trek Deep Space Nine. I remember it for the Bread Heads, my affectionate nickname for the Ferengi, of whom I was deeply interested in Rom and Nog. Not so much Quark because he kinda freaked me out. If I remember correctly and if wikipedia and StarTrek.com are right on their dates, Deep Space Nine ended when I was seven, and was followed by a Star Trek that I was MUCH more interested in for a long time: Star Trek Voyager. I honestly feel a little bad for geeking out so hardcore about that show for so long. Because, as I'll explain in a bit, the countless re-watchings of the show have lead me to believe it to be the ALMOST weakest series in the entire fandom. And that's saying a lot, because I was pretty interested for the first half of the first season in Enterprise, which I will always loudly proclaim to be the weakest series and the most pointless series but kind of the prettiest series because it had some dang good costumes and aliens and stuff. Anyway, it kind of became a thing for me and mom to sit together and watch Star Trek when it came in reruns for the season (she didn't want me to watch something questionable for a 7 year old, go mom!) and I don't remember a lot from those first few viewings of it, but I do remember that I thought the Doctor was a really interesting character, and now I've completely gone back on that. Yes, he's got his quirks, but they make him much more of an annoyance on par with Jar Jar Binks than make him even remotely interesting as a character. Well when I was around 11 or 12 Star Trek Voyager was being released on DVD. Or maybe it was DS9 first. I don't really remember all I know is that it was around the same time that my mom was spending probably $100 a week on Star Wars figurines because Episode 1 had just come out in theaters and there were SO many toys. So my mom bought the seasons of it, one by one, and kept asking if I was gonna sit down and watch with her. Me, being an almost teenager, was like WHATEVER, NO WAY, EW TREK YUCK. So she watched them all herself, sometimes I'd be out and I'd catch a half hour of an episode but mostly I was above that whole Trek thing. But then the other series came out on DVD and she was buying those. And she decided to rewatch both series. And the Bread Heads caught my eye, but Seven of Nine was more interesting. And so it began. I watched probably 6 episodes that time, the next rewatch I watched probably 10, and so on. The last time she rewatched the series, I saw probably 40 or 50 episodes of Voyager and closer to the entirety of Deep Space Nine. I cried when Jadzia died, cried at Sisko leaving, cried at the way they closed out the series... I laughed at Quark's schemes and Nog and Jake's ability to get in trouble. I felt for the Federation during the Dominion War and just generally geeked the fuck out. Seriously. I wrote a fanfic. I'm not kidding, you can read it right here, but don't say I didn't warn you. It's pretty... well. I was VERY proud of it when I wrote it, let's leave it at that. I really connected with Deep Space Nine and that's one of the things I'm actually really angry about right now. I'm angry that my mom died and that because she died and because Star Trek is so heavily tied to her in my mind I can't make it through the opening title to Deep Space Nine without crying much less any of the episodes. I'm pissed at that stupid anesthesiologist for not following the plan he was supposed to and just give her a spinal tap. No he had to knock her out. I lost my best friend, my mommy. I also lost Star Trek (all incarnations) and even to an extent, Star Wars. Family Guy. The Tudors.
Anyway, I just needed to blog about Star Trek today. I hope you enjoyed me geeking out, and yes, if you like the fanfic, feel free to harass me for the sequel because that's the only way it's ever gonna get done.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

I need to start using this blog more for book releases and sales and information and such

But do you think I will? I'll flake next release, just you wait and see. I've got the prologue written for Mortality, but I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. It's a lot of backstory and I'm not sure it's all necessary or not. Well, I'll figure that out in revisions I guess. There's only 78 more days *I miscounted previously* until the release of Mortality, and I need to tell y'all that I'm CRAZY excited about it. I'm working it through in my head again and again and I think I've finally got the final cut, story wise. I just need to write it down! I think I may have found an editor/beta reader, which is awesome, because I have total faith in her. :) One of my besties from like FOREVER is coming up for a visit here in a few more days and I'm SO excited. My book Paper Lanterns is going to be available for free download tomorrow on Amazon.com, so you should deffo look into that!

