August 2023, Early Adopter Cover Reveal

I’ve got some big news for this month, and that’s the completion of my sci-fi noir novella, Early Adopter! Along with the cover, which you'll find at the bottom of this email.

Life:

Not much to say here, though my sister had her first child last week. A girl, who looks just like her mom. That makes two nieces from my siblings so far. It’ll probably be awhile before I meet the new baby, but I’m looking forward to it.

I’m starting school later this month, so I have to prepare for that. Fortunately for me, all of my classes for this semester are online. These are all my standard English and other classes, along with a medical course. Next semester or after, I have to take classes on campus. Point is, I won’t need to prepare nearly as much. I’m going to be using a vault on Obsidian for my courses.

I’ll be the first to say that my handwriting is atrocious, so I won’t be taking physical notes!

The only downside to taking courses is that it’s gonna cut in on my reading and writing time, but I’ll manage. I always do.

Books:

Originally, I was aiming for a late September release, for Early Adopter, but we'll see. Once I have an estimate from my editor, I’ll put it up on pre-order.

Editing (and writing) Early Adopter was fun. And it made me realize I miss writing sci-fi, which is one of my favorite genres across the board. I held off on writing it for the longest (along with mysteries), for the same reason I was hesitant to write horror.

I had this mental block that I wasn’t good enough to pull it off. I’ve somewhat gotten over that in regards to horror, and with sci-fi I realized I don’t have to write hard sci-fi, which I love to read, but was always a B student in science classes.

I look at writers like Philip K Dick and remind myself that he didn’t get caught up in the technicalities as much. It boils down to not overthinking things (another issue of mine). With horror, I’ve stuck with the advice to write what scares me, which is how The Threads That Weave came to fruition.

And for those who don’t know, I am terrified of spiders. Downright arachnophobia. My mom’s ex-husband offered to buy me a tarantula as a pet, as some twisted form of exposure therapy. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps! They’ve got too many legs, they move weird...I don’t know, something about them just doesn’t sit right with me.

I’ve gotten used to seeing smaller spiders around and won’t kill them, because they kill pests, but I generally don’t want spiders around me and will get my partner to relocate them for me.

To sort of address my fears, I started The Threads That Weave, a story about giant spiders inspired by Eight-Legged Freaks and Arachnophobia. It’s a dark fantasy with humor, as I don’t think I could write it as a full out horror. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night!

At the moment, I am writing a short story inspired by a dream I had two years ago. I’ve wanted to turn it into a short story for a while, but just rereading my dream creeps me the hell out. It’s the kind of story I’d love to see Jordan Peele make, just to give you an idea. It will hopefully be done by October, just in time for Halloween. More news on that later.

As far as other projects go, I’ve touched up my Ream page, have a clear end in sight for The Threads That Weave, and have some fun side stories for Last Train Home planned.