Andrea Maxand's Blog: New Novel in October!, page 2

Holiday Giveaway

It’s a holiday giveaway!

Since it’s the season of giving, and since “Boxing Day” is a novella set during the holiday season, I thought it would be a great time to run a giveaway on Goodreads.

It lasts from Dec. 14 through Dec. 27 (the day after Boxing Day, of course.) So if you win, you can prolong your holiday season by reading the novella! (Personally, I’m prolonging my holiday season through the month of January.)

Details of the giveaway are below. Good luck, and Happy Holidays!

Goodreads Book Giveaway







Boxing Day



by Andrea Maxand

Giveaway ends December 27, 2020.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway

2020

What a crazy year.

Hardly an original thought, I know. We’re all thinking it. But it bears repeating: what a crazy year.

There are too many events, themes, horrors, victories, more horrors, and metric tons of WTF?! that marked this year to seriously think about addressing well: any of it. I hope, if you’re reading this, that you’re holding you and yours together and finding some calm in the sh*tstorm.

I do have a few author-y update type things.

I’ve been working on a sequel to “Boxing Day.” I’m really happy with how it’s shaping up, and for anyone who read “Boxing Day” but felt that it ended a bit abruptly, well, this sequel will (hopefully) help soothe that sensation of abruptness. That’s the good news (if you were wanting a sequel). The bad news (if you were waiting for the sequel) is that it won’t be finished until likely the first half of next year. Why? Well, I’m working on my Master’s thesis now. That’s one reason. And the other reason is the insanity that has been 2020. Since I’m self-published, and since I don’t currently earn my living writing, I decided extending the publish date for the sequel was the best and healthiest decision: both for me, and for the sequel, too.

I will be offering “Boxing Day” for $0.99 during the Big Holiday Week (or the period of 7 days that covers both Christmas and Boxing Day) on Amazon Kindle. At the end of the promotion, the novella will be one year old, and I’ll be shifting all my fiction-writing focus to the sequel. I’ve run several promotions on “Boxing Day” this year, but it’s time to write new stuff and publish it before I do any more promoting of stuff I’ve already written and published.

I’d like to thank everyone who has read “Boxing Day,” or who has added it on “Goodreads,” or reviewed it. I wrote it as a challenge to myself to simply finish a piece of writing, for better or worse. It’s been fun to meet some new people as result of launching this “finished piece of writing” out into the world. Be careful out there and take care of each other.

Boxing Day: Christmas in July

Just a quick update: running a promotion on my novella, “Boxing Day” for Christmas in July. (It’s July! It’s Christmas! In July!) It will be available for a reduced price for all of Christmas in July week. Promotional price starts at midnight tonight (the wee hours of July 20) PDT.

Otherwise, this is a crazy time to be alive. Hang in there out there.

heavy sh*t

I live alone, and for the most part, I like it that way. I’m one of those odd ducks who likes to be alone, most of the time. If I have a few friends I can confide in — I’m not completely inhuman — alone works just fine for me, most of the time.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, alone-ness has taken on a new quality. People are dying; I think about dying alone. Everyone who dies in a hospital of COVID-19 dies alone, because family/friends are kept from visiting so they don’t contract/spread the disease.

I’ve thought about this before. I’d rather die alone than die with people I don’t like around me. (And hey, I know this sounds morbid. But we all die. If not of COVID-19, of something.) Death itself is a lonely thing. No one can go with you when you die.

The stats roll by. I can’t get used to them. More dead and more dead and more dead. Would I get used to them if I didn’t live alone? If I had children to care for? Maybe. I’m not used to them. Every day it is a raw and growing wound. People are dying. People who are somebody’s mother, father, brother, sister, child. Friend. I am not used to it.

It slows me down emotionally. It slows down my brain. I feel defective because I can’t always summon a positive attitude. (I appreciate the people spreading positivity during hard times. That has never been my thing. I’m the person who brings up the uncomfortable stuff, with faltering clarity and articulacy.) I social distance. I clean surfaces. I wash my hands. I work. (From home.) I keep on track with my graduate degree in history. (Online.) But it’s hard to picture the future. And picturing the future is always what keeps me going. Even during hard times. Especially during hard times.

I can’t get used to the numbers. The deaths. I try to use snippets of spare time to write, and I can’t stop thinking about the deaths. The deaths that didn’t need to happen. The deaths that are largely the result of incompetence. And indifference. I am not okay with this. I am not used to this. I will never be used to this.

 

 

update and quiche

Since this is an “author blog” now, I guess (I suppose) I should update it at least semi-regularly.

I’m currently writing a sequel to “Boxing Day.” There are several books I need to read in order to prepare to write, so right now I’m doing tons of reading and some writing. Regardless, the date I’ve set to publish the sequel is June 21, 2020. Like “Boxing Day” it will be novella-length.

What else? I’ll be running a promotion on “Boxing Day” in late March or early April through Amazon Kindle. So uh – watch for that!