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

That Whole 'World Ending in 2012' Thing


https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/157887 My latest memoir thing is available for sale now!
$1.99 through smashwords.com
Soon to be available through the kindle and nook stores as well.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Before the end of the night, another memoir

I will have a memoir out before I go to bed tonight. Just thought I'd let y'all know.
It's in the same style as Random and Disturbing Thoughts, and it will be 1.99 and it will be available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Smashwords.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

In which I profess my love for Lake Superior and the north woods.

I'm quite sure I will not be on the internet as much this weekend as I normally would be. The reason is I am going up north for the weekend to attend the funeral for one of my friend's dad. The hotel we got a room at has wifi supposedly, but I've been to a few hotels up north that didn't have the wifi they claimed they had, so I'll believe it when I see it.
We're taking *my* car so I'll be able to go up into Grand Marais on Saturday. Grand Marais is my FAVORITE city EVER. E V E R.
So Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning will likely be much more internet free than usual.
I foresee many walks this weekend.
I don't know what it is about them north woods. They make me feel at home.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Gigantic Mortality News

It's so huge it just might blow your mind.
So I know I was saying I wouldn't ever be doing release dates again?
Well I lied.
I'm going to publish Mortality on July 20th of 2012. That does NOT mean it will be available for purchase that day, and it DEFFO won't be available in paperback yet on that day, but it will be published, as in submitted to KDP Amazon.
Right now we're looking at a 2.99 ebook and probably $12.99 paperback, because this one is going to be long.
Well, long for me. Relatively short for a novel. Unless I get on a really good writing jag. In which case I'll be like OMFG TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE TYPE CLACK CLACK THAT'S MY FINGERS ON THE KEYBOARD CLACK.

Monday, April 23, 2012

iTunes and Zebra Danios

I have this lovely 10 gallon fish tank on my dresser. I got it when it was on sale at Petco. It's about 2 or 3 feet long by like 1.5 to maybe 2 feet deep. I have black and white and pink stones at the bottom of it and there's some of those glow in the dark pebbles (that have NEVER worked >.<) in there as well as two plants and a pink, green and yellow rock thing. I'm so descriptive. *eyeroll* Anyway I've got 9 Zebra Danios in it. Well, four are glofish. But those are the same damn thing. (Glofish or Glowfish or whatever is the proper term [read: I'm too lazy to google right now.] are Zebra Danios that have had a paint substance injected into them (learned this AFTER getting my glowies) that makes them glow really pretty under a blacklight.
I'm considering getting some Neon Tetras for the tank, too. Because it feels kinda empty. I'm going to be getting some more plants and maybe one of those bubbly treasure chest things for it, too. Soon. I also want to get a backdrop for it, maybe the Finding Nemo themed one at Petco.
I also have a dark blue Betta named Hugo. The Danios all have names too: Koontz, Hocking, King, McCammon, Chucky, Duane, Shakespeare, Lewis and Elliot. If you can't tell, it's all author last names EXCEPT Chucky because I have a hard time pronouncing Palahniuk and therefore I went for first name.

I have upwards of 100.00GB of music on iTunes right now.
And for the most part, it'll pick its own shit and I'll be happy with whatever.
But some nights it just picks misses.
Like, all night long.
One hit, 20 misses.
Skip, skip, skip.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Someday I want to write a musical

Something powerful and silly, with a main theme song something like a cross between "The Internet is For Porn" and "Listen to Jesus Jimmy." Except not really.
But I do want to write a musical.
Then again I want to write just about anything right now. It seems the only words I can get out are these boring Oh Hi! I'm Writing To My Blog! words. Don't get me wrong, I love you reader people, but for cripes sakes anyway, I'm trying to make a living of this! And I can't even seem to get my muse to stay with me for ten damn minutes!
So I'm thinking I'm going to have to hit the books. Literally. I will go and punch copies of my books right now and demand to know why they won't give me their secrets. How did I stick it out and write you, books? I DEMAND AN ANSWER! KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!

