Selene Arkadia

4 more pages. First night of forced cohabitation, a few drinks and already a close call?

Good thing he's an old school Southern gentleman...

🤣 not involuntarily

Another area online personality, different area and genre (confessional non fiction), but just shows ta go ya, they're full of it with the "advice."

AI filters or interns keeping materials out of agents perusal, that's the only excuse I can figure.

8 more pages so far, and circumstances have forced our heroine and her sub...ordinate into an unexpected cohabitation...

6 more pages, 24,400, 137p and we're learning a bit about our sassy lead...

Drop into their post to see our discussion...

bsky.app/profile/juni...

Exactly. And if I wanted to do internet marketing and SEO optimization, I'd have stayed in my increasingly toxic corporate environment. I'm a creative, acknowledge the quality of my work and put it in the hands of people who do that for a living. All I need is visibility and a paycheck, thanks...

it's fine if you just want to say "hey, I wrote a book, here it is!" But it really seems like they've done their damnedest to turn an actual career into the realm of the hobbyist.

Aye, there's the rub. I've talked to several self published authors (one Kirkus Star awarded!) and all I hear are tales of woe, few to no sales (yes, even him!) and languishing in obscurity after paying multiple sources to market, work SEO, etc.

So much awfulness carrying over from that abominable Year of the Snake. Now that we're cresting the wave of the Fire Horse, anyone else feeling a major change since this morning's blood moon?

Only hoping it's for positive, liberating change. I, for one, have had quite enough of the bullshit.

5 more pages, 130p and 22,950.

Nothing like a little light sexting at work to make things awkward...

Things still going at a (for me) glacial pace. 6 pages Thursday, 3 more just now. 125 pages, 22,120.

A tentative step forward? Or is she still just running in place?

And just like that? Another 11 pages in the can. Inspiration strikes when and where it will...

So cue up your AI rejections, put your assistants to work rubber stamping yet another pass on whatever I send, whatever subgenre, subject or style.

Because I'm going to keep bombarding your asses until one of you wakes the fuck up & smells the coffee.

I'm coming, like it or not. And I don't quit.

bear all the costs and negligible profits themselves, presumably as hobbyists while working some full time drudge job like the one I left for this? Then congratulations, folks. You're doing one hell of a bang up job at it.

Unfortunately for you, I have no options remaining. And I am a survivor.

Yes, I am tired. I have never gone for such long stretches without writing, felt quite so dispirited when I manage to force myself to return to the keyboard.

If agents main goal these days is to beat down authors and prevent their work from ever being published (unless they publish, market and

soulless AI filters and corporate boardroom-driven "product" designed to capitalize on xerox copies and pointless sequelitis to prior successes, there simply is no one left with the vision to embrace the new, that which hits the important beats without surrendering to slavish copycatting formula?

around us, and here I am with a literal lifetime worth of publication just sitting on my shelf, unread and unheard outside of writing groups and those I share scenes and queries with outside that.

How can I not be tired? How can I not feel despair on some deep level, the feeling that in an age of

alike. I've garnered agent rejections numbering in the hundreds, now, with very few seeming more than standard form responses. Those that weren't were filled with effusive praise, even a full MS request...but always with that caveat, that ultimate rejection.

The world is literally burning to ash

With fellow professional authors and amateur aficionados alike, to effusive unanimous praise and high comparisons to established authors of note. I've been told in no uncertain terms my works deserve streaming adaptation, seen and heard the gut punch emotional reaction to shared scenes and queries

This past several months has been the first true dry spell since I started this journey towards publication, late summer of 2023.

In that time, I've written, edited and have ready for publication 25 novels, the 26th of which is still in production. I've done all the "right steps", vetted the work

AI specialist Shelley Palmer dropped this tidbit of not exactly unexpected confirmation:

Another 6 pages, 19,100 and 105p now.

Time to hit the gym!

9 more pages today.

We are living in a Shaw Brothers period picture, and I don't mean that in any good way.

That is all.

True, that's often how I start. But what I'm saying is when I'm low on inspiration, I keep laying down the bricks and foundation until I hit that golden well once again.

Can't ford the river? Start building a bridge. You'll be on the other side soon enough.

They usually occur to me somewhere between 25 and 100 pages, as a rule. Titles tend to take inspiration from an important bit of dialogue, nods to hoary aphorism or classic literature and/or ironic wordplay that comments on the story and events taking place therein. I have to find them as I go.

I always stop when inspiration flees me, but lately it's been a harder start, a lot more emphasis on bridging scenes (or to misquote David Lee Roth, "how do I get there from here, baby?") than diving right in to the meaty stuff. Plenty of jokes, social commentary & non sequitur keeps it lively.

Normally speaking (i.e. prior to last Fall) I'd get anywhere from 6-20 pages per session (on a particularly inspired day, I might get in 2 or even 3 sessions!)