The Audience

I've written 8k words on Dragons & Debutantes, and it's starting to feel like "yeah, this will turn into a book." It's cozy, but with high emotional stakes, so it's a different experience to writing Dollshops & Deathmages. I'm loving it.

I realised after finishing Dollshops & Deathmages that I felt very blue and disappointed, and it took people telling me they liked reading it for me to be able to see that it's still the same story I was delighted with during drafting. The same thing happened with Bloodhunt Academy. When I finished it I cried to my friend Vara about it not being good enough. About not feeling like a real writer, or like the writer I used to be. She said me worrying about my writing not being good enough makes me indubitably a writer XD

Before, the happiest part of writing for me used to be finishing and looking back on the whole thing. That's how I've felt for most of my writing life, so this new pattern with me is frustrating. At least I know now that it's not the quality of my writing that's making me feel blue, but rather something I don't really understand yet.

I thought I might be able to keep using Fika for my authorial newsletter, but unfortunately they've stopped replying to support. I've not been able to get hold of anyone for support with bugs/glitches for the past couple of weeks. That's concerning enough that I'll have to move newsletter services.

After the anthology runs its course as a newsletter magnet, at the beginning of June, I'll have to send out a newsletter to new subscribers reminding them that they signed up for my newsletters via the anthology. Reminding people who I am, and how and when they signed up. And for that I need a welcome sequence. But I don't much fancy any of the options for that. MailerLite is what's most recommended by some of the indie authors I've talked to, for sequences. But I hear they've replaced their customer support with a chatbot and getting human support takes effort (and that's a recipe for stressing me out even more when I need help). I'm also leery of the fact that they reduced their free subscribers from 1000 to 500 recently.

Ideally, I'd have an email reminding subscribers about the anthology and who I am, with a picture of the cover to jog memories, and a link to download it if they haven't already. I can't do all that with PencilBooth which only lets you send a short text as a welcome message. (If only I didn't need a welcome sequence, I'd happily move to PencilBooth).

I'm not able to make a decision either way right now. I guess I'll wait until the anthology runs its course and then see how many subscribers I've gotten, and if they total less than 500 I might still try Mailerlite's free tier.

I don't know, folks. I'd have more options if AI wasn't spreading like a rash.

I began bleeding around 8.30 in the morning. I got a new icon to represent moontime, isn't it amazingly apt? :D

I recently found out that someone in my city makes OEKO-TEX certified biodegradable sanitary pads (so they've been third party tested free of a bunch of harmful chemicals). She's been doing it for 6 years and I only found out about it now, but I'm happy I found out about it at all! She's using the profits to combat period poverty in my state, and to fund research into menstrual health.

She offered to deliver the pads to me via a dropoff service, but since it's within my city I said I'd come by and pick them up. Along with the pads she gave me a feast of mangoes from the tree in her yard! She said she was going away with her family for the summer, and was taking all the mangoes down from the tree beforehand so that they wouldn't rot and fall in her absence.

It was so sweet and generous and made my month!