Sticky post: Starting points

StickyThe Healers' Road (Book 1), Therapist in Another World Series

Hello!

If you’re new here, here’s where to start! (The opposite of the other sticky post!)

The Healers book 1 of 3: The Healers’ Road

by S.E. Robertson

Genre/keywords: slice-of-life fantasy, shouting-distance-from-cozy fantasy but check the content warnings first please, character-driven, road trip from hell, enemies to friends

Second chances and unexpected friends

Agna Despana has studied magical healing for nearly half her life, and now she finally gets to prove herself. Ambitious, opinionated, and out of her depth, she will plan her way out of any situation. Except the presence of the dismissive doomsayer she’s been matched up with.

Keifon the Medic has nearly given up. Having lost his family, his old life, and his revolutionary ex-boyfriend, he puts himself at the gods’ mercy to give him a new purpose. Maybe helping people as a medic will suffice. If only he weren’t saddled with this pompous young heathen.

Assigned as partners, the two travel the back roads with a merchants’ caravan, providing medical aid. They each have all the answers, but it will take a long journey, some chance encounters, and a deep look inside to reach the truth.

The Healers’ Road is an enemies-to-friends low-stakes fantasy road trip with warm campfires, good books, and the power of healing yourself as well as others.

On Amazon – print and ebook, and on Kindle Unlimited where available
On Goodreads – rate and review

Content Notes / Trivia

How I Became a Therapist in Another World , novella 1 of 7

by C.A. Moss [also me]

Genre/keywords: fantasy isekai but make it tired, millennial, and gay; let’s throw all the tropes in a blender with a giant pile of feelings and see what we get; fish out of water; empathy as a superpower; humor and heart

Not the Chosen One, just doing my best 

After an unexpected accident, Cat wakes up in a new body in a world full of magic. If this is the afterlife, it’s a lot more cottagecore than she expected — even though it’s also haunted by demons that prey on people’s emotions.

Good thing this world summoned the right vintage-loving queer girl, because Cat — now Lavender — was a therapist on Earth. Wielding magic that gives others space to face their literal demons, she sets out to make a new life for herself. 

A world of new friends, territorial Earthlings, rampaging dragons, high society balls, and rollicking nights at the tavern is just down the country road. But so is the reckoning of what she’s lost…

How I Became a Therapist in Another World is a light fantasy heartwarming isekai novella with emotional moments and a wlw human/orc romance side plot. Lavender’s story continues in parts 2-4.

On Amazon – ebook and Kindle Unlimited where available
Books 1-4 are also available as an omnibus in ebook and print.
On Goodreads

Content Notes / Trivia

Sticky post: Most Recent Releases / Upcoming

StickyThe Healers' Purpose (Book 3), Therapist in Another World Series

Welcome! Here are the newest releases. (I’m trying to be concise for once. Can you tell?)

Healers / Balance Academy Series Book 3: The Healers’ Purpose

On Amazon – print and ebook; Kindle Unlimited where available
On Goodreads – rate and review

Content Notes / Trivia

Released mid-August 2022

The Salty Mageknight and the Sweet Dark Lord (How I Became a Therapist in Another World book 7)

On Amazon – ebook and Kindle Unlimited where available

Content notes / Trivia / Recap of the non-romance plot points if you are skipping this one

Released mid-April 2024

Road Map / What’s Next:

I am actively working on The Strangers’ Crossroads, which takes place in the same world as Healers but features different characters (other graduates from the Academy). On the back burner but still moving: The Ballad of the Bardbarian, which is slated to be Therapist book 8.

Healers 4 proper is not out of the question for me, as I intended to keep going with those characters. But it seems like readers consider that a finished series/trilogy, so I’m holding off for the time being.

Beta reading status: If you’re interested in beta reading any time in the future (for either series) or have a trade I might be able to help with, feel free to contact me. wheel.of.a.different.color@gmail.com or u/ofthecageandaquarium on Reddit. Let me know which series you’re up for.

When, eventually, I get to the point where I have something ready, there’s no obligation whatsoever. This is more of an “open to being asked” list.

