We’re so close to the next release. All that’s pending are some maps for the print release (which is gonna be very pretty–I’ll show you when I’ve got a physical copy; I’ll preview a chapter sample PDF for patrons), and I’ll wait until November 1st to make the ebooks since I thank all patrons in good standing the month of release in the credits.

As I said on Bsky: If you’ve ever felt like your sharp edges have been filed away and you’ve been forced to contort yourself down into a shape you don’t recognize just to be more palatable, to hide what you are, and you feel an overwhelming rage about it…this book might be for you.

I don’t like to get complacent as a writer–I always say I don’t like to write the same book twice even within a series, but I also don’t want to rely on the same strengths all the time. I tend to write heavy dialogue and I like to have characters playing off one another. This book is almost none of that. It takes place over five days in the same location–the lodge and a bit in the surrounding snowy forest–with a single character for 95% of the book, interacting on occasion with a voice on the radio and with a cat.

It’ll probably be polarizing for some–I do find this, my unwillingness (or inability) to consistently write even the same tense let alone voice and genre from book to book is tough for some people. This was abundantly clear with Dweller on the Threshold, where some folks thought I’d have the same humorous voice in other books and then bounced pretty hard off Watcher of the Woods. This new one is definitely slow burn and atmospheric, and has some roots in dark fairytales so the voice takes a storyteller sort of tone, and I have no idea how it’ll be received. I do think it has some of my best writing.

If you want the ebook, the preorder is everywhere, and print will be another month yet. Kindle | Kobo | Nook | iBooks 

I’ve got a quarterly state of the union to write, I’m just waiting for a Thing to finalize so I can mention it–hopefully I’ll have some updates in a few weeks.

This is the best season for horror deals, and a reminder Kobo has some. My deals page is regularly updated.

So…everyone lost their damn minds.

Not even a full week of having it up and I ended up with a ten-thousand-dollar birthday present.

That is not a typo.

As I said on Bsky:

Me, 6 days ago: Well, $500 for the junk guys would be great. 😬

Krista: Just put a bunch of stuff on there, like what would really help.

Me, under duress: Okay, I’ll go wild and say $1000. 🤷‍♀️

My friends: lol how about $10 000.

Me, now:

There’s just enough now to basically cover the processing fees, and $100 of it was an offline donation I added. It’s staying up because, well, my birthday isn’t for another week, and who knows. But this is really incredible and unexpected. I’m committing 25% of the budget (or under) to a new high quality laptop that can handle the graphics work I do and will last for a good long while, but that did take some adjusting to and I had a panic attack originally at the thought so of course I’m watching for sales. Still continuing with the plan and little by little chipping away at some vet visits. Next weekend I’m going to do a thorough cleaning and get stuff ready to call the junk guys, then later this fall I can get a new bed finally.

This year has been so bad with a lot of things. Big expenses I have not been able to get enough saved for. Getting my feet under me has seemed impossible and often I could not see a way out (and if you’re reading this That Way–yes, that’s how bad it’s been, particularly April for two weeks but a few times since as well). So fucking five figures of gift–therefore non-taxable!–money is a lifeline, and I’m very cognizant of how it’s finite so I will be hoarding as much as possible for as long as possible.

I did agree to a few terms, however, and bought a) a Ken doll (the one whose job is beach) to go on my desk with Barbie (it was $22 on sale!), b) Babybels for Shawn (which were NOT on sale) as well as a few bougie groceries for me like avocado and mini burrata balls (okay all that was on sale), and c) preorder of the Silent Hill 2 remake DELUXE edition.

Catie Murphy has another joke goal of $12.5K and Dina wants $15K. I am good with this already, although of course I would not object to being able to buy an new iPad and Apple Pencil for work.

My favourite thing, though, was when it hit that $10 000 round number Thursday night, I immediately got messages and texts screaming “$10 000!” from multiple people who had clearly been refreshing, and tons of @s on Bsky from people screaming “WE DID IT.”

It’s the “we” part. That’s the thing. I love that so many people were so invested in this and cheering and excited to do a nice thing for me. I did nothing here but sit on my ass after being bullied into making the thing and tell everyone they’re all clearly stoned–the “we” here is you guys.

Is it disconcerting? Yes. Do I maintain I did this under duress? Absolutely. Have I mentally adjusted to this amount of money, which is like 3x more than I’ve ever had at once in my entire life? No. (I opened a separate account to put it in so it wouldn’t freak me out.)

But I’m ever so grateful not just for the cash (omg I love cash) but also everyone who chipped in whether they knew me or not and the ladies who were out there literally shaking trees and just excited to get to do something nice. This means a lot. Like has an incredible impact on just my quality of life at home and the mental weight of worry I carry all the time. If you don’t live, or haven’t lived, on poverty-level income for a long time, you might not fully appreciate this (I both hope you can understand and also would not wish this on anyone).

Anyway, I’ve been working all day and have to go back to more freelance stuff, and working tomorrow so I can get as much done by and off my plate by Wednesday as possible, so I can take a few days to clean. No rest for the wicked–even the lucky kind.

