Tag: life

An Unexpected Push

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

ThinkingMy floorset days have come to an end.

The store I work for is closing for good on January 7th.

I’ve been there over four years. Sometimes the gig was a real hassle. I questioned whether or not it was worth the commute, the minimum wage, the sleep deprivation, the bullshit that accompanies every retail job. I seriously considered quitting multiple times, but never went through with it. In the end, the actual work and most of the people I worked with won me over. The money wasn’t great (child learnin’ has been my main source of income), but it really helped fill in the gaps between the ends I needed to meet, particularly during the Christmas/New Year holidays when it’s the only day job I worked.

Now I need something else to fill the gaps.

I’m feeling strangely optimistic about this. A few years ago, I would have been depressed and panicky, woe-is-me-ly about this whole thing. I would have felt like it was the Universe taking another shot at me, kicking me when I was already close to down. Not so much now.

Now, I feel like this is the Universe giving me a push.

This is a push to do something new. This is a push to get out of my comfort zone. This is a push for a new adventure.

This is a push to really work my writing and make my writing work for me.

I don’t make a lot of money from my writing, but now what money I do make will be very important. It will help fill the gaps. Self-promotion is going to be key. I’m going to have to talk about my writing A LOT MORE than I already do and not in the “here’s what I’m working on, here’s how I write, here’s my writerly thoughts” fashion. I’m talking in the “HEY, BUY MY WORDS” fashion.

Right now I’ve got three writing revenue streams going at the moment: my self-published titles, the Storytime Jukebox, and the upcoming Patreon project Murderville. I realize that I’m going to have to start submitting in earnest once again, but I’m also going to have to push these three things a lot harder than I have in the past. In the past, I didn’t want to be annoying or insistent. Now I’m going to be.

When I first found out about this turn of events yesterday and posted about it on Twitter, the people I know there were very supportive. I think that contributes to my optimism. I am blessed with knowing some really awesome folks who are really supportive of my endeavors and also really supportive of me in general. I really do appreciate them.

So, the new year will be starting off with an interesting challenge.

For once in my life, I feel up to it.

I Do Not Christmas Well

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

cookiesYesterday, I made some sweet treats for the Christmas Eve get together that will happen later today at my mom’s. I normally do not contribute because between my mom and my nieces, plenty of sweet treats happen. But this year I told my mom that I’d made puppy chow for my sister and brother-in-law and she requested some.

And I also said that I’d make sugar cookies.

Here’s the deal.

At Thanksgiving, my great-aunt gave me two batches of sugar cookie dough that she’d made from my great-grandma’s recipe and colored red and green with food coloring. Now, I do not bake. I have no baking skill. I can fuck up cookies from a tube. But my great-aunt thinks that because I can cook, I can bake cookies from pre-made dough without incident. She also thinks that I will eat red and green cookies. I will not. My issues with that is worthy of another post.

However, red and green pre-made sugar cookie dough was right up my nieces’ alley. I was going to take the dough to my mom’s house for my middle niece’s birthday Sunday and let the girls bake them.

Then winter happened. Between the ice and cold, I wasn’t able to see my niece for her birthday (we have a plan B for after the new year; such is the life for us with winter birthdays).

When my mom requested the puppy chow, she also mentioned that my youngest niece wanted sugar cookies.

“Oh, I’ll bake the sugar cookies that auntie gave me and bring them up,” I said.

And so my fate was sealed.

In addition to my lack of baking skills, the stove in our house is questionable. My mom bought it for $100 at a yard sale in 1986. Really. It no longer heats quite evenly, you can’t tell when it’s pre-heated, can barely read the numbers on the knobs, and sometimes it will electrocute you. Really.

The potential for disaster was high. Just the kind of thrill seeking I like.

I baked the first batch of cookies, the red ones, which were more pink than red, and looked like I was trying to bake Laffy Taffy.

They…survived.

It was impossible to tell if they were done because red cookies don’t brown like plain sugar cookies. But the bottoms of them were browned to just before burnt, so they had to be done, even though the tops looked not done.

For the second batch, the green batch, which also looked like Laffy Taffy, I figured out that I had to put a second pan on the bottom rack to help diffuse the heat, rotate the pan of cookies half-way through baking, and pray constantly to a crotchety baking goddess.

The green cookies came out a little better, but any sort of browning on colored cookies just looks wrong.

I’m told from my taste tester that the cookies are fine. Which is good. I hope the nieces enjoy them.