Trades: I don’t always have time or energy to properly devote to beta reading for other people, and I’m trying to be more honest with myself about that. But when the stars align, I love to beta read. However, my genre lane is: not grimdark (though I am fine with some stress, and actually really love a mix of happiness and sadness), not super-hard science fiction. It doesn’t even have to be specfic, but let’s be honest, that’s what I know best.

So if you have one of those, especially if it’s in that zone of maybe quirky, maybe sad, maybe uplifiting specfic, I’d love to pay it forward.

Thanks!

We’re doing this: The Book Catch-up

as a reader

I’m in the middle of a book that I’m dying to talk about — no suspense here, it’s Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle — but then I thought it would be weird to ramble about that, I only really talk about books at the year-end round-up when I dump out all the graphics from Goodreads and talk about all the books I read that year at once.

And then I thought, why in the world do I do that, anyway?

So I’m going to catch up on what I’ve read this year so far, more or less (rounded down to an arbitrary point, so I can pick it back up next time). It’s been a more themed year than usual, which has been kind of wearing; I usually jump around genres more than this. But it’s also been interesting in its own way.

Here we go.

Opinions.

4 books from now, maybe we’ll be in business

anime nerd corner, The Strangers' Crossroads (Healersverse)
  • In the new project, we’ve reached the “Protagonist Realizes She’s Kind of a Jerk, Decides to Try to Be Nicer Despite Not Knowing How” point around 48,000 words. Healers 1 reaches that point at around 60k. This might seem like progress, but the fact that this book has this sort of moment in the first place continues the frustrating realization that I Cannot Be Normal.
  • We’re fully in the summer 2024 anime season. Kind of a thin one in this house, so it’s half backlog.
    • Suicide Squad Isekai. Still pales in comparison to Harley Quinn, and I don’t care one bit about the otherworld, but it’s fine so far.
    • Senpai is an Otokonoko. Kiddo, you are in love with your childhood friend, and the longer this series drags that out, the shorter my patience is going to get. But it’s cute.
    • Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines! Like the meme says: I love mess. I truly do. Only one episode in, and I wonder if this will end up being my favorite this season.
    • Spice and Wolf continues. Coincidentally, I started listening to the audiobook recently, as a toe-dip into audiobooks overall. It’s fine, enjoying it quite a bit, but this makes three iterations of an identical story in a row for me (since we watched the first anime adaptation just before the reboot started). Had to stop for now.
    • Backlist: Tearmoon Empire. It’s on the verge of losing my interest about halfway through. It’s not bad, it just isn’t grabbing me.
    • Backlist: Natsume’s Book of Friends continues. It fell out of our “last show of the evening” slot when it started getting more intense, so it’s been slower going lately.
    • Backlist: Komi Can’t Communicate. OK, so the first episode of this show had me in tears, and predictably, I am here for Golden Retriever Nonbinary Goofball. But out of the other side characters, one is a complete void, one is grating, and one is so odious that I consider noping out every time she appears. (Oh goody, two of my absolute least favorite tropes, the Predatory Lesbian and the Yandere. Great. Hilarious.) And I have mixed feelings about Komi herself and how she functions more as a projection screen for the other characters than a person in her own right, which is so frustrating. I wonder if some of her interiority is lost because Netflix is doing a terrible job translating all the onscreen text. It seemed like she was, you know, a person at first, but now she’s more of a moe object that gets dragged around and fawned over.
    • Since my last delve into All of This Stuff, we started and finished Tomo-chan is a Girl!, which was delightful. The premise-joke wore thin sometimes, but beyond that was a cast of sweet dumbasses and secret schemers. Good times.

Anyway. I was reminded in a writing discussion recently that admitting you’re a weeb will drive people away from your fiction, something something cringe something something. Thanks, I’ll put it on the list of advice I’m ignoring.

Anatomy of a quiet fall

Sales, The Process

The CTDA sale continues for another few hours, and I will have my price stick for another few days, as I originally noted. I want to thank the organizers and volunteers who put the sale together; they’ve been unflaggingly kind and patient with this noob and their questions. And I heartily endorse the sale as a reader. I got a ridiculous haul of books the first time, and a few more this time around (going light because I haven’t finished the first batch yet).

