Grab bag time

  • Punched up the Healers’ Road description for the first time in basically ever. The sale last month didn’t accomplish much, so my takeaway lesson is that something is probably wrong with my cover or blurb (description). The blurb is easier for me to fix, so I’ll start there. We’ll see! (I hope it’s not the cover; I love the current cover. It’s a kill-your-darlings situation, and I didn’t even make it.)
  • Also brushed up the Healers listing page on this site with covers and a few wording tweaks.
  • Via animefeminist.com, I enjoyed reading through several of the articles linked at This Year in Videogame Blogging: 2023.
  • In particular, while I wouldn’t go entirely as far as the author here, this article gets at a lot of my discomfort with the cozy genre in both fiction and gaming: Comfort is a weapon

It’s unfair to generalize and I know that, but I’m still haunted by the reaction of the Stardew Valley fanbase to suggestions from other fans that it would be nice if the idyllic small-town setting had more people who looked like them in it. The fanbase’s reaction was: This is supposed to be a safe, happy, idealized world. Having people like you in it ruins it.

I think about that a lot.

I was also reminded of an exchange I had about cozy fantasy. A fan of the genre said that they liked stories about running businesses because they enjoyed cooking and crafting. Puzzled, I asked why you can’t also cook and craft without selling what you make, for friends and family, say. They didn’t understand what I was talking about.

I think about that a lot, too.

I think about the townsfolk in House on the Cerulean Sea, genteelly howling to destroy anything that seems awkward or uncomfortable, because their comfort matters more than other people’s lives.

I think too much.

Anyway, thought-provoking article, is what I’m saying. And hey, all that said, I still read cozy fantasy (alongside other genres) and play cozy games (ditto). And I keep tilting toward flower-picking and cooking in noncozy games that I play, besides — I’m several hours into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and my favorite aspect is all those depots of building materials scattered around the landscape. In context, they exist mostly so the player can put together more rocket-powered killdozers, but I like their in-story purpose as a sign of rebuilding. Sure, they’re an advertisement for that goofily culty construction company up in Tarrey Town, but they’re also a reminder that the kingdom is trying to pull together after the disaster.

Don’t get me started on the Chosen One thing; that’s a rant for another day.

Numbers, year 9

“Surely,” I thought, “it’s far too early to do a year-end wrap-up.” And maybe it is, but the last one was at this time last year. So here we are.

It’s been a while, so I’ll preface this with my usual philosophy/statement of scale. Namely: I’m aware that these are tiny numbers. I’m not embarrassed; don’t be embarrassed for me. I’ve come to accept and enjoy what I do. Some people had a nice enough time reading something I wrote. That’s pretty neat. Also, it’s not my main source of income (I still have a day job, much to the annoyance of some of my coworkers), so we’re not starving over this.

I think it’s useful to say awkward things out loud. To refuse to buy into shame. So I’m transparent about the fact that not everyone out here is a millionaire, and believe that those of us who aren’t still deserve to talk about our experiences.

That said, here are some little charts.

With numbers on them

Welcome? I hope?

Tomorrow and Wednesday (Dec. 12 and 13), I’m lined up to run some ads for The Healers’ Road for the first time since 2015. It will be on sale for 99c in the US for 5 days, from the 12th-19th.

So we might get some new readers, which is cool! Or…maybe not, I don’t know! Should be a learning experience in any case!

If you’re new here, welcome. The Books pages on the menu contain all of the details about my books. I have two pen names. One for mostly-serious slice-of-life fantasy where cranky people have long conversations about things. One for goofy portal fantasy about a magical therapist.

This is a freeform blog where I tend to ramble about:
a) where I am in the writing process (often “lost”)
b) video games (I started The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild a couple of weeks ago, and have Tears of the Kingdom lined up after it)
c) other people’s books (still a die-hard LeGuin fan, sorry not sorry)
d) anime (my favorite series is Revolutionary Girl Utena; I gravitate toward girly, artsy and as close to devoid of fanboy pandering as possible).

I’m a self-published part-time person-who-lines-up-words with a desk job in the nonprofit sector. All of my education was in STEM, approximately one thousand years ago. But I like writing. A lot. And so here we are.

Welcome.

If you’re not new here, also welcome.

Can’t be productive, too surly

Here’s what I did today instead of anything useful:

  • Added a statement to the Healers page explaining that it is not categorically cozy fantasy, FFS, please stop complaining that it’s not (and I know that won’t stop anyone, but hey, I tried)
  • Editing out the “Uncategorized” tags on this blog
  • Breaking up the “Checking In” tag into its component parts – usually games nattering, anime nattering, and book nattering – and leaving “Checking In” for year-end posts and other truly uncategorizable whatsits

Why? Because the next thing on my agenda, aside from beta reading an excellent book that I’m about halfway through, is diving into Healers 4 planning. And as much as I love this world/story, I’m daunted. Almost discouraged. Let’s be honest, though, I’m going to make a solid try of it. Because I love it too much. It’s just hard to take that first step right now.