...I almost wrote "kneel below sod."

I don't know where I'm going with this post.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

WOW

This blog is only 6 views away from 1000. That's amazing. Just a couple months ago I think I only had like 300 views on this beast.

I'm working pretty heavily on a princess doll and on Mortality. Both should be complete (well, on Mortality, a rough draft should be complete) soonish. I'm very excited to show off both to the world. Mortality is my brain baby and I am very proud of the idea and I'm very hopeful that I can write it properly and not in run on sentences like this one turned out to be.
 :)

Monday, April 16, 2012

Stanford Grayson


Just a short blog post to show some love to my favorite character name thus far: Stanford Robert Grayson.

Stanford Robert Grayson is one of three main characters in Mortality. The other two are Darrell Anderson and Danielle Camillia Grayson. There are also minor characters, such as Darrell's wife and children.

But in all honesty.
I want someone to draw Stanford Grayson for me.
Show me what you think a man named Stanford should look like.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Custom Dolls and Ponies and Stuff!

So, this past week has been epic. My friend Buri suggested that she and I start trying to customize MLP dolls, and that led to me deciding to add Barbies and Bratz to that, so now flash forward a few days and I've already made a custom doll. It was a brown/black-haired Bratz doll that had bright red lips with pink sparkles and brown eyes with ugly brown eye shadow. Now she's a juggalette. That links to my etsy listing for her. She's $25 plus shipping, which is $5 (unless you're from outside of the US, then it's $10).

We went thrift store hopping yesterday and scored a metric buttload of used Bratz and Barbies and a few Liv and Moxie Girl dolls. I think we may have even found some "my scene" Barbies, which I cannot wait to strip of their hair and laugh in their faceless faces.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Fatima Paperback--FINALLY

So, yeah. That's pretty much it. Fatima is available for purchase from lulu.com for the time being, soon to be available for order (from what I understand) at any bookstore through their computer system. That does not mean that it will be readily available at your Barnes and Noble, BUT you should be able to order it from them within the next 6-8 weeks. I'll let you know when I can search it on different websites and find it.


Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Beauty From Pain

So, I've come up with how Mortality will go as a book.
It's going to be split into three parts:

1: Stanford
2: Danielle
3: Molly

Stanford is the main character, the only one who will be a 1st person perspective in all three books of the series.
Danielle is Stanford's wife.
Molly is Stanford's best friend Darrell's wife.
When the book is out it will be MUCH clearer why all three of them will have their own parts of the story.
I will leave you today with the song Beauty From Pain by SuperChick, which is one of the songs on the OFFICIAL Mortality soundtrack. I will hopefully reveal one song from the soundtrack with every update between now and the time that the second draft goes off for editing.
Cheers!

Friday, April 06, 2012

Trying a Different Tactic

Tonight I am going to hopefully at least finish doing character profiles for Mortality. I'm trying a different tactic with this book. I'm actually outlining it. In pencil. In a notebook.
I'm hoping to be done with the outlines by no later than April 15th. Then I'm gonna sit down and hammer out the story, hopefully get it done by no later than May 15th, do a quick edit or two, and release it to y'all.
I'm really excited about this one. It's got a lot of strong religious undertones to it. Not in the preachy way. That's not why I write. I don't write to preach.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

One Wish

If I ever found a genie and it gave me a wish, I would wish to not be a procrastinator anymore. I have SO MANY things I need to finish and release. I'm not even kidding. I have a re-write of My Sister's Keeper (Was going to scrap it, but there's something about it, maybe the fact that it was my first real novel I started working on... I don't want to give up on it just yet.), Ice, Mortality, Living Will, editing on Chastity's new piece (Unlikely Couple), editing on the Retail Hell Underground-esque piece Destruction Productions has picked up, not to mention Mommy Tales, Nikki's Choice, and Diary of a Teen Vampire.

