Simone Shirazi's Blog
October 14, 2022
December 30, 2021
Once Upon a One Night Mistake Has Been Published!
I will tell you all straight off the bat: I never expected this to happen.
Once Upon a One Night Mistake (previously titled Once Upon a One Night Stand) was just a silly little story I started writing for fun—and escape—at 14 in 2007 on a website called FictionPress. It was my first foray into writing original fiction on the internet, an exercise in creativity for a teenager who really never thought she’d go anywhere with writing.
But more than 60 million reads later, that silly little sto...
July 15, 2021
Once Upon a One Night… – New Title, Same Story!
How many people here can claim that they got their publisher (temporarily) banned from advertising on Facebook? Anyone? No?
Well, I can!
Let me start by saying it was an absolute accident. I didn’t mean it, I swear! But as it turns out, a lot of advertising companies and sites don’t like promoting anything that they believe to be “mature content.” And with a title like Once Upon a One Night Stand, I can see why they’d think my book was mature and want to pump the brakes. The thing is thou...
March 27, 2021
The Return of All That is Gold
Back in January 2020, I removed one of my most popular stories from Wattpad. That story was called All That is Gold. I wrote a post about why I was removing it, but the gist of it was this: it no longer made me happy to have it posted online. So I took it down.
I’ve gotten hundreds of messages asking me why I took it down and if it would ever come back. For the longest time, I directed people to that post where I said I wasn’t sure if it would ever be back. And for a year, I really wasn’t sur...
January 30, 2021
Simone Read What? – January ’21
Ah, 2021! A new year full of unknowns! One of those unknowns? How many books I’m going to be able to read this year.
Last year, I was ambitious and set my Goodreads Challenge goal to 60 books. Considering how many books I’d read in 2019, that seemed reasonable. But then the world caught on fire and everything changed, and I only managed to read a paltry (for me) 45 books. For 2021, I knew my life was going to be just as chaotic as it was in 2020, so I decided to be kind to myself and make my ...
January 25, 2021
My (Updated) TBR List
I have a problem. And that problem is that I keep buying books. I can’t help myself! I love books! I love supporting authors! I love looking at all their beautiful covers on my shelves! They bring me joy!
Okay, maybe that isn’t really a problem. But what is an issue is the fact that it takes me forever to even read most of the books I buy. Most of my shelves at this point consist of unread books. I can tell you for certain that I wouldn’t have hundreds of books if I’d actually read all of the...
January 9, 2021
My Favorite Reads of 2020
Ah, 2020. What a year, one I’d rather not ever have to relive! Please don’t send time machines back there, it’s not worth it!
I set lofty goals for myself on January 1, hoping I’d be able to read 60 books in 365 days. I’d read 50 the year before, so what was 10 more? Plus, with as much as I was traveling at the end of 2019, I had plenty of uninterrupted reading time on planes and trains. I assumed that would carry over into 2020.
Ha. Right. I think we all know how that turned out.
In t...
December 31, 2020
Simone Read What? – November & December ’20
Happy almost 2021! I cannot wait to put this year behind me. While professionally this year has certainly been the best of my life, everything else sucked! A lot! And that included my reading.
At the beginning of the year, I had the lofty goal of reading 60 books. It really didn’t seem like that big of a number, especially considering I managed to read 50 books in 2019. Plus, with my schedule and all the traveling I was doing in the second half of 2019 and the start of 2020 (before Everything...
October 30, 2020
Simone Read What? – September & October
Am I finally reading books again? Do I actually have something to review? I don’t think anyone would be surprised if I didn’t, considering how bad my reading slump was this summer. (Spoiler: it was really bad) Well, y’all… I finally managed to read a few books.
Honestly, I’m just as surprised as you are. I still wouldn’t say I’m out of my slump; most of the books I read over the past two months were for work research purposes and because I decided to try a free trial of Kindle Unlimited. Stil...
September 9, 2020
Once Upon a One Night Mistake – Story Seasons & Updated FAQ
If you’ve been keeping up with the new chapters of Once Upon a One Night Mistake (previously titled “Once Upon a One Night Stand”) or Roses & Thorns on Radish, you’ve probably noticed how those stories are now split into a little something called “seasons.”
What are these seasons, you ask? Well, it’s a new organizational tool for stories. Think of them like seasons of a TV show, only for books! For longer stories, grouping chapters into seasons can help break things up so you’re not so overw...
