publishing – Sam Stark

It’s hot.

I know if you’re reading this from somewhere like Florida or Texas or something you’re thinking “haha, no it’s not” but goddamnit. It’s hot for Seattle okay? I’m not a fan of the sun, or the beach, or generally nice weather because again, I am from Seattle. I like rain. I love rain. And overcast. Damp is what flows through the blood of the Seattleite. So anything coming even close to 80 degrees is climbing too far; reaching too high. Slow your roll there, partner.

I’ve made the most of it by staying inside as much as possible, but I have a three and a half year old that also happens to be a sunflower. With my first it was okay, because like me he’s a vampire, but now I’m forced to go outside in the bright and the glare and the colors and bugs and do things. We have a huge umbrella over the patio table and that’s been quite the life-saver, especially when we BBQ. I mean I guess I could sit on the other side of the screen door in the air conditioning while my family plays outside and eats ribs and stuff, but thinking about it, that seems kind of depressing. No, I’ve been trying for real. I bought bird feeders and squirrel feeders and I leave out peanuts for the crows and raccoons. We have jays and woodpeckers and these little fat, round birds that look like the blue guys from Angry Birds. It’s great. Makes it all worth it. Animals are awesome.

A lucky side effect to the sun and the playing outdoors is my youngest gets tuckered out sometimes and has to chill for a bit, giving me some time to work on things. I’ve gotten through all the terrible, soul-crushing, teeth-pulling rewrite edits of the novel’s first few chapters, and now I’m actually getting to write some new stuff. It’s still rough, and I’m going to try and work through some of it with my writer’s group when we meet at the end of the month, but I’m also really happy that there’s an end in sight. Sort of.

Oh, I also sold a story. My short horror-fantasy work will be featured in Flame Tree Press’ Strange Lands Anthology coming out in November. It’s going to be a pretty great compilation of stories so check it out if that kind of thing interests you. Here’s a link so you can check it out.

http://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/gothic-fantasy-successful-submissions-strange-lands

The cover is so cool. It’s like a tome, or a Grimoire. I’m super excited to have it on my shelf.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy, wearing your masks and observing social distancing. At least you better be because I’m ready for this to be over, please and thank you.

Love your pets, treat people with respect, unless they’re complete assholes that don’t deserve your respect, and have a great week!

I published a book.

I mean, yes, it’s a book but it’s more a novella. It’s a fun little story I wrote for shits and giggles about two dirty-mouthed pirates that fall in love with each other over food. A reader of mine was kind enough to offer their editing services and the niece of one of my writing group pals is a artist/designer. Long story short: I received free editing and free cover art for the book and I am beyond grateful. I don’t know what I would have done without them. (Actually I do: I would have had a stock image cover and a bunch of typos. The end.)

It’s doing fairly well. I didn’t expect much from it, but it’s been steadily making money and the little line graph thing in the sales section of Kindle Publishing is headed in an upward slant, not a downward, so I guess that’s not bad for my first try.

All that is making me excited for the book I’m writing now. It’s a mashup of romance, super heroes, and a little body horror because I’m weird.

But hey, back to the first book. I had a time trying to figure out what I wanted on the cover. I searched the top 100 Gay Romance novels on Amazon, but that was kind of boring, so I searched “gay romance covers” on Google and that got some pretty amazing results. This one is my favorite:

It’s just fantastic. I’m going to read the shit out of this book when it arrives (yes I bought it).

There’s also this one.

Please go to the Goodreads page and check out the synopsis. If you’re not dying to read this book after that, friendship with me is off the table.

Besides the book–sorry, novella–publishing stuff, things have been kind of weird. If you haven’t heard, there’s this virus going around. It’s in the news and stuff, you probably heard about it, I don’t know. I live about 15 minutes north of Seattle, so I’m a stone’s throw from one of the two American hot spots. I haven’t actually seen any of the stuff they’ve been reporting on the news, like hospitals overcrowding or riots in grocery stores, but I can tell you that traffic is really, really good. In Seattle. In the middle of the day. It’s insane.

Oh, update on my last post: My daughter is doing well, back to using her keyboard so she’s playing lots of video games during this pandemic. The skin is red and strange-looking but healing, which is the most important thing. Jokes about alien skin or attacks from acid dragons are in the near future, I’m sure.

I hope everyone is safe and healthy and getting all the things they need and are not hoarding toilet paper or sanitizer like assholes because that’s selfish and stupid. Just saying.

Pet your pets and take care of yourselves! Have a good one!