Welcome to fall and Libra season! It’s only the best time of year for those who love spooky seasons, torrential weather, annnnd darkness! I am a moonchild and love nocturnal life. I have said this before, but it requires repeating, I love dusk. I love sunsets and crackling fires. I feel at home beneath the stars and a full hunter’s moon. Mother Luna is my bestie!
So, it comes as no surprise that I hate long days. This time of year is for US!
I made it, I’m here y’all! Six days late but here we are. I’m still getting the hang of this blog thing. Anyway! August was DARK! I read a ton of horror that involved darker themes such as murder, death, and trauma. An honorable mention is Briardark, but it didn’t quite make it on the list. Now, before I crown my number one pick let me tell you to read all content warnings. If you’d love to read Library At Mount Char but have triggers i will give you a heads-up. Intense acts of violence, violence against kids, murder, gore, blood, death, assault, SA (caught me off guard)
i don’t have triggers and don’t read them, so I just grimaced and turned the page. LAMC is a horror book. I know some will say it’s dark sci-fi fantasy but there are horrific moments )in my opinion) that catapult this into the horror genre. It’s by no means extreme horror but it toed the boundary.
Midnight Rooms is another you must understand from the beginning, it is gothic horror darning on the jagged rim of Dark Romance. Which remember, is seldom healthy. If you don’t read said sub-genre great, move along. The other two are light romance reads I thoroughly enjoyed. No complaints. There might be one or two acts of violence in each book but nothing heavy.
I adored these books for my emotional response. Each novel pulled a visceral reaction from me and that’s what I call good storytelling. It’s my type of glorious word weaving. I will say the ending in LAMC left a sour taste on my tongue, and maybe that’s what the author wanted, I have no idea. I wanted blood-stained justice and didn’t get it. BUT! My expectations are a me problem, not an author problem.
With the talking bits done, I wanna give that five outta five, number one spot to Midnight Rooms. I have to! I was smelling mold and drinking down honey thick tea. it was a terrific dive into a surreal fantasy world with many secrets and some were left shrouded in mystery. Whatever this author writes i will buy!
Here’s to a beautiful new month and Bi romance month! I love y’all! I am coming into my season and feeling better! I have said it a few times already, but I’m gonna let y’all know, summer makes me sad. I get in my feelings and I feel like shit from May to July. I’m just noooot, at my best. I’m unhappy and sappy. My vibes are at their lowest during those insufferable summer months. Granted, we are still in the summer swing, but the hot hoe is reaching its end. I can feel it in the air!.
Most hate fall and winter, but not eyyyye. We prefer them colder months over here. The sun and I have a contentious connection. I do not like her, and she don’t like me. I love the nocturnal and gloomy with my entire heart. I thrive during frigid winter nights. Dreary and dark is where I draw inspiration and vitality. I prefer dusk over dawn and rain to sunshine. It is who i am, and with summer approaching its inevitable end, I can breathe with ease.
My goal for this month is to be. Just, be. Be gentle with myself. Be at peace. Be calm. Be the positivity I wish to attract. Also, I just wanna write. I want to write what I WANT AND NOT CARE! I do that already, but when you’re a SM junkie, all the advice and takes can dampen ones creativity and mood. There are A LOT of opinions out there about the art of writing, but I don’t give a shit. I just don’t care.
AUTHORS & WRITERS CAN’T CARE! AND WE SHOULDN’T.
iyI’ve been doing this too long, I know better! Yes, I am a reader as well i know how we can get about our opinions, but as an author and a writer, that spce is not for me to dwell. Reader opinions are just that, and I can’t take any of it to heart. It will only hinder my ability to create. I have decided to block those posts and tweets, because they can be harmful. This is not me saying they shouldn’t post them, I don’t care, post whatever you want. That’s what the mute button is for. Some of y’all need to learn about it too. Anyway. I’m rambling but, you get it. I’m a mess. It’s Inevitable. I’m gonna veer. I’m a habitual veer=er! With all of that, I say have a nice day, drink water, and don’t be KHHNT!