But they look better in the container.

“Stop Working for Free in 2017!”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

flame box elder penThe title of this post came from a tweet in my feed. No, it wasn’t spam or some other kind of sponsored content, though it can read that way, I suppose.

To me it reads as the truth.

I have often struggled with the concept of getting paid for my writing. I feel like I’m imposing on people by asking them for money to read my work. “You’re an artist!” a voice in my head yells. “You’re not supposed to be doing it for the money!” And then another voice pipes up and says, “Dude, seriously? You’re writing all of this shit anyway. Get paid, man.”

But still, I struggle.

The second voice is right, though. More right than the first voice. I don’t write for the money. If I did, then I’d be writing to the trends, pumping out thin stories with excellent dressing, capitalizing on whatever looks like it will be selling in the next few months. Publishing trends can be hard to predict, but they’re pretty easy to get in on, especially now with the convenience of self-publishing (not at all putting down self-publishing as that has been my primary means for the majority of my writing career). Writing, revising, and self-publishing a decent novel in a few months that fits in with a going trend is possible.

But I don’t do that.

In fact, when people ask about the nature of my career and why I don’t sell more books and why I don’t have an agent and all of that, I tell them that my biggest hang-up is that I don’t write what other people want to read. I write what I want to write, what I want to read. And my tastes are apparently far from the mainstream. It’s hard to find any traditional success when you write stuff that can only find a small audience, no matter how loyal. Publishing, after all, is a business. They are very motivated by the money.

Still. I should get paid for what I do write. There is no shame in this. I’m not asking for a handout. I’m asking to be paid for my work. It’s no different than when I get paid for child learnin’ or working floorset. Just because the paycheck isn’t as regular doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve it.

This is the mantra I’m carrying into 2017. I’m not working for free. This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing anymore freebie stories on occasion. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to start charging you guys to read these wonderful, informative blog posts.

It means that I’m not going to act like I don’t deserve to ask for money for my work. Because you know what? I do. Because writing IS work. It IS my job. It’s the job I’d like to be living off of instead of my day jobs. How do I do that? By insisting that I get paid.

The Patreon project is a step in that direction. Adjusting the prices for my existing self-published works will be next. Working on something to get traditionally published is on the To Do List.

Come 2017, I will get paid.

We Can No Longer Deny What We Are

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

We can no longer deny what we are as a country.

We can no longer claim that hate and ignorance, bigotry and misogyny and racism, the homophobia and Islamophobia and xenophobia, belong to loud minority when the quiet majority has spoken in agreement with it.

This is who we are. We are a bigoted, hateful, lazy congregation of humans contained within an imaginary boarder. And we have elected a leader that represents that very core, that truly embodies the nation we are, the nation we deny. Because we like to think we’re great. We like to think that we’re inclusive and tolerant and underneath it all, not bad folks.

But that’s not the truth, is it?

Not everyone who voted for Trump is racist, you say. They’re not all homophobic and misogynist. They’re not all bad people.

Sure.

But they decided they could live with it.

He wasn’t Hillary, so they decided they could live with it.

He had an R next to his name, so they decided they could live with it.

They’re not black or Mexican or Muslim or Jewish, so they decided they could live with it.

They’re not gay or lesbian or trans or bi or in any way queer, so they decided they could live it.

They’re not women, so they decided they could live with it.

They’re not feminist women, so they decided they could live with it.

They’re not disabled, so they decided they could live with it.

They’re not mentally ill or otherwise sick, so they decided they could live with it.

They thought that it wouldn’t effect them, so they decided they could live with it.

Now we all get to live with it.

Even if the best case scenario were to come to pass (which in my simple mind would be an avoidance of total financial ruin, not being obliterated by a war started in the course of a hissyfit, and somehow some of our rights being left intact), we are still left with ourselves.

We are left with those of us thrilled by this victory because they’ve been made to feel uncomfortable about their hateful thoughts for the past few years, being called out as bigots, being shouted down for their inappropriate “jokes”, and now they feel vindicated. They’re “oppression” is now over because they have a leader that supports their views. Those that have been dying at the hands of political correctness have been given a second life.

We are left with those of us who will now exist in fear because of the realities that “living with it” will entail. The threat of deportation, restriction of rights, loss of rights, sexual violence, physical violence, incarceration, torture, loss of health care, the destruction of our planet are some of those realities.

We are left with the knowledge that we sacrificed the well-being of many for the interests of a few hoping that we would be one of the few.

