Alessa Winters/Lyn I

A LOTR meme

My entire marketing strategy.

Swiss Arabian Casablanca with a cat in the background

Today’s perfume: Swiss Arabian Casablanca. It’s a candy sweet caramel apple, crisp and powerful. It’s a big crowd pleaser, especially if you interact with kids at all. It’s not terribly complex or deep, but not all perfumes need to be.

Perfume Paco Rabanne olympea

Today’s perfume: Paco Rabanne Olympea. A beautifully sweet amber caramel vanilla. Slightly salty, with undertones of a wafflecone filled with rich ice cream on a summer day on the pier. One of my favorites.

The perfume bottle and a cat

Today’s perfume: Madonna Truth or Dare. A gigantic lush sweet tuberose, like a way more expensive perfume. It’s an attention getter and announces itself upon entry.

The perfume bottle with a cat in the background.

Today’s perfume: Tocca Cleopatra. This is my second bottle of it, I wore this near daily when I lived in LA. It’s a beautiful musky grapefruit that smells like a fancy brunch on a warm day.

A cat sniffing a green perfume bottle

Today’s perfume: Phlur mood ring. It’s supposed to smell like sour candy. It does.

The perfume angels share by Kilian

Today’s perfume: angels share by kilian. A glorious apple brandy rum with cinnamon and spices. Smells like a warm apple cocktail on a cold day.

Hell yeah!

Kayali invite only in front of a cat

Today’s perfume: Kayali invite only. It’s…it’s amber. It smells like amber. Sure there’s some cinnamon and vanilla and tobacco leaf in there, but it smells like amber.

The perfume layali rouge

Today’s perfume: layali Rouge. It was tiktok famous for a hot second as “smelling like a gorgeous goddess being fed fruit with her t*tties out” and…yeah. It’s a beautiful fruity oil that smells regal and indulgent in a way western perfumes rarely are.

Picture: Burberry women perfume

Today’s perfume: Burberry Women. A somber, businessy fruity floral, fitting for the first day back in the office after way too long because of storms.

The perfume tom ford velvet orchid photographed in front of a snowy window

Today’s perfume: Tom Ford velvet orchid. A big powerhouse floral and hazelnut perfume, one of the first major perfumes I purchased for myself. Only suitable for cold weather!

I am desperately in need of another romance/urban fantasy book series to hyper focus on.

Last year I read all Mercy Thompson (and the spinoff Alpha and Omega), reread all of Kate Daniels (and spinoffs), and reread the forbidden legacy books.

I need something like those books if possible. Any recs?

A picture of Chanel chance perfume

Today’s perfume, Chanel’s Chance Eau Tendre. A lovely youthful grapefruit floral that still feels like it’s a Chanel perfume.

“Dark” as a descriptor of your genre (like Dark Romance, Dark Science Fiction, etc) does not just mean “people are in peril and bad things happen.”

The perfume bottle with a cat in the background. There are icicles on the window.

Today’s perfume: Lancôme idole intense. A weird chypre-esque woody rose. It’s a big performer and I don’t wear it to work, but it’s good for the snowy days.

If you want to write a book this year, write 350 words, 5 days a week. You’ll have a book by the end of 2026!

(Or do 270 words every day, but I like the days off approach. Gives flexibility and permission to not write when you’re not feeling it.)

This is how I wrote my first 2 books.

Yara tous perfume in an ugly yellow bottle.

Today’s perfume - Lattafa Yara Tous. A coconut mango overperformer that is juuuuust sweet enough to avoid being sunscreen-y.

A spreadsheet detailing a bunch of different book and reading data points.

Book and reading data for 2025

A picture of perfume and a cat

First perfume of the new year! Dossier Bubbly Spritz and Bitters. Cause it smells like a very luxe champagne cocktail.

The hard truth of it is, that to write a novel, you have to sit in front of that keyboard and work, day after day, until it's done.

If anyone says “I guarantee you nobody has ever done this before” about a book concept…I immediately doubt them.

Oh god not this shit again.

There

is

no

magical

50

review

"threshold"

on

Amazon

Tumblr post by and-fishing-equipment reading "in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD instead ask: - Is it SINCERE - is it CATHARTIC - was it FUN TO MAKE - is it MADE BY ME and don't forget to stay silly"

Hearing the barista tell her coworker “this is the writer who wrote actually interesting romance!” Was certainly a nice early birthday present!

(She also liked my Christmas cat sweatshirt)

Is Yakutat…okay?

you: “hey Darryl how can I become as cool and chic as you are?”

me: “oh, I use my public library card”

you: “but you make it seem so effortless!”

me: “it is! Just sign up for your local library and start borrowing books today!”

Very exciting email from IngramSpark about how they're going to charge indie authors even more money for printing books next year. Very cool and fun news considering how much I already have to charge for a paperback when it still only costs trad pennies per copy. Very normal industry.

If you see your favourite indies, especially those who are wide or avoid Amazon, raise their prices... We all just had two emails in less than 24h:

- Smashwords is cutting down its royalty rates, especially at lower price points
- Ingramspark is raising most of its printing costs again

As every romance writer knows, "are you writing from personal experience? *wink,wink*