It has been a humbling experience, trying to reach the level of the other, more successful authors in the sale. I will point out that they have allowed me to participate, which they did not have to do, and for that I’m grateful. But after today, I don’t think I’ll try again. It did not work out. I don’t think this has anything to do with the sale; the other authors did much, much better. The more charitable reading of the situation is that I’m just not a good fit for this audience.

I’m saying all of this in the spirit of transparency, I think, and also to explain why I’ll probably promote the sale as a reader going forward, but not submit my books for it. It’s not a judgement of the sale itself. I continue to recommend it if you write in that genre. It looks like it will continue to be tweaked and improved, and they’re hoping for huge turnouts for fall. I wish them all the best.

This does give me serious pause about continuing the Therapist series. This was its big chance to find an audience, and it did not do so. So I don’t think there is one out there for it. I love it dearly and have had a wonderful time writing it, and after all this time, who knows — maybe the Healers audience has evaporated as well. Maybe the takeaway is to let go of the hope of finding an audience at all, and keep sailing messages in bottles out into the void, the way I started. There are worse ways to spend your time.

I certainly won’t stop writing entirely, because it’s too much a part of me. But how much energy I spend in trying to get it out to people is something worth examining. I had been fired up about learning about newsletters, learning about advertising, learning about ways to give my work the best chance it can have. But this experience brings up another possibility. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

People push back against negativity, and that’s understandable. I think it’s easy to misinterpret why I dive into it: to pull apart a bad situation and see what I can learn from it. To figure out the takeaway for next time, rather than running away.

There’s a lot to pull apart, and some of it is private: what writing means to me, what it’s done to take something so close to my core identity (considering that I’ve been doing it consistently since I was ten) and hold it up for external validation. But I’ll also consider that I might be wasting my time trying to keep up with my betters. That just because I’ve been writing for a long time doesn’t make me any good at it. To have some humility.

Three months ago, when the last sale was going on, I was standing in line at the closing weekend of a beloved local ice cream shop, watching numbers tick up. I was still waiting for a chance to get the medical stuff resolved. I’d only published my last novella a couple of weeks prior, and didn’t know yet that it would slowly amass a small audience of people who hadn’t read the rest of the series (thank y’all <3).

Who knows where I’ll be three months from now, but I hope to come back as a reader. Having finished my backlog (lolsob) and ready to cheerlead. There’s always something that can be learned.

Hooray, I’m in the 19th century

The Process

We’ve almost reached antibiotics! — Anyway, today’s milestone is that I set up an Amazon ad for Healers book 1. It’s a very limited one and only on the US storefront, but I’m still learning the setup system. I have never done a cost-per-click ad or any advertising on Amazon. I’ve never had anything against advertising, it’s just that I know very little about it and didn’t have the energy to learn about it.

Honestly, the “why now” of it all is that a program I’m already using to research keywords (the kind in the store metadata, which help people find the book) added a more robust system for helping you figure out what ad keywords might work for your book, too. Because I certainly didn’t know where to start. We’ll see how it goes.

I had planned on not promoting Healers at all until it has a new cover, but then I thought I could fiddle around and learn more about the process/system in the meantime. I don’t expect the world, but my spending is low enough that it couldn’t hurt.

All of this is not very interesting, but in the back of my mind I’m also thinking about a podcast episode I listened to today — mostly about AI art and how it has swamped social media, but also about reminding people that creativity can be messy and take time, and that we (waving vaguely) are humans. And YES.

I respect authors who can turn around a book every month (or more often); I worry for them a little bit, but they are adults and can tend to their own work/life balance. I do know that it literally could not be me. I do want to write more than one book every six years, that was deeply frustrating. But it’s not going to be one per month. It’s just not, and I won’t apologize for it anymore. That’s fine if that’s what you do, but that’s not what I’m capable of doing.

Anyway, this is me, back on my anti-grind culture bullshit. <3 Good night, humans. Off to write about my new set of cranky protagonists for a little bit.

This is all sounding oddly familiar

anime nerd corner, games nerd corner, The Strangers' Crossroads (Healersverse)

Full of energy now that the Health Stuff is resolved, and trying to use at least some of it to continue some projects.