We are left with the knowledge that we did this to ourselves. Because this is who we are.

So now that we’ve gone past the Rubicon here, now that we’ve looked into the mirror, now that we’ve seen the monster that is our soul, now that it is, in effect, too late, NOW we finally ask ourselves a question we’ve been avoiding for centuries because we’ve been very skilled at avoiding our own reflection…

Is this who we want to be?

…And Then I Went to Chicago to See a Cubs World Series Parade

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

World Champs“Hey, do you wanna go to the Cubs World Series parade?” I asked my roommate Carrie upon waking her up Thursday afternoon.

“What?” she asked, groggy.

“Do you wanna go?” I repeated.

“When?”

“Now. We have to leave, like, now.”

“…Okay.”

And so began the whirlwind.

I haven’t been to Wrigley Field since 2012 when I saw the Cubs lose their 100th game that season. Time and money constraints have prevented my return. I didn’t luck out in the postseason ticket lotto and couldn’t afford them on the secondary market (honestly, I couldn’t have afforded them if I’d won the lotto, but that wasn’t going to stop me this time). I felt like I’d missed out on everything during this magical season. The least I could do was find a way to get to the victory parade. This feeling was cemented when I found myself in tears on the drive home from work Thursday afternoon because they’d played the Harry Caray call/final World Series out mash-up on the radio. Of course, I’d been bursting into tears regularly since their win Wednesday night.

When I got home, I DM’d my Cubs bestie Harry and asked if he was ditching work to go to the parade and when he confirmed that he was, I told him that I was trying to work it so I could go to0.

“If you can get up here, I’ve got a hotel room for you by Wrigley.”

Harry had booked the room for his mom to attend the celebration, but she unfortunately couldn’t make it.

But I could.

Kiki and HarryCall it serendipity. Call it fate. Call it divine intervention. Whatever name you want to put on it, fortune smiled on me for once and I was more than beaming back.

Within ten minutes I was waking up Carrie and throwing things into my overnight bag (notebook and pen first, of course; writer life). By 3:30, we were on the road to Chicago. Three hours later, driving through rush hour traffic on Lake Shore Drive, I pointed out the buildings lit up in celebration of the Cubs winning the World Series. Carrie took pictures of them through our unfortunately dirty windshield.

After picking up Harry and getting settled at the hotel, the three of us went out for a celebratory dinner. The mood was giddy edged a bit by the surreal. Despite all of the tangibles, there was still a misty fantasy quality about the whole thing. The Cubs had won the World Series and we were going to the victory parade in the morning. That’s probably why I struggled to sleep Thursday night. A long held dream had finally become reality and it was just hard accept.

Friday morning, we walked around the block from our hotel to stand on Addison and watch the parade. Here, less than a mile from Wrigley, there was a crowd lined up against the barricades, but not nearly as suffocating and dense as what was around Wrigley or lined up along Lake Shore Drive or packed into Grant Park. The morning weather was pleasant, a little chilly, but really perfect for a parade. The crowd vibe fed into the surreal joy and the three of us stood there, soaking it all in.

BryzzoThe parade itself happened so fast. Part of it was that the buses were going by at a quicker clip since this wasn’t prime parade real estate and they’d left the gate late to begin with; the huge crowds on Lake Shore and at Grant Park were waiting. The other part, the more personal part, is that when you’ve been waiting for something for a long time, be it an hour for a parade to begin or since you became a fan in the late ’80s for a championship to be won, when the moment arrives for you to experience, it feels like it happens too fast. Like even at a snail’s crawl, it still wouldn’t happen slowly enough to be thoroughly enjoyed.

But I managed.

To see the guys that I’ve been cheering for all season, to see the guys I’d cheered for in past seasons that almost feel like past lives, to see the coaches and the front office and the families, the whole shebang that had to come together just perfectly to make this one incredible thing happen, to see them all go by in total victory put my heart into a state of bliss that it won’t forget. This is a memory that won’t be corrupted.

After the parade, the three of us went back to the hotel room to watch the rally for a few more cheers and tears of joy. We bid Harry farewell and then Carrie and I left the city. It took us over an hour to get out of city, almost like Chicago was begging us to stay. And I wish we would have. I would have loved to have spent the weekend there, walking around Wrigleyville and soaking up that vibe until my seams split and I burst with joy.

Instead, happy and exhausted, I drove back to the cornfield, content that I had the pleasure to experience just a little bit of history.

