One Hot Mess

She said "It seems you're somewhere, far away"

2018-02-27T09:44:54Z

I feel so much more zen since I finished Stupid Biker Romance 3. I feel like this massive shadow has lifted. I stopped taking my anti-depressants while we were in Japan, mostly because I just kept forgetting, but because I felt fine, I decided to keep not taking them once we got home. I've had a couple of really black days, where I've felt really compelled to do...something. I can't quite explain it. I've never physically self-harmed, but I think I arguably look for ways to hurt myself psychologically somehow when I get that down. I've found the only way to counteract the urge is to just ride it out, so I have. It's tough, but once that day is over, I feel better again, and I don't think medication is going to help with that one way or another, so there we are.

But finishing SBR3 and submitting it really did shift something. I just feel calmer. I guess because when I'm depressed, I tend to focus all the negativity on my writing. You're not good enough. Nobody would care if you just stopped.

So finishing a book that's been hanging around since July and getting it submitted feels like a massive achievement. Like, yes, you can still do this. Don't worry. That part of you isn't going away.

I was supposed to have a preliminary counselling session today, but I cancelled it - not because I think I don't need it, I definitely do - but because the weather is fucking so hard with public transport, I can't guarantee I'll make it, and I'll be stuck in Cambridge for ages afterwards if I do. Hopefully I can get it rescheduled. I sort of thought about just cancelling completely and pulling myself off the waiting list, but the truth is all of this *waves hands vaguely at self* has been brewing since Fergus died. That's two years now of slowly getting more anxious and burnt out, going through phases where I was convinced I'd die in my sleep, panicking at the mere thought of fragrance oils, and not fucking telling anyone, and just soldiering on and coping and being apparently so extremely good at Being Fine, that my entire family, including the man I live with and sleep with, were floored when I told them I was going back on meds last autumn.

So yeah, I don't think I need anti-depressants right now, but I definitely do need counselling. I'm just glad some of the more ancillary stuff, like not being able to right, is shifting in the right direction. I'm excited about writing more Stupid Biker Romances, I have Blood Canticles 5 on the go, and I have tons of ideas for other stuff that's all really engaging me. I'm going to start the series I've been planning under The Other Pen Name. I have three different ideas for the first book in the series, and I just need to pick which one will make a better starting point. And I'm going to write a Stupid Reverse Harem Romance with vampires, because it'll be super fun and I want to. So there.

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Fuck OFF Karen

2017-11-08T14:44:28Z

1. I ask Karen to come and collect a delivery note from me and give it to someone else. She takes it, disappears, comes back half an hour later and says "this is fine" and gives me the note back.

2. She gives me an invoice for £28k and tells me to arrange payment. The invoice looks familiar to me, so I check and discover we already arranged payment in October. THIS IS HER JOB. HER JOB IS BUDGET MANAGEMENT FOR THE NEW BUILDING. SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN WE'D ARRANGED PAYMENT ALREADY BECAUSE HER JOB IS LITERALLY KEEPING TRACK OF THAT SHIT.

3. She asks me this morning if I ordered a bunch of custom lanyards a while back. I say no and direct her to the right person. Next thing I know, she's placed an order for a bunch more without clearing it with me or the boss. The boss thinks I must have okayed it, so I get rebuked for leaving her out of the process.

I CANNOT ANYMORE TODAY.

I'm really struggling with SAD, I keep randomly bursting into tears, my anxiety levels are through the roof, I can't make eye contact with anyone and I really really do not need Karen flubbing around failing to listen to me properly or absorb THE MOST BASIC ONE-LINE INSTRUCTIONS.

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Break them down, shake up their beliefs/I’ll show them, show them a believer

2017-10-24T14:05:01Z

Taking some steps towards getting Common Brimstone back up and running in a way that's manageable and still gives me plenty of time to write, sleep, associate with human beings I like, and generally have a life that doesn't revolve around filling perfume orders. I got so fucking burnt out on it last year that even thinking about making new perfumes gave me anxiety. I still want to do it, but I need a way to run the shop and create new scents without it dominating everything else.

First step is culling a load of scents. I kind of have to anyway, because one of my main UK suppliers is moving overseas because of Brexit (#thanksbrexit) and the other has been closed "for the foreseeable future" for over a year now. It's not cost-effective to order certain oils/fragrances from overseas, so unless I can find them here in the UK, those perfumes need to go. I have a list of thirty perfumes on the chopping block. Once I've evaluated what sells best and what's never sold well, I can add more.