  • Ballad of the Bardbarian is sitting aside for now, but it’s always there as an alternative day to day. It’ll get done.
  • About Strangers’ Crossroads. I’m not a great outliner, which is why Healers 1 and 2 took a hundred lifetimes each to finish. So as an experiment, I started outlining Strangers to see if outlining could smooth the whole process. The outline is now 31 pages / 16,000 words all on its own, and unless I decide to break this into multiple books, it isn’t done yet. “Outline” is possibly not the right word; it’s a summary of each chapter including the “what happens” and “what does the POV character think about it” elements in a kind of stream of consciousness ramble. But it lets me get the basics down, and know what’s coming next. I hope.
  • It’s increasingly clear, though, that Strangers has the same starting point as Healers (depressed and withdrawn boy, smart and angry girl, they hate one another). Everything else about the story is different — setting (albeit within that same world), backstory, personalities, goals — so I’m hoping the commonality is an advantage and not a drawback. (Okay, and the MMC is a member of the same God of Justice and Order church Keifon is, but I swear I’m not copying myself argh)
  • Games corner: Enjoying Palia but not playing at the moment, because my brain has been eaten by Graveyard Keeper. Take the “one more day” gameplay loop of Stardew Valley and combine it with a pitch-dark sense of humor, and you have Graveyard Keeper. I’m kind of glad I didn’t pick this one up until after I got back to my everyday routine, because it’s a time vortex, and one that’s more hectic than the extremely chill Palia.
  • It’s between anime seasons, more or less, and we haven’t shaken out the full summer lineup for this household yet. We’ve started Suicide Squad Isekai because this is a DC-television-series-respecting house. Spice and Wolf is continuing; I’m ride or die with that series. Will probably try Senpai is an Otokonoko unless it screws up its premise; we’ll probably try that deer series out of sheer WTFery; I might try Dungeon People on my already-canceled Hidive subscription. That’s probably enough, but I’m open to being surprised. In the backlog, I’ve barely started Tearmoon Empire and have enjoyed it so far (boy, that opening theme!).
  • (edit: I don’t know what Nokotan (the deer show) is doing, after the first episode. I think it’s that “anti-humor” thing where you’re supposed to laugh at the fact that it isn’t even trying to be funny? Because the heyday of “lolrandom” humor was 10+ years ago, and that’s the only other guess I have. Anyway, this is not for me(tm).) [Edit II: From reviews, it seems like this is either a case of cultural humor not coming across, or a questionable translation. Either way, not for me.]

And I think I’ve mentioned it before in the main posts as well as the sticky post, but Therapist book 1 will be on sale about a week from now as part of the July 12 Cozy the Day Away sale (the sale is on July 12, but I will have mine up for a bit before and after).

They now have a page specifically for the sale: Cozy Fantasy Sale (promisepress.org) (cozyfantasysale.promisepress.org). The list will be revealed on July 12, but I can say that I got a ton of books last time and have been enjoying reading them ever since. Lots were free or 99c, too.

That’s it for now; gotta actually write something about Sadboy and More Feral than Agna But Not Entirely Different Girl. <3

Enforced chill, week 3 of 3

anime nerd corner, Checking In, games nerd corner

Almost to the end of Recuperation Times. Apart from a little cabin fever, it went quite well.

  • Assembled 3 small to medium Lego sets; I still have 3 Animal Crossing ones un-assembled
  • Did a jigsaw puzzle early on, which is a prime Calm Down my Frazzled Brain activity
  • Some crafting for Christmas presents, ahead of time for once
  • Watched 3 one-season (so far) anime series, mostly while walking on the treadmill: Villainess Level 99, Fairy Ranmaru, and Chainsaw Man. The latter I binged over two days, which is not something I normally do.
  • Writing: The rough/first draft of Therapist 8 (Ballad of the Bardbarian) is done, though it’s one of those drafts that feels like it’s going to need a lot of added chapters to feel complete. It’s currently sitting aside while my alpha reader reads it. Also working on the Non-Agna-and-Keifon-Healers-world project, The Strangers’ Crossroads, which I think is unstuck now, and has a fighting chance of existing before Healers 4 does.
  • Gaming: Played all of A Little to the Left, most(?) of Strange Horticulture (though the dour music and atmosphere is getting to me), and a metric ton of Palia. I started Palia a month or so ago knowing that I would have a lot of downtime this month, and it worked. There is some jank, especially on the Switch, but it has been an effective diversion. I’ve gone as far as connecting a keyboard to my Switch, but not as far as buying a fancy outfit yet. I probably will eventually, just to throw a little money at the devs for all the time I’ve spent on this game.