Let’s wish one another good luck and try again tomorrow.

Another one done.

Book 5 of Therapist, called The Sylvan Dragon’s Herald, is uploading/processing now. It’s the first of three spin-offs narrated by side characters from the original series; this one is narrated by Hazel, the wood witch Lavender met in her first chapter, as she helps the forest’s guardian dragon return a lair’s worth of stolen loot. It’s extremely Ghibli/cottagecore/turning-of-the-seasons/let’s-dive-into-middle-aged-feelings, in contrast to, well, everything before it. Plus some moments of levity, an adorable sidekick, and mental health as always.

I really enjoyed this one. I mean, I really enjoyed all of them in this series; that’s kind of a theme here.

Since we’re committing to Kindle Unlimited/Amazon for the time being for this series, this one will likewise be KU/Amazon only for a while. Like the first round of novellas, my goal is to compile these three side stories into an omnibus when they’re all complete.

Links as soon as the processing …process is done.

Edit: here we go: Amazon (ebook): US / UK / CA / AU

Another quick update: …Mostly

I think I’m done with the meta/etc., at least until I see how the ads go in December. [Apparently? You shouldn’t run ads in December at all. Christmas and everything. Oh well. I’m doing it anyway. We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll learn something.]

Anyway, I changed some keyword stuff behind all the scenes – winnowing out some that nobody actually searches for, brainstorming some others (like, can you believe I never had “camping” as a keyword on Healers’ Road? Camping. The thing that takes up 50% of the novel. Yeesh.)

I also caved and added subtitles to both series. Subtitles are those things like “: An InsertGenreHere Adventure” or “: An InsertSubgenreHere AlsoMaybeAUsefulBuzzword Romance.” You know, “A Fated Mates Shifter Romance” or “A Cozy LitRPG Adventure.” I have never. ever. used. them., because when I started, the only people who seemed to use them stuffed them so full of obvious SEO buzzwordage that they took on a bad reputation. Nowadays, subtitles are commonplace; they help people recognize what genre/subgenre the story is before they even get to the description. (And honestly? I understand why people did the way-too-many-buzzwords thing. They were trying. It’s rough out there.)

The subtitle I added for Healers was “A Slice of Life Fantasy Novel”. Because that’s what it is. “Cozy fantasy” is solidifying into one specific thing that this story is not, and that’s fine. I just don’t want people to expect a quirky small-business story when I’m doing something else. Slice of life covers it.

The subtitle I added for Therapist was “A Slightly Heavy Light Novel”; full credit to my spouse on that one. It’s not as helpful for catching searches, but it nails the “funny but also kind of serious” tone. Hey, I’ve got little to lose on Therapist‘s traction so far; I may as well experiment.

(Ironically, I don’t fully believe that this is a light novel, because it’s not YA. But it draws on light novel tropes and subverts a few of them, and it helps to have a passing familiarity with the genre. If the subtitle starts confusing people, I’ll think of something else.)

I also want to say that all of this meta/marketing/etc. stuff I’m doing isn’t to be cynical or mercenary or to change any of the content of what I do at all. It’s more about shoring up a skill I’ve always felt I lacked, and an area I don’t know much about. To demystify it for myself so it’s less daunting. And ultimately, once a story is written, to try to give it a fair shake at finding people who would enjoy reading it. That’s my actual goal with this part.

I wrote both of these series for me, at the end of the day. I needed a story about two very different people who get past their own flaws to become friends, and also a lot of camping and linguistics. And I needed a story about finding yourself stranded in a goofball fantasy world, mourning what you’ve lost, and rebuilding your life with the friends you’ve made along the way.

Those were for me, at different stages of my life. But I know that both of them would be fun for someone else to read, too. It’s just a matter of putting up a flag for the “someone else”s who would like them. That’s how I’m approaching “marketing.” Figuring out what the flag is for each series, and learning how to raise it.

Hey. I’ve got a bunch of offbeat, comforting, sometimes sad, usually queer, overly introspective stories with some jokes in them. Want some?

Quick update: The thing is what it’s always been

As part of trying to study up on the meta/marketing?/etc. of it all, I finally bit the bullet and changed the name of the Balance Academy to The Healers. That’s what I’ve been calling it for nearly a decade; the series veered off its original intent as an anthology almost immediately; the BA name is misleading; the end.

I apologize if this is confusing at any point, but it has been annoying me for ages, and I wanted to finally make that switch. So I did.

Announcement over.