So I've come up with a plan. I've moved out to the desk in the living room, and I will work for at least 1/2 hour at a time, and I will stay up until about 5:30 AM every day until I've gotten all caught up on this stuff.
In the meantime, please be on the lookout for promo pieces I'll be doing on my youtube channel, AuthorEWestlund. There will be one up for Fatima soon, as well as Nikki's Choice, one for the Sketchbooks series, one for Teen Vampire, and a few for Chastity's first two submissions.

Love my blog? Now you can subscribe to it and have each and every entry sent straight to your kindle! I'm pretty sure it's only 99 cents/month in the kindle store with the first 14 days free.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Friday, March 23, 2012

30 days, 30 stories

I'm starting a new challenge for myself. Every 6 months I'm going to challenge myself to write 30 short stories/novelettes in 30 days. This time around, they will each be published once they're completed and sold for $1.99 in the Amazon Kindle store, with the first 5 days of each story being free promo days.
So far I've almost completed a short story entitled "The Joint," which, as the title suggests, follows the path of a joint throughout a day. It should be up tomorrow or Sunday.
Each story will get its own blog post, and I'm currently on day 2 of the challenge. 28 days to go and 29 stories? I better step it up!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Do you Pusker Du?

Yes, I realize that it's "Husker Du" and there's those little dots over at least one of those u's, but that was my cat Puss Puss' nickname. That and Kitty Carlisle, Pussers, Puskercats, The Puss, Puss Puss, Snuffy, and Silly Puss. We put her to sleep yesterday afternoon. I miss her terribly. We had her since I was 5 or 6. She was 18 years old.
I had to make that decision. It was my call that killed her. Yeah, the doctor injected the poison, but I killed her. I took her life. I feel like a murderer.

But in the shadow of her death, my friend Buri's Dad has given me a seriously good idea for a novel. A second Holocaust. This time the Muslims instead of the Jews. That is the most I will say at this time. Hoping I can pull it off. Make it believable.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Notice: Thank you for noticing this notice. Your noticing has been noted, and will be reported to the proper authorities

Really, I'm running out of blog titles.
Back, before the demise of GreatestJournal, I blogged constantly and I rarely had titles. This property does not follow through with my books, as I figure out a title FIRST, then do all the "dirty work" of writing it. It pretty much goes Title, Main Character, Supplemental Characters, Setting, Plot, Bad Guys, Genre, Content, Book Cover. Editing occurs all throughout the process, and it does get one final look over in a printed out version so I can find any weird anomalies.
Take right now for instance. I just got the idea for a story titled "Her Deepest Desire." The main character would be a girl of 16, an orphan, her name would be Naoma Liddel, and she would live with a foster family. Et cetera.
I come up with that information first, and the rest of it just flows. By the time I get to Supplemental Characters, I've already started writing the book. Sure, the first few paragraphs will change and evolve through the entire process, but most of the time the first sentence I write is what ends up being the first sentence of the book.

But I digress, as that was not the intended purpose of this blog entry.

First off, I want to show off this lovely link here: http://www.amazon.com/Emmas-Blog/dp/B007H0GCUI/  you can subscribe to this blog on your kindle. It's 99 cents per month with a 14 day trial period. Each entry would automatically be delivered to your kindle.

Also, almost all of my published works will be available for free for the FINAL TIME until after May tomorrow. Only Random and Disturbing Thoughts and Paper Lanterns will be left out, as I don't have any more free days for them.

Thursday, March 08, 2012

50!

This is the 50th blog post on this blog! Awesome stuff!

So, "Nikki's Choice" will be coming out soon, started the final re-write of it (first time on paper, I write things about 90 times in my head first) last night between Degrassi episodes. Hoping to finish writing it this weekend so it can be out within the next few weeks.