I’m at an age where I guess I am deeply boring. I get annoyed with the grocery store shelves are rearranged. I set alarm reminders to take my vitamins. And my big dream is to have enough money to hire the junk removal guys and maybe buy a new bed.

I put a moratorium on “stuff” for my birthday and said honestly I’d rather friends just contribute to the junk removal thing. Gift money that I don’t have pay a bunch of tax on. Krista suggested a little fundraiser, Dina thought that was great. It’s two weeks until my birthday and I started stressing about it–I have trouble even sending invoices to clients asking for money I’m owed, so “Hi, please give me money” for my birthday seemed extremely weird. But it’s been a struggle to try to get on my feet, there are all these big things far outside my budget, so I made some initial vet appointments and forced myself to do it. The old broken treadmill has been sitting in my hallway for over a year now and it’ll be there two more if I don’t do something.

I did this yesterday.

This is today.

No I don’t even know wtf is happening.

I’m having a lot of feelings and it’s uncomfortable.

I’ve got a spreadsheet going–the bed I wanted is down in price a bit, so I’m going to get the headboard as well and factored in tax and shipping; I started the big Vet List; I have not looked at laptops yet, but I’ll start pricing those and watch for Black Friday sales in November–and I opened a separate chequing account to move the money directly into, which is mostly to keep me from having a panic attack because I’ve never, ever had that much money in chequing in my entire life. Or savings for that matter. I consider myself wealthy when I’m sitting in low triple digits after paying my bills for the month.

My problems feel deeply unworthy of this help but it’s for the cats primarily, which helps me tremendously, because they’re what keep me up at night, and why my lows have been so low this year. Because I’ve been feeling like they’re all better off without me, that others could provide more for them, and that’s a very hard mindset to battle.

And the world is terrible, there are many worthy places to spend your pennies. This is just folks who wanted to do something for my birthday–it’s what I need, what helps me, and a way to contribute. So the GFM is staying open if you decide to throw a fiver my way for my birthday, and I will not buy magic beans with it, although a friend talked me into getting a “My job is Beach!” Ken doll (he’s on sale! for $22!) and I got a celebratory mocha frapp today when I went out to get my vitamins. I am very boring.

I’m also still flabbergasted and there might have been tears but I will deny it if you ask me.

I keep wanting to say deeply inappropriate jokes that would make people uncomfortable to deflect from feelings right now, so I better get myself offline and go back to work.

While I don’t put a year in my books, I do know where every story slots into an actual calendar.

I didn’t used to, and it was fine, but I found twelve years ago when I was first drafting Livi, I had to keep track of different timezones while Livi was travelling so I had a chart with what day of the week and time it was back home vs what day and time it was wherever she was treasure hunting so her calls back home lined up. It was less of a concern with standalones, but when it comes to series works where things like birthdays and holidays and weekdays are mentioned, I need to ensure for my own peace of mind that it works (so if Halloween is a Wednesday in one book, it’s not a Saturday a year later story-wise in another book). Solomon’s Seal takes place in 2016 (The Pulse, actually, occurred on December 21, 2012); Charon’s Gold was October 2017.

So I’ve got a stack of calendars printed out to chart the events of the Waverly Jones series, since dates come up a lot–primarily the timeline for her sister’s murder when she was a teen, and when the books started up again. Waverly’s birthday is August 24th, and if you’re lining up the calendar–The Killing Beach is set in 2024–that’s her twenty-ninth birthday.

There’s a coupon code at Payhip that is good until the 26th for a couple bucks off each book: use WAVERLYBDAY at checkout.

I’ve confirmed this week that working twelve hours a day really is my brain’s limit. I hit that point and I struggle to focus and start blanking on words, so I don’t think I can push it farther (as I’d hoped). This is in an effort to catch up and I’ve gotten a lot done, but, god, time keeps moving and I still feel like I’m drowning.

I’ve been doing around eight hours a day freelancing and then four at night on writing stuff. I’m doing a pass on Hell Fire and it definitely needs some rewrites, particularly in the front half, but I wanted to get it compiled for patrons and to also remind myself what happened for when I draft Demon Fall. Then I owe a bunch of Patreon extras although I feel like the least qualified person to come up with a writing-related post or essay right now between burnout and considering whether I’ll still be able to publish at all in a couple of years.

I also owe a bimonthly short and I’ve had zero idea what to do…right until I was writing this post and realized “oh wait, tomorrow is Waverly’s birthday in the story–I could write a couple thousand words about that”. So I’m going to try to do that right now (before and perhaps for a bit after my DnD game), and I’ll still be behind on everything but it’ll be one thing knocked off my plate.

ETA: It’s live! All patrons at any level can read “Twenty-Nine” in pdf or epub right now. Come for the yearning, stay for the vegan espresso cheesecake.

Anyway if you haven’t dived in yet, get out your murder boards and binge the first three books this weekend.

My Deals page is generally up to date with current and upcoming sales, so worth checking before buying somewhere if you want the best price. Solomon’s Seal is $2.99 at Kobo for another week, and Dweller is $3.99 at Kobo and price-matched at Amazon for the rest of the month as well.