“My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” – Malcolm X
Five months ago, I set out to write a shorter novel and have done it! Brevity, as I’ve stated before, is my weakness. I am a long writer who enjoys 100k+ word counts. I am not apologizing for that. I still prefer them, but I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to put my ass through it. I needed this exercise. It was a great lesson. Now, my shortest book is 43k not, 91k. I went in with a 15k goal. Clearly, I was off by a couple thousand. Lol. But, I still set out to accomplish this thing. This goal I made for reasons other than to prove to myself I could do it. For those like me, writing short stories is unfamiliar and hard. Cutting details and world-building down to a chapter or two is not fun.
My typical genre is paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Those books are known to be longer but in the world of indie, standards such as word counts do not exist. We can write a 30k hard fantasy if we want. We can write a 20k hard sci-fi epic if we so please. My point is, the industry standard is no longer my goal post, however, I will STILL prefer longer novels for paranormal romance but that doesn’t mean I won’t write shorter ones. It’s difficult, not impossible,
If you’ve set a personal goal, and it seems unreachable, REACH FOR IT! You can do this thing! I doubted myself for a long time. Said I could never write a shorter novel, it was too hard. Well, I did it and I pushed through until typing ‘The End’. Believe in yourself and whatever it is you want to achieve, I promise it’s worth the work.
“From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.” ~ Toni Morrison
I don’t care what y’all say. We belong in every trope and genre. We should have space in the fictional world. I hate how folks tend to erase our existence. I started reading a certain paranormal series and all the FMCs HAD to be fit and thin to become a mate. This turned me off. Because women come in ALLL shapes and sizes. And they should be represented. As an author, I understand, we are free to write what we want.
I know that.
And as readers, we are free to read (or not) whatever we want.
My issue here is not with the author, it’s with how thin and fat bodies are portrayed. Good vs Evil. It’s absolutely INFURIATING. Please, give me a good reason why. Beyond what others perceive as beautiful and what society has told you is an acceptable physique, why must a character be thin? Why?
This is why we write and are so vocal about body-positive representation. They want us to sit in a corner and be friends who never get the guy/girl/them. They’d rather we stay the funny fat friend and nothing more. I love how self-publishing has given us the freedom to be loud and happy.
Trad pubs hate footing the bill for us. Nowadays, since the movement is over and done (money-wise). They’re back to sneering at fat main characters. Well, I say fuck them and anyone else who thinks we don’t belong in certain genres.
FAT FMCs ARE ALLOWED TO EXIST IN A MIDDLE EARTH-DYSTOPIAN-WESTERN-RGENECY ROMANCE-SEASIDE-SCIFI ALIEN-HORROR BOOKS DAMN IT!
Puritan culture is going to kill the arts. Sterility is what they seek and I loathe it. To say this generation is more sexual than the last is not only ignorant but false. To speak on sex in novels without having any knowledge of old works of fiction is absurd. I can understand if you’ve read every book on planet earth and have facts to back your claims. Then I’d say good day, sir, ma’am, ENBY you have stunned and stumped me.
But nah! Hell nah.
Most who recite these points on intimacy in literature and film haven’t read enough. They haven’t researched enough or cared to. They have a ‘me’ mentality about it. ‘I don’t like this so I don’t think it’s called for’. SAD! Please, go sit down and open a book which has what you crave within those pages.
There are too many novels and movies out there w/out sex for them to complain and gripe. If you wanna nitpick about the resurgence of sexuality, genitalia and nudity then fine! Has if ever occurred to them, some may be squeezing in these sex scenes out of spite?!
I have written my fair share of sex scenes because of this. I have made certain in my recent works to make those characters fuck! I can’t take a world filled with this evangelical approach to all things linked to passion and carnality.
Sex will sell! Nothing you can do will stop it. Even if these bible thumping Neanderthals ban erotica and ‘displays of intercourse’ it won’t put an end to this.
Sex and art have ALWAYS been and will always BE one!
J. T. Frost 