What I've been working on

As the world keeps burning I find myself more often giving my kids the day off from their COVID-19 distance learning and claiming one of my computers for myself.  It seems that everybody I know is at least as stressed as I am, and understandably so.  Thankfully I have an outlet for that in my writing!

I have one novel that I’ve been editing regularly after deciding that the beginning wasn’t good enough and rewriting it for I think the twenty-thousandth time.  I’ve had the cover for over a year, which is at least twice as long as I’ve ever had a cover and not a finalized book to attach it to, and that bothers me.  When did I reach the point where my excitement at sharing my stories turned to anxiety?  Is that just part of maturing or did I actually let the fear of criticism turn me into a coward?  More importantly, can I get that excitement back?  We’ll find out I suppose haha

Years ago, while discussing the werewolf/shifter genre of M/M writing, I commented to one of my friends that I haven’t found any that I particularly loved.  I only even sort of liked a few and assumed that I simply dislike the subgenre, and to be honest I still have no idea why the usual shifter and were stories don’t appeal to me.  They should, they have everything that I go to a book for but for some reason they just don’t draw me in.  The problem here is me, not the books.

In the end, he challenged me to write one.  Another friend joined in and they laughed, knowing that I cannot refuse a direct challenge.  It’s a flaw, I’m working on it.  That’s actually how I started writing, now that I think of it.  

I wrote three books with wolf shifters.  Well, I also wrote one that is complete but I can only really call half of a shifter story.  So three and a half?  ...I guess? 

It’s fine.  Point is, I’ve had these books for (Unfortunately) several years.  They sit there in my documents folder, festering and pouting, waiting for me to pick them back up and give them the good fierce edits that they deserve and I honestly haven’t had the time or attention span to do that until recently.   

Now, two of those books are not even remotely ready.  I’m not sure I can even call them books, to be honest.  When I write the first draft of a story it reads more like a fever dream.  Creating a story only takes me a fifth of the time editing does because I can pour ideas out endlessly and I can write very quickly, but it’s sloppy.  

One of the stories is practically done.  I could publish this year if I apply myself and nothing goes wrong in my life, but that’s the trick.  For nothing to interfere.  

The other has a shifter in it as one of the two main characters and his shiftyness is a plot point, but he’s with a Sahrketh man, who is technically a were…  So it’s only half shifter?  But the other half is a were?  Unsure how to catagorize that one but that’s not the point.  

I’m currently working on a yet untitled story that stars Luda.  He’s a flamboyant outcast that takes care of pets for a living, and has a crush on a human man that he suspects has never noticed him.  This story is unlike my other books.  Yes it has a few parts that I hope people will bite their nails over, but generally its mood is much lighter than what I feel is my norm.  I tried something new, and will continue to try new angles and approaches but to be honest this was hard for me to maintain through an entire book.  I’m more of a sarcastic, cynical person than a dreamer.  Luda was more difficult for me to write than Calvin was.  

The other book that I have a complete but very rough manuscript for is a sister story to the Playing with Tigers series.  It’s the story of how two characters in PWT3 meet, because after writing one single scene between them in PWT3, I paused that project to focus on them for a little while.  As with Luda, I tried something new and I struggled to make sure it was just right.  I’m fairly confident that I succeeded with this one.  The book has a lot of uncomfortable charm to it, and I hope it has as much draw as that single scene in Playing with Tigers 3 does.  I quite literally wrote five pages with them and fell in love with them.  I can’t wait to share them with everyone because I’m sure they’ll love them too.  

Well, I’m off to make some tea and get started on my day of battling children and writing.  

I’ll post again soon!

S. K. Hart

I'm not dead!

Hi everyone!  I keep disappearing, and I am sorry for that!  I’m making an effort to try harder.  Although I haven’t published in forever, I have been writing, I simply end up hating everything once I finish and telling myself that it’s not good enough.  I’m sure plenty of creators out there know what I’m talking about.  