I don't know if I mentioned it on the blog or not, but I will NO LONGER BE GIVING OUT RELEASE DATES. This is, of course, unless I get picked up by a real publisher and can be assured as to when my stuff will come out in stores and such. But I've had too many people on the various forums that I post on get so mad when Amazon doesn't have the book out right away on the release date I've given, so I'm done giving out release dates unless I'm releasing a PDF through this here blog, which I probably will not do. Ever. Because it's far too much work.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Murder

My latest work of fiction, "Murder," is available for free from the Amazon Kindle store until 12:00AM Pacific time, so you should definitely go check it out!
http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Cigarette-Papers-ebook/dp/B007GZAHDM/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1331159971&sr=8-10

Also, I have a big favor to ask you guys, if you find a review of one of my books, can you link it to me in the comments of my posts please? :)

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Murder (A high school Speech team reject)

True to form, I may have been talking about "Murder" the past few days, but I never gave a real release date. Well, now I will. It'll be out within the next 12 hours, whenever Amazon sees fit.
Major props and huge shout out to my friend/former college instructor, Cara Bennett, who is actually on the cover of "Murder."
Swanky cover, innit?  :)

Murder is priced at $1.00, but will eventually go down to $0.99 when Amazon stops being a tool and lets me set the price at $0.99. It fought me tooth and nail to even let me publish it last night.

Also, huge-ish type news. You will soon be able to subscribe to this blog right from your kindle and get all my awesome updates delivered right to your kindle! KINDLEKINDLEKINDLEKINDLEKINDLE! Kindle! Kindle. Kindle?

Sorry, got stuck in a loop there.

I'm still considering changing a few things about the cover for "Murder," mostly the color scheme. But for now, I'm happy with how it looks, and it's my 7th (self)published work! Super happy about that.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Haven't posted in a long time


But that's a good thing, because it means that I've been busy.
I've written close to 40,000 words in the past three weeks, and am working on editing four different things and trying to make a bunch of cover artwork.
Random and Disturbing Thoughts, my memoir that I really only published as a joke to see how many I would sell, has two five star reviews. To put that in perspective, Martyr has 1 two-star review and Paper Dolls has 1 four-star review. Random and Disturbing Thoughts has gained two 5-star reviews in less than a month.
I'm hoping it is a sign that my work is going to start being more popular and that I'm going to earn more money so I can afford to keep on writing. I'm gonna be quick releasing a few things, some short stories, a short nonfiction piece, a novel, and a couple of DP items in the next two months because I want to make at least $1,000 for my vacation in June/July.
I can make this happen, but not without your help.
I want to say thank you to everyone who's downloaded, purchased, reviewed, or recommended any of my books, and ask that you please continue to spread the word about my books.
Also, I just noticed, my blog is up to 7 followers, which is totally awesome! I will have to start another giveaway soon, I suppose. Maybe when I reach 15 followers? I think that's a good goal to shoot for.
Speaking of giveaways, I've been having some problems getting my computer to cooperate with Createspace, so I've been unable to order the paperback copies for the winners yet. I will be sure to get those to you before the end of March.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

6 FOLLOWERS?!

I suppose that's what happens when you finally get yourself to work really hard on writing, you forget about your blog and you come back to find there's 6 followers now!  WOOT!
Anyway, I will post a longer, more useful entry later on tonight or possibly tomorrow. Thanks for following!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Anyone know a way I can block facebook at will so I can get some work done?

Seriously? Because I have 10, yes, TEN things that I need to work on, five of which are within two actions of being completed and published, yet facebook. All facebook. All the time facebook.
I joined the Kindle Prime publishing thing recently with all of my books, and convinced both Jane and Chastity to do the same, and our sales have been exploding. If this keeps up the momentum, I'll be "jobless" by mid June.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

I don't write for the money (though it is a nice perk)

I honestly don't write for the money, and I really hate it when people group all of us self-published writers together as fucking money grubbers. I'm not. Yes, money is a nice perk, but I honestly count it more as people READING my work. Not giving me money to do so. Though I do enjoy entertaining the idea that someday, somehow, I'll be able to give up my retail job and only write. I would love that. I hope to do that one day. I hope to do it soon, but it isn't an immediate necessity.