#somethingother

Here I am sitting(working) on my sofa, with the occasional tremor from sheer excitement, squeezing in any final preparations before tomorrow, the release of my first novel, Something Other.

The last few months have been chaotic. Indie Publishing is no joke. In order to give my book any chance of success I must tick off a long list of boxes, each one requires going into completely unfamiliar territory and in many cases, learning whole new skills and concepts. I digitally drew the cover myself! I have taken on the challenge of wrestling with AI to help generate character visuals (which I'll admit, I probably wasted way too much time on this when I should have been focusing on other areas.) Formatting book text and covers has been extremely tedious. I've had to learn about ISBNs for books and SEOS for my website I built (oh yeah, building my own site), generating images, videos, and the occasional legal jargon with ai, not to mention how to use several forms of social media, which I was never THAT big a fan of. I will spare you the rest of the details, because by now i think you get the picture. Fortunately, I've had my brilliant spouse and knowledgeable Bestie on standby for the occasional advice, assistance, and moral support.

All this has been going on while I physically and mentally struggle with my full time job which is extremely demanding, and I am very passionate about. Though, as much as I absolutely love my career, I know that in the near future, (independent from the success of this book) I will have to leave it behind, because my body is gradually failing from the progression of my life long chronic illness, and i will not be able to maintain the physicality of my work despite the joy and satisfaction it brings me. It is bitter sweet knowledge given this year I was presented an award I had been vying for for years, recognizing my hard work and dedication. Also, this past year, i have been working a whole other side gig that has brought a lot of prosperity to my little family's home. So technically, with the book launch, I have been working three jobs this year! No matter the result of this book launch, I, a woman who has occasionally struggled with my own worth and self esteem, am so proud of myself! That is quite the leap from where I was ten years ago when I wrote Something Other and it's sequel Darklight.

When I started writing the novel, I was a stay at home mom, feeling isolated from the world as my everything revolved around my two little ones, and my wonderful husband. He was practically doing backflips at that time to secure our family a brighter future, both working and earning multiple degrees simultaneously. I had a vague idea for Something Other playing around in my head since I was a pervy teenage girl. Its original title was "My Incubus." By no means was it the only novel concept floating around in the haunted house, formally know as my brain. In fact I would say it was the least likely of my book concepts to find success, but perhaps that is why it was the first one I decide to pursue (because i didn't want to work on something too serious, lol). I had experienced a very traumatic incident mere days/weeks before i started to write it. It was the spark the lit the fire under my ass, to finally sit at the computer and get the book out of my head and onto the page. It was something that I needed desperately at the time. I was lingering heavily in online support groups and chatrooms, trying to process my trauma, and suddenly I knew I needed to focus all of my angst into creating something instead of wallowing in my own self pity. Unfortunately, up until that time, I had experience a wide array of traumatic life events, as well as long term traumas, though one might say i had the life experience that leads to great storytelling. Once the words began to flow from my fingertips, what was meant to be a silly, sexy, and lighthearted erotic novel quickly became this outlet for processing so many rough things that I have experienced over my life. Congrats reader, you get to read through my own personal therapy project! That's not weird, right?

I can't lie, I was kind of an idiot with the process. I had considered looking up tutorials on how to write a novel, and what sort of guideline I should follow in its creation, but after a little (very stupid) consideration, I decided that I would to fly blind while creating the book. I just wanted to write it in a way that felt completely natural to me, and in my head I felt that I didn't want to create this story to fit in any boxes that someone else created for what a book should be like. Damn the result. I think I was three quarters the way through with the project when i started to get nervous about how long the book was, and finally went and looked up suggested word counts. I almost threw up when I realized this story arc for Celest and Damien that I had designed panned out over the suggested wordcount for two oversized novels. I knew I fucked up. I also knew that there was no shaving down the story to make it into one novel. I banged my head against the wall in self loathing for a few days before I came to the conclusion I would just have to cut my first book into two books, even though the most excitement and action in their story wouldn't really pick up until the second book.

Ugh.

It took me about six months of diligently writing, often with one hand while bouncing a baby on my knee or while my toddler slept in my lap, to finish the manuscript for both books. Then came the editing...

The editing, oh, the editing. I may have a way with words, but my grammar knowledge was sooo limited, and I my spelling skills are borderline dyslexic. Thank you again to my husband, Bestie and my other alpha readers, who helped me hone down unnecessary elements to the story, and helping me see that I had created something truly special, which in its own right came with its own set of issues. Novels with this level of eroticism are not generally something to be taken seriously. Knowing that, I was aware that getting this book out there on the right platform was going to be a battle, and, unfortunately, I was right.

I felt like I was terrible at the querying process. I didn't know how to present an erotic novel with substance. Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure, and yet I still blunder on. Ultimately my query process was a failure. I couldn't get an agent to so much as read my book because its concept doesn't sit nicely in a marketable niche. Each submission left me suspended for weeks in anxiety, only to finally get a rejection that would make me feel like my heart was imploding. The querying process was terrible for my mental health and I was having an all out panic attacks every time I tried working on a new query letter, so it was often months before i could work up the courage to write a new one.

And then I went back to work... and then this happened, then that happened. Moving, changing jobs, deaths and near deaths of loved ones. One major life event would then be overtaken by the next. Eventually I got my first set of diagnosis that would explain why I had been struggling with mysterious pain and fatigue and other bizarre symptoms my whole life. Meanwhile, the book sat there on my hard drive and in the back of my mind, popping into my head daily, quietly nagging me, begging me to get it out to the world somehow.

Several times to me it had been recommended to self publish, but i said "That is the absolute last way I want to get my book out there," because it deserved the attention of people who knew how to deliver it to the world "the right way." And besides, I didn't have endless amounts of free time to devote to the process.

About a year ago, I was working for the day, partnered with a temp employee who was very conversational about what was going on in her life. She was quite the impressive woman, having just gotten her doctorate and self published her 3rd book. She seemed to genuinely compliment me throughout the day saying I had "a way about me," and telling me that my "light shines bright." We began discussing my own books that had casually came up in the conversation about publishing. She then heavily encouraged me to publish them myself if i was too anxious about pursuing further queries. She said she felt that she was put in my path to help me go in the direction I was destined to follow. I'm not certain about all that, but It was that conversation that became the final tipping point that pushed me to self publish. Thanks girl!

So, I gave myself a soft deadline to get the ball rolling. I started looking into the processes, but it was another six months before I finally got serious. Around Christmas I told myself i would publish late spring. I picked a release date that I was to stick firmly to and them casually started the ball rolling. The damn ball quickly started to roll too fast. The last three months have been a blur. I have been fueled by excessive amounts of caffeine, and medication to get through each day, mandatory naps after my fulltime job before I jump onto the computer to work on one of the many thousand things that needed to happen so I could launch this book. My husband stepped up as i have gotten sicker this year, taking on many of my personal household responsibilities, and even some of my duties with our now teenagers. Oh, how I worry that I've neglected them too much! Everyday I oscillate between self doubt and the "I can do anything I set my mind to" mindset.

I have a fear of my future, of possibly being bedridden and fully disabled, and wondering if this book is not the success I need, how will i hold up my end of our household income in these already trying economic times.