State of the Bee

I feel like this is a very transitional time. Like everything is new. 

• New king here in the UK, which is a very odd thing to get used to
• New PM (closely followed by another new PM.)
• New owner for Twitter (I have Thoughts about Twitter, but that will be its own post eventually) who's apparently doing his best to kill it off, so that means... 
• Now new social media to try out. Find me on Mastodon.

Other things, like the pandemic, like menopause and other personal stuff going on have me feeling that it's time for a fresh start. But one old thing is new again - I'm publishing once more! Woohoo!

It's been several years since I last had a new release. Around the time my novel publisher Loose Id decided to close down, my muse also ghosted me and I kind of lost interest in the erotic romance genre. But through the pandemic I started writing again, and eventually submitting. My latest book, Woke Up Hungry came out November 5th. It's F/F sci-fi, horror Romance novella. The blurb is at the end of this post.

I've got several more projects in the works, a couple of M/M ones, another F/F one that I'm drafting right now for NaNoWriMo, because whatever else is new, NaNoWriMo always reliably comes around again. Even COVID couldn't stop it. Probably only made it more popular. NaNoWriMo was made for lockdowns! 

I'm also working on a non-Romance story that I will be submitting to agents.  I've even got a stirring about an old fanfic idea I never got around to back in the days before I went pro. If I can think of an ending for it, there's a good chance it will go on the docket for 2023 as a little fun side project.

I built a new author website. I even built a new website for my old fanfic (which took way longer!)

I feel all new to everything again. Like I know nothing. But I must know something, right? I've been a published author since 2010. Well sure, if you need to know how to get published in m/m erom in the early 2010s, I know plenty about that. But it's 2022 now. Many of the publishers from that time are gone. How much of what I know still applies? The old map doesn't work any more. And menopause certainly leaves you thinking you know nothing about anything any more. You don't even know your own body. It's like puberty again, but with more Prosecco.

But it's good. A wise man once said:

You cannot learn what you think you already know.

― Epictetus

This has become one of my favourite maxims in the past couple of years.

So as I know nothing I'm not going to offer a bunch of writing and publishing advice here. I think I used up all the advice I know about on my old Wordpress blog anyway. Though maybe I'll pull out one or two of my favourites from the archive there and give them a little revision. Like the one about Search and Replace - if only for the dick jokes...

Mostly this will be an informal blog, about what I'm up to in this transitional phase of my life and career.

But for now...

Woke Up Hungry

Margot McCallan expected to sleep peacefully through the months-long journey to a new life on a distant colony planet. But she’s rudely awakened and rescued from a hypersleep chamber full of fellow colonists who have turned into ghouls with an insane hunger for flesh.

Chief of Operations Izzy Ramirez expected the usual uneventful trip ferrying sleeping colonists and their supplies. But when a saboteur repeatedly triggers a virus that cripples the ship’s computer and wakes colonists randomly, she has to lead the rescue parties to save those lucky few who don’t wake up hungry.

Margot and Izzy should never have met, despite sharing that journey. But now they’re a team, working to end the nightmare and save the lives of thousands of people. As their feelings for each other grow stronger, they try to wait, to put romance on hold until they are no longer facing danger together. But it’s hard not to reach out for hope in the midst of horror.

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