World Series Champions

Those Self-Destructive Weeks

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

mushroom cloudI have a bit of a self-destructive streak that I try not to indulge actively. It’s not a seriously overt thing, really. I don’t take risky gambles with my life like challenging biker gangs to duels or riding a unicycle along the edge of a cliff or attempting to bake. I just actively don’t care about myself.

I did it again last week.

Most of the time, these self-destructive days, or in this case a whole week, aren’t planned. One thing sets it all off, like lighting the fuse on a string of fire crackers, and I’m just like, “Fuck it.”

What set me off last week was a Cubs playoff game on Monday night that went into extras. The regular nine innings didn’t get over until midnight and four more innings were played after that. The game didn’t get over until quarter til two in the morning. Had this been the regular season, I would have bailed long before midnight as I was looking at working both day jobs the next day. But this is the playoffs, man. If the Cubs would have won that night, they would have clinched the NLDS. It was important that I stay up and watch this game, grown-up obligations  be damned!

But they didn’t win. They lost. And I didn’t go to sleep until 2:30 that morning.

Fuck it mode engaged.

Because I knew I wasn’t sleeping Tuesday night either because I work until midnight for floorsets, if I’m lucky. I got out of this one late. And then had to drive home. Another two in the morning bedtime.

These two sleep-deprived nights were used as an excuse to self-destruct for the rest of the week. It was the excuse to eat like garbage, to continue to not get adequate sleep (except for Wednesday night when I slept a solid 9 hours because exhaustion couldn’t be beat), to drink way too much coffee, to not exercise (outside of my hour-long walks; somehow I still managed that), to drink more beer than I should when I shouldn’t, to basically just wreck myself.

And I knew that’s what I was doing, too. I knew that I shouldn’t, but I did it anyway. I looked at it and went, “Well, I already started this shit show on Monday, so I may as well just finish it out.”

I don’t recommend this tactic. By Sunday night I was feeling like hot garbage and eating Tums like they were my favorite candy. I also didn’t like myself very much for not hitting the emergency stop on like Wednesday. I admit that I could stand to loosen my grip on my control issues once in a while and let things flow, but this is not one of those issues. I wasn’t particularly thrilled about not being able to get my shit together in a timely fashion and instead just gave in to the chaos.

So, this week comes what I like to think of as the hard reset.

This week I have to go to bed at a decent hour (this is an ongoing struggle of my life, though, so…). I have to mind what I eat closely so my gut can recover. Ditto minding the coffee intake. I have to make every workout. I have to put off finishing that six pack. I have to get back into the regular, boring-old groove.

Build myself up again in time for the next spontaneous combustion.

When I Talk About Being Fat

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Love moreWhen I talk about being fat, I’m not fishing for a compliment. I’m not asking you to run in and tell me I’m beautiful, to tell me I’m not fat. I am fat. I weigh around 240 pounds. If you saw me as a stranger, walking down the street, you would identify me as fat. I am fat. It is an accurate description of me. Not all of the connotations of that descriptor are accurate: I’m lazy about some things, but not my whole life; I don’t eat all the time; I do exercise; I’m not a gross slob; I bathe regularly, thank you; I do have some self-esteem; I do eat vegetables; I do take a walk; no, I haven’t given up on my life.

When I talk about being fat and you rush in to assure me I’m not, you’re not really assuring me I’m not fat. You’re assuring me that I’m not all of those bad things you automatically associate with being fat.

Good news! Your reassurance is lovely, but misguided. I know my personality flaws are independent of my appearance. I guarantee that I could look like a size zero model and I’d still be lazy as fuck about some things. It’s just who I am.

When I talk about being fat, I’m talking about my experience as a fat person and the hypocritical nature of the people that know me. I’m talking about the people who say there should be a weight limit on skinny jeans and take pictures of people without their knowledge so they can post them on Twitter for shaming purposes, but who would be first in line to defend me if someone told me I couldn’t wear my skinny jeans or took a picture of me and shamed me online.

Oh yeah, I see you. I don’t say anything to you because Twitter isn’t the place for it. 140 characters isn’t enough room for you to fit in your tired, bullshit excuses about why it’s okay for you to do that to THEM, but you would NEVER do that to ME and it would NEVER be okay for ANYONE to do that to ME. And frankly, I don’t want to bother with your tired, bullshit excuses. They don’t excuse what you do. And I know so long as you have those excuses at the ready (and I know you do), I’m not going to change your mind. You’ll always feel perfectly justified in your little smidge of fatphobia.

