The blog tour is almost ready to wrap up. I haven’t been keeping great tabs on it–the reasons are varied. Here’s an announcement: I’m twenty weeks pregnant and with that goes the trouble of focusing on just about anything that isn’t taking care of my 2.5 year old and trying to not succumb to the misery of pregnancy! So, I count it as a victory that I even set up ANY marketing related to the book’s release.
I know some people have come to my blog to see if there’s supposed to be a sequel to A Boat Made of Bone. The easy answer is yes, that’s why on the cover and on the Amazon listing (and Smashwords, I believe), the title includes Book One of the Chthonic Saga. As more reviews come in for BMOB, part of me wonders why the heck I WOULD write a sequel. Evidently my instincts are all wrong and also, BMOB is just like every other demon book out there (LOL).
That’s my fault, I guess, because I don’t always write precisely in genres I read. I write whatever I want and if it falls into a genre thats I haven’t fully explored as a reader, I figure it doesn’t matter. Some writers will say that’s a big mistake. Maybe they’re right. As I’ve begun to write the sequel, I’m struggling to get over the hurdles of all those negative voices that tell me it doesn’t matter anyway, that I’m not a good writer, that my characters are unlikeable and unrelatable.
Some of these issues are magnified because I’m pregnant. For those who’ve been pregnant, I imagine this is a familiar refrain. For those who haven’t, the problem is sorting through the ten million additional feelings coursing through my head and body and discerning which ones are real and which are a result of the extra (evil) hormones created from being pregnant. I’m telling you, that’s a hilarious maze of mirrors. Haha.
In June, if all goes well enough (my last pregnancy, they didn’t, so I have a bit of PTSD from that), I’ll have my brain and my body back and I expect to be (more) sound of mind than I am now. And I’ll decide whether or not to leave A Boat Made of Bone out in the market or if I should take it down and count it as a momentary scourge of my career as an indie author.
For what it’s worth, I loved writing it. I loved Will, Kate, Audra, Malcolm, Ferg, all of them. I loved the story and thought that it worked. So that’s a big difficulty–do I trust myself and my instincts or do my gut feelings have shit for brains (I borrow from High Fidelity)? I’m worried that I’m the most untrustworthy party around.
In any case, all things are possible. And these experiences are teaching me lessons I should know. I can’t say these things that kind of hurt are wastes of my time because life is evolution and I’m growing. In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for the $75 gift card giveaway as part of the blog tour. I really want to give it someone who’ll appreciate it!
All the love!
Nicole
