Monday, September 28, 2015

Doing a HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY dance....

via GIPHY

Okay, maybe I don't have moves like that, but I cannot be more ecstatic right now.

Why?

Well, I have long looked upon erotica writer extraordinaire Selena Kitt as a goddess of the erotica publishing world. She can do it all -- write extremely arousing, plot-filled, and most of all well-written work. She's incredibly prolific, and she's even managed to start a couple of successful publishing companies (eXcessica and excitica among them).

And if you go to eXcessica and scroll down the new release section, you'll see my book, Lethal Obsession!

That's right, my novel Lethal Obsession is now part of the eXcessica publishing catalog.

There's more publishing news coming up in the next few days and weeks, but I just had to share -- seeing Lethal Obsession there made my day!




Thursday, September 24, 2015

Back out into the world...

As I write this, it's been exactly one year, one month, and nine days since I last posted here on my blog.

A lot's happened in that time. Some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it ugly (I've spent a lot of time over the past year watching TV and movies, especially old flicks, so pardon me if these phrases and names slip into my blogging). 

I'll run quickly through the latter two first -- the bad and the ugly -- so you can know where I've been, then talk about the good.


The bad

I had a little trouble with my writing and publishing, or more specifically someone decided my stories were suddenly offensive, so after letting me publish work for more than a year, allowing virtually everything I post to pass through their censor check, suddenly Amazon decided much of my work no longer conformed to their standards, so they banned most of it. No warning, no explanation, just banned most of it and warned me I could lost my account if I didn't shape up.

Some of you know I've struggled with clinical depression -- at times severe -- and that sent me into a tailspin. I unpublished all of my work, not only at Amazon, but everywhere. An overreaction, yes, but I tend to do that some times.

Then life grew worse -- someone I had thought of as a friend and mentor turned out not to be so much of either, taking advantage of my condition at the time, offering "help" then pulling it back, stringing me along...you know how life can be. So I had to cut ties, walk away, which is always painful.

That was followed by the loss of someone dear and close to me, a precious soul who had really become my mother in recent years -- she'd taken me in, offered me support, guidance, love, just like I was one of her kids. She was the most loving, strongest woman I've ever known, but after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis, she passed away earlier this year.

And not too long after that I nearly lost one of the other closest people to me in the whole world. She's not out of the woods yet, after a hospital stay and some extended outpatient treatment, she seems to be doing a little better.


The ugly

That was me, throughout these past few months. I mean my life, the way I was living, letting things get to me in ways that were unhealthy. Bad things happen to us all, it's really how we respond, how we overcome and build our lives in spite of the bad, that ultimately defines us and our lives.

Right?

It was pretty ugly, and I went for a long period of time without writing, without doing anything other than crawling out of bed, going to work, then coming back home. I ate a lot. Gained a lot of weight.

Like I said, it was pretty ugly. But that's changing some, and that leads us to the...


 The GOOD

I've thought a lot about the one loss I mentioned earlier, my "mom." If any of you know me, or have been reading my posts off and on over the past few years, you know I had a rough start in life, eventually striking out on my own when I was just 16.

Well, my "mom" had a hard life, too. An incredibly poor childhood, some times going without the very basics of life, especially food. Yet she continued on, married, had her own kids, raised them, helped raise her grandkids, all through some trying and difficult times. Yet she never lost the basic joy in her life, never sat down and said "it's too much." She told me, more than once, that when things got really bad, she just put her head down and plowed through it.

"What else can you do?" she often asked.

Well, some of us quit, or take an extended break from life, it seems. At least that's what I've done a few times, which is odd since I was so determined, when I was younger, to never do that, to never be like the ones I grew up with, to never quit. I was determined to make something of my life.

I suppose I've done better than most that I grew up with, I certainly have done more than most would have thought possible if they saw me growing up, but still, when I sit and think and look back, I lost my way somewhere, started focusing on the problems, the bad and the ugly, rather than just working hard and moving forward.

A couple of months ago I decided this was crazy -- if I want some things in life, if I want to be different or better than I am now, just do it. Put my head down and plow forward.

And that's what I've been doing. I've tried, slowly, to get my life back together, to start writing again, and getting away from home for more than just working, to get out and live a little bit again.

So far, so good.

Which brings me to this blog, and my writing career. I've thought about restarting my blog for most of those two months, I've thought about writing and publishing more, maybe finding some homes for my old work and writing new pieces as well.

With the publication to this blog, I'm officially starting that, getting back into the game. In coming weeks and months I'll have news of my writing, where it's being published, how you can get it, and all of that info.

I'll also, from time to time, share a little with you what's going on in my life.

As always, feel free to comment, to share here from your own life, your own writing, most anything you wish.

For now, this kind of catches you up on my life. As always, thanks so much for stopping by.