Trick or treat! 🎃🍬🧻👻

This is it! The week of Halloween! I don’t know what you’ve been doing (possibly focusing on small wee issues in other aspects of life, not that there is anything news-worthy happening these days…) but as you can see from my previous September and October newsletters, this holiday has taken over my life for two months.

That’s OK. I chose this life when my subconscious presented me with a dream that would become the first words I wrote in Blood Ex Libris, and I chose it again when I pushed myself to write the whole book, no matter how hard it was (it was not the first novel I started writing, but it was the first novel I finished), and I chose it every day, because it would be vastly easier to get a normal day job that pays the bills, not trying to make it as an indie author in this cold and uncaring world.

Since I chose it every day—“Every day is Halloween”—here I am at the rewarding end of an intense and exhausting … well, let’s call it a “crucible,” in honor of the play about the Salem Witch Trials, and thus stay on theme 😉

I have a lot to get to in this newsletter, so let’s dive into the open top of the jack-o-lantern, shall we?

First Off Is Poll Results & This Year’s Halloween Costume Pictures!

The results of the “What book would you like to go on sale for Halloween?” poll was hands-down That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story 🏴‍☠️🎉

So Archie and I both dressed in pirate garb, to celebrate That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story. (He and I are both more pansexual than “lesbian,” but we hopefully got the “vampire pirate” part down 😁)

On the ultimate nerdy level, these images were shot at an SCA event, which provided a lovely wooden building that was reasonably a pirate ship. Of course, this did also mean that the attendees of the event were affectionately teasing me about being a pirate the rest of the day 😂 Here, for your enjoyment, are the results…

As you see, I saved the best for last, as Archie is really stepping up his role as “author’s dog” by now being the most compelling part of the marketing 😁 And as per your request, That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story (in ebook) is dropped to ONLY 99c until midnight on October 31^st! I’m not planning to do this sale ever again, so if you do not already have your ebook copy, avast ye and grab yer plunder!

(If you want a paperback copy and think it’s unfair that only the ebook is on sale, email me and tell me you demand a sale on the paperback in the grand piratical tradition. I will send along a coupon code, because one must respect the Pirate Code!)

 Last Sunday was Pandemonium’s Spooky Geek Faire…

and let’s just say it reaffirmed that Pandemonium Books & Games is one of the best places in the world to vend. I love the staff at Pandy, and I love the people who frequent the store. “Freaks, Nerds, and Weirdos” was an MTV program back in the ‘90s, and it’s the people who I feel most comfortable around (being all three of those things, myself) and it pretty well describes the fabulous people who come through Pandy’s doors. So I knew that the people walking past the my table would enjoy all the elements of my books: the dark fantasy/horror genre to start, and then the working in of historical characters with nerdy Easter Eggs, my method of creating the am’r using both myth and science, the fantasy language I created for the series, and of course, Noosh being a librarian and loving books so much! (Also the queerness—there is much intersection of the queer communities and the geeky communities 🩷❤️🧡💛💛💚🩵💙💜🤎🖤)

My bestie came out to sit with me (and sell my books better than I can) and while I had intended to take a bunch of pictures, we ended up with only this selfie—but what more did we need?

The Art of Writing Vampires, with Paulette Kennedy

Last week I had a treat I’d been waiting for all spooky season, to discuss the art and science of writing vampires. If you missed it, click below for the whole discussion, in which I explain my “Build-A-Vampire Workshop” theory and bring up an old Romanian myth where vampires had tails…

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What’s next?

First and most important, the rest of the newsletters for this year will go back to having regular updates of my progress in the next novel. Yay yay yay! You don’t know how frustrating it’s been not to be working on that 🫤

But besides that, there are about to be two Very Big Announcements that I think will have you all very excited. I’ve been working on some stuff behind the scenes and not able to mention it (which is also frustrating 😂 ) so keep watching this space for more‼️

For those of you who have read this far, have an amazing Hallowe’en and please send me pictures of you in costume or your decorations! 🎃 Until two weeks from now, be good or be good at it!😘

💭 I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

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