But I see you. Oh yeah, baby, I see you.

When I talk about being fat, I’m not being hard on myself. I’m showing you how society is hard on me. I’m illuminating the things that society thinks about me, says about me. I’m illuminating the things you think about other fat people, the things you say about other fat people, the strangers. The things you wouldn’t dare say to me because you like me.

When I say that I’ll never be pretty enough, never be thin enough, I’m not being hard on me. I’m saying what folks are thinking, what you’ve thought about others. When I say I’m too fat to be loved, you tell me that’s not true. You tell me I’m a beautiful person that deserves all the love and that anyone that doesn’t see that is stupid. But you’ve looked at someone less attractive, you’ve looked at someone fat, and you’ve thought, “How did THEY get someone? Somebody actually fucks THAT?” You’ve thought that about other people and other people have thought that about me.

And if we’re going to be 100% honest, if I were to find myself in the company of a person perceived by society to be out of my league, someone conventionally attractive, while you would be happy for me, I have no doubt, a tiny part of you would also be wondering, “Why are THEY with HER?”

Because it’s an extraordinary thing when someone goes against society’s expectations and instead jives with their heart.

When I talk about being fat, you think I’m talking about myself.

But really…I’m talking about you.

Representation Matters (My Writing Included)

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

ghostbusters“I can think of seven good uses for a cadaver today.” -Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) in Ghostbusters

Thanks to an empty theater (one of the blessings of living in a cornfield; Thursday matinees are like private showings after about the first week of a new release), my roommate had no worries about disturbing anyone when she looked at me and said, “That’s you.”

And she’s not wrong. I do know seven good uses for a cadaver and probably seven more inappropriate ones. But it was really cool to see that weird aspect of myself verbalized on the screen in a major motion picture. Things like that happen so intermittently for a weirdo like me.

Representation matters. I strongly believe this. I strongly believe that it’s important for people to see themselves or aspects of themselves represented in stories, whether they’re movies, TV shows, or books. So while I left that showing of Ghostbusters feeling pretty empowered by seeing four women I could relate to and who reflected aspects of my existence back at me (please do not debate me on whether or not the movie was good based on your white man “well actually” perspective; I hate-watch Jason Takes Manhattan every time it comes on, so your detailed bullshit analysis is wasted on me), I’ve been thinking about representation in my own work ever since.

I acknowledge that I struggle with it.

I struggle because I’m very mindful about getting it right. I know representation matters, but I don’t want to just throw those characters into a story just so my work appears to be diverse. I want to present an accurate representation. And that’s hard for me. I don’t like to fuck up in this particular arena.

When it comes to fat, white women, I got you covered. That’s something I don’t even think about writing because, well, that’s just writing me. I have no trouble writing white men of any size because that’s the default norm. I believe that I’d have no trouble writing bisexuals of either gender or gay or lesbian characters as I am bisexual and I’ve known and loved enough gay men and lesbian women in my time that I believe that I could accurately represent them. I’ve ventured very tentatively into representing other races and letters of the LGBT+ (both in the same novellas, oddly enough; Art, who’s Puerto Rican, and Riley, who’s transgendered, both appeared in the Ivy Russell novellas). I tried to venture into that territory as carefully and as conscientiously as I could, but I’m still worried that I didn’t do either character justice, that I got something about those representations wrong. They weren’t meant to be plot devices or fill a diversity quota; they were meant to be real, fully developed characters. For that to happen, the representation needs to be accurate.

I admit to cheating a lot when it comes to representation in my short stories. The main character in my short stories rarely gets any physical description so the reader can project whatever they want to on them for a short time. It’s sort of a lazy trick of representation. Here, you do the work and see this character how you want to see them based on the personality traits revealed and the emotions conveyed in the story. While I don’t think being a reader should be a completely passive experience, I do think that there are times that I, the writer, need to put in a little more effort.

Okay, a lot more.

Representation is something that I think I’m always going to struggle with, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Struggle leads to change and growth.

And I’m all about growing into a better writer.

The Generosity of the Universe

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

coinsI’ve not gotten much in the way of creative work done this month. I’ve got several different ideas for projects. I’m working on several different projects. I’ve written or started writing a couple of blog posts that I never got around to posting. But I haven’t had much energy to really put into it. Most of my brain has been wrapped up in trying to come up with the money to pay some bills.

When it comes to the generosity of the universe, I believe in it, but with an asterisk. As in, I believe in it for everyone else, but not for myself.

