HeartThistle

I'm really bad at remembering to promote my own work but Blue Door Café came out on July 1st!

#BlueDoorCafe #NewBookRelease #QueerRomance #ComingOfAge #Booksky #TransLoveStory #IndieBookRecs #CozyReads #FoundFamily #HeartfeltFiction #BookishVibes

Cover by Kamaji Studio

The wonderful and strange Lord Selane of Farawke I got to play at LARP last weekend.
He is a delightfully debaucherous writer and sole heir to the Farawke estate.
#larp #nonbinary #crossplay #canadianlarp

Hopefully not too gauche to post that I'm looking for ARC readers for my queer Canadian new adult romance.

booksprout.co/reviewer/rev...

#queer #newadultromance #arcreader #cozyromance #newadultfiction

I'm thankful to now have friends that I can check in with and they'll tell me when they're upset or reassure me when they're not.
Check in with your friends. Be honest with your feelings.
Communicate.
That's the only way to have healthy relationships.

I can't know unless I'm told.
I've always been in favour of talking about things, but that hasn't always been reciprocated.
I have ASD, ADHD, and BPD. I have trouble catching social cues and big abandonment issues.
I need reassurance in relationships that they don't hate me. They want me around.

A friend in MB had been secretly building anger and resentment for years without ever saying anything to me about it until one day she stopped talking to me.
I stopped posting in a group chat and no one in that group chat ever posted there again.

When I'm the common factor I know I'm the problem,

When I moved to AB, my friends said they were glad I left so they didn't have to pretend to like me anymore. They only put up with me bc I had more money.
In HS, a girl became a close friend just to get close to my BF (who she was stalking).

Anyway, here's a rough ref for my MC in Blue Door Café.

A drawn portrait of a noble young woman with wavy brown hair pulled back into a fancy hairdo. She has striking green eyes and wears a necklace of small pearls. She's wearing a dark purple dress with white lace accents and a crystal brooch.

An unfinished drawn portrait of a noble young woman with wavy brown hair pulled back into a fancy hairdo. She has striking green eyes. She's wearing a dark purple dress.

I think I got bored halfway through and gave up. Sometimes that happens.
I'm allergic to chicken and ate some tonight and I'm suffering for it.

#artsky #digitalart #originalcharacter #oc

A portrait of a young woman with hazel eyes and long silver hair. She's wearing a dark green. medieval style gown with gold trim and an opal brooch

Like a cat, I would nap for most of the day if I could.
Anyway, finished the piece from yesterday. Princess Matilde from a novel I'm working on.

#digitalart #art #oc

The dogs are always out. No socks, no shoes. Let the wigglers be free.

A partially complete drawing of a woman with hazel eyes, dove grey hair, and a medieval style dress.

The trouble with long weekends is that I very quickly revert back to my most natural sleep schedule, which is 1am to 9am, and it's very hard to get back to my work schedule.
Anyway, here's the start of working on character portraits for another book I'm working on.

A horse from memory.

I've seen lots of folks saying once the tariffs have ended prices will go back down, but that's not true. Once companies see they can charge more and people will still buy, that's just the price now.

The wisdom I am using today to keep myself emotionally balanced:

Part of what makes the world beautiful is the highs and lows. Today, I am suffering. But tomorrow, I get to have ice cream.

#survive #whenlifegivesyoulemonsmakesorbet

It's almost sold out in my local Indigos and has done really well!
If all goes well, my next book, Blue Door Café will release in late summer!

All I do is talk about my book and I think that's ok!
A Chance To Be Happy is a coming of age novel about a girl who is forced to move across country to a small town to live with her estranged father.
It deals with themes of teenage angst, mental illness, and self-love.
#booksky #canadian

My one review on Goodreads for my new novel is a 3 star. Reading the review, I think the reviewer struggles with reading comprehension. None of my beta readers had trouble following the very straightforward plot and my reviews on store pages are all 5 stars.

Yessss! Do it!

Pardon me while I get feral because they even have it in pink 🩷

Ok but that's gorgeous. Link?

Anyway, I'm working on a few new projects and there's one I'm specifically posting there instead of writing to publish.
Check it out if you want. The first few (unedited) chapters of A Chance To Be Happy are up there too.

www.wattpad.com/story/390543...

I know Wattpad is a controversial topic amongst authors, but I've found it helpful for getting a little bit of buzz about my writing.
I've had a couple people reach out to me on other platforms to say they'd read the first few chapters of my book there and it made them want to buy the physical book

I think I know what nootch is.

Seeing reviews starting to come up for my novel is really nice. It's a good feeling.

I did it! And I'm well on my way to my next one!

"Elevator pitches" are easy marketing, but once book marketing gets reduced to "elevator pitches", we've quite literally lost the plot.

"If you can't pitch your book in one sentence, you don't know what it's about". Okay, fair. BUT if your book can be reduced to 1 sentence, why write a whole book?

Life is worth living because we're cringe.

Eeeeee!! Got confirmation today that my debut novel, A Chance To Be Happy, will be available at the Kenaston, Polo Park, and St. Vital Indigo books in mid March!!
Them staying in stores depends entirely on sales so if you're planning to buy a copy and live in Winnipeg, consider buying in store!

I keep forgetting to advertise my book. Oops.
It comes out on Saturday. Yay!

It's available at all major book sellers! Not necessarily physically, but definitely to order!

#achancetobehappy #indieauthor #newauthor #booksky #ya #canadianfiction

I will never get over Abarat. This was such a formative series in my youth. I don't care that he was evil. I will always be in love with Christopher Carrion.

I have three I've started working on, though two are currently inactive projects... About three or four more that I've written summaries for and are waiting until I have the mental space to dedicate to them.