Is it possible to have two projects going at the same time?

Yes, of course it is, but perhaps a common challenge for writers is that it feels, somehow, risky, to have two projects going at the same time. Like learning two languages in tandem … it’s easy to get mixed up.

So this past month of reading:

📔 “We Need Your Art” by Amie McNee @inspiredtowrite encouraged me to get over that superstition of “one project only!” – indirectly, with the two week reset of small, bare minimum and bare maximum projects. It’s been great to get back into writing.

📘”Alchemy of the Holy Week” by Dennis Klocek is a beautiful, short book, written in his inimitable colloquial style (taken from lectures) and using the processes of internal picturing before going to sleep and upon waking.

📙 “Influence” by Robert Cialdini, one of the most famous marketing tomes of all time, and for good reason. But unfortunately, by shedding light on so many of half-conscious social maneuvers we engage in over and over, it always leaves a person wondering: does this stranger actually like me or have shared interests, or did they develop that as a strategy to manipulate me? A bit of a dark read.

📗 “According to Matthew” by Rudolf Steiner. Not possible to summarize, so simply: the meaning of 42 generations described in the Matthew gospel, and many other things.

📕 “Sinister Forces” by Peter Levenda. One of the better conspiracy theory books I’ve ever read. Did you know the phrase Psychological Warfare comes from the German Weltanschauungskrieg (Worldview warfare)?

bookstagram #bookreport #apophenia #eclectic #esotericstudies

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Very soon I will be launching my first book: Apophenia Gold. It’s a story about the hidden beings behind contemporary issues, set as a roadtrip mystery with angels and auras, monks, wanderers, avatars, and invisible beings. And, it includes a bunch of stuff about electricity and frequencies. Like my booksta, it’s eclectic.

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Writing a book is a rather different process than I anticipated! I’ve started many books over the years (at least six prior unfinished books existed at one point) – but this is the first one I finished writing.

The first draft arrived like magic, almost whole in Lent of 2022, and the final draft took the next three years.

For a long time- years – I thought I could get away with avoiding marketing. That somehow the book would share itself, find its people, get itself published.

That’s not how it works.

As my husband says, himself a lifelong creator and maker of projects: You need to build the lanes, set up all the pins, and roll the ball. (I don’t bowl, not sure if I got that terminology right. You get the picture.)

There were edits and re-edits and further edits and then giant pauses, followed by major re-edits. Friends and colleagues helped and guided and supported.

And then there was the technical side:
📖 Making the print ready PDF (a full day of fiddling with Scrivener.)
🧌 Formatting the export for kindle. (Yet another day trying to see through Scrivener.)
🎤 Recording the entire book, read by me, so that I could be sure I liked how it sounded. (That took a week.)
© Registering for copyright, getting ISBNs. (An afternoon.)
📕 Uploading to KDP, getting proofs, revising (A couple of days.)

What’s next?

Right, here’s a two sentence book summary!

Apophenia Gold is a roadtrip mystery, speculative fiction, set in the modern material world and seen through a spiritual lens. There are angels and fear-demons, auras and in-between beings, chthonic monsters and the lie beasties we create ourselves.

authorsnote #apophenia #Writergram #bookstagram #publishing #angelsandauras #hiddenbeings

I’m not even publishing all the rewrites. 😂 I thought this one was okay, what do you think?

“You have, as you know, skills that are rare. Yet, you have chosen to remain silent about these skills, even going so far as to obscure them. Few do this.”

Honey Savannah reads this line, which arrived by sleight-of-hand.

She tallies up her rare skills, and wonders how she can justify trusting the letter-writer. Because she would like to set off on the mission he describes.

Rare skills: synesthesia about voices. She hears them all in full color. And there’s her ability to change her own voice, with the texture equivalent of perfect pitch. She gigs as an audiobook narrator.

There is her pseudonym, and the hidden work, running a conspiracy tracking website.

And there are the subtle perceptions. Lies smell like sulphur. Auras gleam, and demons and angels sometimes appear with sideways glances.

Honey must find out what this mission is about. Four days later, she has a new ID, a new gold credit card, and a new alliance with The Magician. She is staying at an inn outside Savannah, notorious for its clientele.

And the apocalyptic moment opens up. The world precipice. She watches it happen.

Have you read any of these books? Or do you have a suggestion for books like this?

Before I write a book, I read a lot. Like many on bookstagram, it is normal for me to read two or three books in a week. If I have a free day, I’ll read a book.

But when I’m writing a novel, I go on a book fast – except for current research. For book three, I’ve been reading a lot about electricity. This is one of my semi-obsessions. We live off grid and built several of the electrical systems we use. Once we started sleeping in a house that didn’t have AC running behind the walls, I understood – viscerally – that electricity is a frequency, and we can feel it.

Please enjoy this little reading list. Let me know if you have read any of these books too and what you thought?