Back to work on Monday, and back to a new, hopefully more energetic normal. Feeling pretty good.

Update (good)

Checking In

Somewhat TMI, fair warning. Bodies are weird, and if you don’t listen to them and ignore early symptoms, sometimes they go full body-horror WTF on you.

Back at home and doing pretty well. Turns out general anaesthesia hits my brain like a truck, because it took me longer to come out of it than the surgery itself took. So that’s the lesson of the day.

[CW: Links are both to reproductive health articles] The procedure went well, and extracted the body part that was going rogue; it was even more rogue than we expected. But that’s resolved, and I’m very glad to be rid of it. And the near-absence of pain is almost eerie. I was in a little bit of pain most of the time, punctuated by much worse symptoms that came and went. It’s wild that eventually, once everything heals up, it might not hurt at all.

Now I just have to take time to heal and not pick up anything heavy for several weeks. Sounds like a plan.

What’s self-control?

The Healers' Home (Book 2), The Healers' Purpose (Book 3), The Healers' Road (Book 1)

As a gift to myself, a long-overdue update, and a general “stop waffling and jump into the deep end already” move, I’m commissioning custom art for new covers for the Healers series. I probably should wait till they’re complete and do a big unveiling, but I’m excited, so I’m going to say it now. eeeee!

So if you’re midway through the series and want them to match, I hope to have the new edition ready within a couple of months. Just FYI.

Besides that, my Big(ish) Medical Thing date is Tuesday 6/4, so I will probably drop off the radar for a few weeks after that. It shouldn’t be a difficult recuperation (fingers crossed), but I am going to make a conscious effort to limit my internet use while I’m recuperating. It’s a bad time to doomscroll. I intend to keep writing, mental clarity permitting, and work my way through my TBR pile. And, let’s be honest, build Lego sets, watch some anime series, and take naps.

Goals:

  • read all/as many as possible of the books I bought from Cozy the Day Away before the next sale
  • finish the first draft of the current project (Therapist 8, a.k.a. The Ballad of the Bardbarian) by the end of June

Bardbarian is turning into a short-for-fantasy novel (75k?) rather than a novella, but it’s progressing.

Wish me luck and happy Pride Month (in some regions), everyone.

Sale time

Sales, Therapist in Another World Series

Therapist book 1 is now 99c in the US / equivalent “about half off” everywhere else it’s available. I figure I’ll continue it through the week, so till May 31.

That’s it for now!

EDIT, May 29: Added a little page recapping the plot points of Therapist book 7 for anyone who has been following the series, but wants to skip this one. I stand by that book, but I also recognize that I’m not very good at “sticking to the assignment” and changed lanes. Not many people read both f/f and m/m (and m/f and nb/anyone and nobody/nobody, hi, it’s me, I read everything), and I went and included both in the same series like a not-very-smart person. So with that in mind, I wanted to create a little “here’s what else happened” list.

EDIT, May 31: Sale’s over; thanks to anyone who took a chance on Book 1! It is slated to go back on sale as part of the July 12 Cozy the Day Away promotion. More details once we get closer.

Productive procrastination, Monday edition

Sales
  • Therapist book 1 goes on sale for 99c this weekend (May 25-28 or so).
  • I just NOW, today, TODAY, found out that “Featherington” (the last name of a side character in Therapist) is a surname from Bridgerton. Which I’ve never watched nor read. I got it from a random name generator. So, oops. It’s not a reference.
  • After having Amazon profiles for about a million years, I finally “finished” them and set up some profile pictures. Pretty basic ones, but hey, it’s a start.
S.E. Robertson icon
C.A. Moss icon

Back to actual writing, including a chapter from Burleigh “my narration is alarmingly easy to write, this is probably a bad sign” Featherington. Wish me luck.