As a rule, I don’t think I should ever ask for help. Period. End of. Never. I believe that if I want something, then I should work harder and if I need something and I’m not getting it, well, it’s my fault because I’m not working hard enough. I don’t think these things about other people. They ask for help, they get help, sometimes I’m the helper if I can, and it’s all groovy. But me? No.

And on the rare occasions that I do ask for help, I’m usually turned down. I’m either ignored or given an excuse or worse, told that they’ll help, but then they don’t. It’s hard for people to help someone that never asks for it because they don’t know how to respond to it. It’s foreign territory.

Anyway, with the bills looming, I knew that I was going to have to come up with something to at least cover part of them. I’d had the idea for the Storytime Jukebox, but I knew that if I did it, it would probably be ignored. But it got to the point that I had no other option. So, I said “fuck it” and got it going. I decided that whatever I got from it, I would be grateful for it. Any little bit helps.

I did my best to maintain that attitude towards it. Gratitude. Be grateful for every retweet, every like, every link share, and every penny I got. And I did think I would get a few pennies. I knew some people would be game and give me a couple of dollars for my stories and I would be happy with that. I chose to approach this with gratitude.

Maybe the Universe appreciated this. Maybe I just underestimated the current people occupying my bit of world. Maybe my gratitude brought out the generosity. Whatever it was, the response to my request for help was overwhelming. It was more than I had expected by a long shot. At one point I thought if I raised enough money to just cover the cost of renewing the blog, that would be a huge achievement. In the end, in only a matter of a few weeks, the entire amount I needed was covered.

In addition to getting the money I needed from some pretty spectacular folks, I also learned a valuable lesson that I was long overdue for learning.

The generosity of the universe is a real thing and since I am part of the Universe, that generosity applies to me, too. I’m not exempt from it.

And my gratitude is endless.

The Storytime Jukebox

~ Kiki Writes ~ 4 Comments

worldartsme.com

***UPDATE***

My goal has been reached!

My undying thanks to those that contributed to the Storytime Jukebox, whether you put money in it or shared the link or sent me positive vibes. You are all wonderful, your generosity is overwhelming, and my appreciation is eternal. The bills will be paid and the writing lights will stay on! Hallelujah!

I’m going to keep the Storytime Jukebox going. The immediate need for it has passed, but it turns out that it’s a nice little niche to stick the odd story that has no home in and give it a chance to be read if someone is willing to pay a nickle or a dime or a quarter. Another crucifix against the Count Income Interruptus.

Once again, I can’t thank everyone who supported me enough because just saying “thank you” doesn’t seem sufficient. But know that those two little words come directly from my heart.

***

***UPDATE***

I’m about half-way to my goal. Thanks to everyone who has helped me out so far!

To celebrate the milestone, I’ve added two novellas to the Storytime Jukebox: The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys from Ghostly and The Monster in the Woods from People Are Terrible. Both contain an author’s note that’s exclusive to the Storytime Jukebox.

So, if you haven’t got either of these short story collections or if you have and you’re dying to know where I got the ideas for these novellas, shine up your nickles and drop them in the machine!

***

Let’s be honest about the nickels and dimes here: 2016 has not been a prosperous one for me. I’ve experienced a lot of income interruptus with both of my day jobs. Considering that they’re not exactly high-paying to begin with, any kind of money-flow hiccup is felt (and the biggest of all is coming very soon). The repeated hiccups this year have me feeling like I did during that one softball game as a kid when I got drilled in the same spot on my hip three at-bats in a row. That bruise didn’t heal until school started.

Well, to carry the analogy as far as I can before it gets ridiculous, my money bruise has barely even begun to heal and I’m facing another pitcher that wouldn’t mind dinging me.

In an attempt to earn the money I’m needing, I’ve set up this Storytime Jukebox. It works on the same basic principle as a regular jukebox: You pay what you want and I send you a story (or stories) of your choice from the list.

The goal is to raise $150 by the end of August. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but right now to me, it’s an incredible sum. I’m hoping this is the way to do it, or at the very least, help. The money is to keep the lights of my writing career on, so to speak (blog renewal, Microsoft Office renewal, etc.).

This is a new venture for me and I’m sure there’s lots of room for improvement. Any constructive feedback is welcomed.

So, if you’d like to help this broke writer in exchange for some pretty good stories to read, I’d very much appreciate it.

And as always, sharing is caring. The more people know, the better the chances of me reaching my goal.