So, April was pretty much a wash for getting anything done, because I had two different trips I took plus two birthdays. And May was mostly lost to COVID. So here we are in June and I'm realizing that this blog hasn't had an update in a while and so you don't know my news!
I finally, FINALLY got a book deal. It is an extremely small book deal with a very tiny, new publisher. But I did my due diligence and they are neither a scam nor complete amateurs, so I think they will do a good job with my books.
Yes, that's books plural, they want the entire solar sailing trilogy. I've been feeling like the world needed more historically-inspired, low-tech space opera, centering the struggles of the common man. Or, in this case, woman. So I wrote one, and then I hadn't managed to fit in all the interesting worldbuilding I'd dreamed up, so I wrote another, and I'm working on the third. And these will ALL be coming to you, starting next summer! With pretty covers and available from major online booksellers!
It's very exciting. I know that publishing on this level, without an agent and separately from the publishing oligopoly (I can't remember if it's Big Five still or Big Four but it's Few Options, anyway) means I won't be selling thousands of copies, becoming famous, or making millions. But it's a chance to reach the select batch of people who will enjoy these books. And lots of authors do start here and gradually build a much bigger following. But honestly, what I wanted was to be picked by a non-me person (eg, not self publishing) and then to be read without having to nag my friends and family to do it as a favor. Which I will finally accomplish.
Now, there's a little snag, which I knew was coming if I ever published these things. The books have a lesbian romance in them. I knew some people wouldn't approve. Other people would start asking questions about me that I haven't answered, at least not in their presence.
I could, of course, try to pretend that I have written *counts on fingers* four novels now with queer romances in them as an exercise in empathy. But I doubt anybody would believe me, and in any event it wouldn't make me happy. The second you begin to doubt whether people would love you if they knew the truth about you, it starts to feel like they already don't love you. Because after all, the only you they have access to is the one with the uncomfortable truths edited out. They love that one, but it isn't you.
Anyway, I am bisexual, and I didn't hide it, and a lot of people got upset about it when they figured it out. Some people seem to think bisexual means that I sleep with a lot of people. (I do not. I am a boring monogamous married lady.) Or that I'm basically straight but want attention. (I would honestly prefer less attention, at least for this.) What it really is, is that some of the things I imagine and dream of and relate to, are women falling for women, so that's what I write. And people could just accept this as a normal thing that people do. But they don't, so I feel the need to explain myself. To say, sure, this is a thing I feel.
It puzzles me that some Catholics disapprove of me because of this. I mean, I left the church some time ago. That was, by Catholic standards, a sin. Feeling butterflies in my stomach because a pretty woman smiled at me is not a sin. It's simply a feeling. You could, I suppose, urge me to try not to feel that way, to pretend I don't, to write only universes in which those feelings never happen, to write only some of the romances I think are beautiful.
But why would I do that?
When I was Catholic, the idea that gay marriage and gay relationships were wrong was a thing I simply had to take on faith. And I no longer have any faith. There is no reason why I should condemn them; there never was. And it just feels better not to second-guess half my feelings, to treat half of myself as broken. I don't feel that I am.
Anyway, if the idea of a Navy midshipman and a notorious pirate falling in love while pushing back against two dystopian governments appeals to you . . . you'll have to wait about a year because publishing is slow, but I'll share the links here when I have them.