Second step, get rid of 5ml bottles. It's way quicker and easier to just make up 10ml bottles. In my heart of hearts, I'd like to get rid of samples too, but the bulk of my business comes from people buying sample sets. Making up sample sets is so time-consuming, but I'd be shooting myself in the foot financially to get rid of them. Plus, half the fun of indie perfume-buying is samples! I'd be gutted if my favourite shops didn't offer them.

Third, raise prices. Largely just because I haven't done that for like, three years near enough. I haven't figured out the price of samples/sample sets yet, but I'm not planning to re-open this side of Tokyo anyway, so that's fine.

Fourth, no more solids. Too time-consuming to make and they don't sell as well as oils.

Fifth, reformulate older scents. My most frequent complaint from customers is that the scents don't last. I'm kinda..."well, that's indie perfume for you" to an extent, because I KNOW I'm using skin-safe levels of oils and fragrances in my perfumes, and I don't want to go over the limits. On the other hand, I can probably play around with the older scents somewhat to give them more longevity. But meh, I mean, I buy perfumes from so many different places and there's no rhyme or reason as to what lasts on me and what doesn't except the mysterious ~skin chemisty~ so I'm not sure how much I can really do. But I want to at least try.

I think those are the main things. Ditching 5ml bottles means I need to re-do allllllllllllll the photos for the shop, but again, that's a job for 2018.

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You told me this was heaven then you ascended

2017-10-13T08:49:50Z

So I was going to take the rights to Undertow back, but after some emails with the new guy in charge at Ragnarok, I figured I may as well leave things as they are. Their contract is fine, and only three years, so if at the end of that there's no improvements at Ragnarok or I've decided to jack it all in and focus solely on being a highly efficient secretary, I can get the rights back then automatically.

I figure it's better to have the book out there and available than gathering dust on my laptop where it can never be found by new readers. And New Guy seems keen to talk about other Ethan-related projects, which, despite everything, I would still love to write. So it probably won't hurt to see how things play out for a while, and at any rate me and Ethan are unlikely to be worse off for it.

I think future Dawn books are off the table. I should at least try to keep Ethan alive.

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Mopey

2017-10-08T10:15:12Z

I know I'm dwelling too much on the bad reviews for Lich Queen and all the nonsense that's happened/will continue to happen with Ethan. I know that. But I can't stop myself because I feel like it confirms what I've always feared since I started getting published. My readers don't want MY writing. They want lesbian books and it's not that I'm a good writer, I'm just writing something in a niche where there's demand. Because anything I put out under my own name that isn't queer-focused bombs.

And then I get all knotted up over the fact that I write queer books anyway when I'm straight, because it's totally disingenuous and I feel like I'm...I don't know, latching onto something that isn't mine. It feels almost manipulative.

And then I get more knotted up because that's not my intention. I love everything I write and I don't personally care whether the characters are queer or straight; I just write the books that come to me. But there's no denying that I accidentally fell into writing lesbian-orientated stuff and gaining somewhat of a name for that. It was never my plan, and however I feel about my writing, there's also no denying that it's becoming hard for me to A) have faith in my ideas and B) write some of the books I've always wanted to write...because NOBODY is going to want them.

I've thought about switching to a pen name for straight UF, but two pen names is about my limit as long as I have to also work 9-5, which I always will. I've thought about just saying "fuck it" and writing solely queer-focused stuff, but it will slowly kill me to never write some of the other non-queer stories I want to write. I've thought about saying "fuck it" and just writing whatever the fuck I want regardless, but then it slowly kills me to see the lack of reaction/bad reviews for the non-queer stuff, because it just confirms that fear that I'm actually no good at all and readers are just hungry for anything that gives them more queer characters, regardless of quality.

And then I get stuck in this rut where I feel like I can't even talk about that without sounding...something. I'm really proud that a queer audience has found my books and enjoys them and I don't want to sound like "ick, I'm ungrateful, I've been pigeon-holed," because I am grateful and I believe strongly in the importance of representation, and if I'm helping and contributing in some way, that's fucking awesome.

But at the same time, I want to write books with lesbians and books with straight folks and books with no fucking romance at all and books with characters with mental illness and books where sexuality doesn't ever come up and just all the fucking books I want.

I feel really stuck at the moment, to the point where I just don't want to write at all because it feels like whatever direction I go in, I'm going to make the wrong choice for myself. I've worked so hard all my life to be published and to be a good fucking writer and I don't want to throw it away, but there just seems to be no solution to this that works.

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