I’ve also been involved with several other up and coming authors over the last few years, friends and acquaintances that wanted to write and needed encouragement, a push, some help or someone to show them the way.  One or two of them just wanted praise, but they’re not part of my group anymore because I am not a compliment vending machine.  Rather the opposite actually HA 

Long story short, even though I haven’t been publishing, I’ve been busy behind the scenes both with my own projects and other people’s, because it’s a lot less stressful when you help someone else publish a book than it is to publish your own.  Between the constant issue of finding a cover and proofreaders, the fact that my books are pirated 75% more than they’re purchased (and that’s only the ones I know about lols) and the stress of waiting for the first review of a book, I needed a break.  A long one.  I’m still not entirely sure that I’m ready to publish anything again, but part of me craves it.  I still stay up at night and slink away to lean over a laptop and get lost in a story, whether I’m describing the predatory look in Calvin’s eyes as he lays his eyes on Duncan again in Spannerdire or the spatter of blood on Kura’s face as she fights back to back with Kyo over a carpet of slain enemies.  From Gerstan to the Whichway Expressway, Traichi and yet to be seen Kureshna - I am still there.  It’s really just a matter of whether I’m ready to invite anyone else.  I kept thinking it was time, but it wasn’t.

Well, then the world sort of stopped for awhile.

Covid did for America what Calvin had done for Duncan: It stopped everything and broke the world.  That sudden halt is very jarring for several reasons that I’m sure I don’t have to explain.  You’re in it too, or you have been.  It’s necessary, and it’s hard.  My concerns stretch from my father, who is a diabetic 70 year old with COPD (1000% dead if he catches this shit) to how bad my (only recently manageable, right before COVID) agoraphobia will become by the end of this. 

I apologize for getting off track, this post isn’t about COVID19.  My email is still being flooded by any business that has ever even heard of an email telling me what they’re doing for this pandemic, even if it’s some abstract company that was closed by the state two months ago.  I don’t want to be them.

My point is that it’s stressful, and stressful times are unfortunately when I write the best and the fastest.  

The Cat & the Crow was published within 2 months of me having the idea.  It was also published while my oldest son (at the time 8) was having a poor reaction to a medication for anxiety.  He became suicidal, and made an attempt at school.  In order to have him weaned off as quickly as possible, he was placed in a mental hospital for two months.  With my (at the time) newborn, I could not visit him myself.  I wasn’t allowed to bring a child under two onto the children’s ward, and everyone that could watch my youngest so that I could go were only free during hours that visitation was off limits.  When I did rarely get an opportunity to visit my boy, I saw and heard things from those children that will haunt me forever, and my son had to stay with them so that he could get better.  He did, by the way~ Now he’s taller than me and is generally a super fun guy, spent two hours today drawing handsome squidward for a biology assignment about mutation.  But he and I still remember what happened in there, and although we both agree even now that it necessary, it was harder than we could’ve imagined.

The book was written at a ludicrous speed because I throw myself into creative outlets to channel my stress.  I’ve been doing that again, although I am also quite happily dividing my time amongst many friends who are starting up their author career as well.  I’m not sure what will come of it, but I realized that when I started having issues with anxiety, I started to publish blog posts and updates less often, then I stopped altogether.  

I apologize for it.  

I’m back, although I’m not sure what will be published first or specifically when that will be.  Maybe I’ll buckle down on that one that’s almost complete from last year.  Sadly I hadn’t touched it since about this time in 2019, although I’m sure I have my notes on it.  That one is the different one, starring someone who is well adjusted and generally a very happy person for a change.  I know, it’s like I didn’t even write it.  An adult engaged in a healthy relationship?  I swear I haven’t lost my touch!  It was just something new and I promise it has some of my typical terrible behavior! 

Maybe I’ll dust that off later today.  

I mean, I have the cover, I’m really just being a coward at this point, right?  There’s a worldwide plague and murder hornets and probably a god damned sharknado climbing up the coast with a rusty bucket of bullshit next, how the hell can the judgement of the internet regarding a book that I wrote possibly compete with that?  

Easily.  *sigh* 

We’ll see.  In the meantime, I’m going to have myself an iced coffee and work on the forever awaited PWT3 because sometimes you want to write about a woman unceremoniously breaking someone’s nose for being a jerk and it’s that sort of Tuesday. 

As usual anyone who wants to contact me can find me here or on facebook, goodreads also works if anyone wants to have a conversation with me.

Wish me luck :)

S. K. Hart (Not dead.)