Otherwise: I’ve been getting into making quiche. I don’t feel as if I’ve compiled enough quiche-making data to provide any tips, other than that if you’ve heard it’s good to pre-bake the crust: that is correct. I’m really excited about quiche, though, because I love any food that comes in a pie. So I’m sure I’ll be blogging about quiche more in the future.

That’s all. For now.

 

free book preview

Preview “Boxing Day” for free below.  Just click the “Free Preview” link at the bottom of the page.

Otherwise, I hope everyone has been having a good — or at least tolerable — holiday season. I’ll be back to doing sporadic and rambling blogs about this and that and the other thing soon-ish.

free words on Boxing Day!

“Boxing Day” is now available from Kindle for free until December 30th.

If you don’t have a Kindle, you can read Kindle books on the Kindle app. (I did that for a couple years, myself, until I finally purchased a Kindle device.)

If you download the book, then read the book, and you like it, please consider leaving a good review for it on Amazon. Positive reviews really help, and are deeply appreciated!

This is a promotional blog, but I’ll be back to blogging here, from time to time, about this and that, not about my own books, and not necessarily about books at all.

Happy Boxing Day!

 

 

Boxing Day (a marketing blog)

The story has been released! It’s on Kindle now (and for right now, on Kindle only.) What is it about? Hmmm. People who work in a cafe. People just trying to get through the holidays (as many of us do.) Mysterious people. Industrious people. People with broken dreams, people who need people …. okay I’m veering into the cheesy realm.

There are several scenes that take place in the cafe, so if you’re into cafes and diner food, this is probably your thing.

What else is there? Adultery, loneliness, trains, some dancing, a lot of driving around. It’s set near Seattle, in a fictional Pacific Northwest town.

I set two goals in mid-October: one was to release a story by Christmas, and the other was to write a story about people getting through the holiday season and not having such a perfect time of it – but making it anyway.

This story is short for something sold as a book: about sixty-two pages, or 17,500 words. That’s right on the borderline between a quaint literary form called the “novelette” and a novella. So I suppose it could be called either thing.

Anyway, I do hope people will read it, of course. If you’re scared to purchase an entire 62 pages from an unknown writer, I’ll be running a five-day free promotion of the book starting on December 26, or Boxing Day. Coincidentally, the book is also called “Boxing Day.”

I might blog again before the end of the holiday season, but if I don’t, have a happy one if it’s natural for you, but if it isn’t, that’s okay too. Just stay alive. You’re not obligated to do anything but take care of yourself.

If you want to sample or purchase ‘Boxing Day,” here is a link:

THIS IS THE LINK TO PURCHASE OR SAMPLE “Boxing Day.”

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short book

Blogging merely because I haven’t blogged in awhile, and also because I’ve set myself a deadline to finish a story and publish it (that’s self-publish to you) before Christmas.

It’s not going to come in a fancy package, this story. I’m releasing it via Kindle, and I’m using their cover creator, even though I know this is not the best way to make your book stand out. But I have reasons for doing this. Here they are.

This is actually not going to be a novel, it’s going to be much shorter. Shorter, even, than a novella. I’ve been informed if your story is longer than a short story and shorter than a novella, it’s properly called a novelette. So this will be a novelette. It’s a long short story. It’s not a first novel.
Given that this is not a first novel, I’m not willing to stretch the budget for it for the sake of my vanity. I currently work part time and I’m in grad school. The budget is unforgiving. I can’t pay someone for an awesome book cover this time. (And I’m a crappy photographer.)
I have a need to “just publish something.” It’s like an itch I desperately need to scratch.
My main intention with this little novelette is to meet my goal of writing something,  finishing it, and letting it go. Publishing on Kindle using their cover creator allows me to fulfill that goal. And it’s free, hurray!
I finished writing an actual first novel during the course of this year. I have a hunch if I publish something that is not my novel (like this Christmas novelette) I will have scratched the “just publish something” itch, and I’ll be more willing to send my actual novel out to publishers so I can enjoy having it rejected. I mean. How will I ever feel like a real writer unless I can legitimately boast of how many times I’ve been rejected?

So those are my reasons. Yes, a well designed cover is essential if you want your book to stand out. But I’m not sure that’s what I want for this scrappy little novelette. I just want it to exist, as a finished thing that I worked on, then let go.

And now, because I’m procrastinating editing this short book (the novelette) I guess I’ll go do that.

meetings

I keep remembering these certain last moments with Dad, during the last two months of his life. I originally posted a lot of these stories on my Facebook page, in a sort of stream of consciousness outpouring of memory, the year after Dad died. But certain memories keep cycling back, so I thought I might blog a few of them.

***

After Dad’s last hospital stay–in July, which was really the beginning of the end–he had to go to a rehabilitation facility to get stronger before he could return home. While he was there, I called and visited several times per week. The staff scheduled a “status” conference to decide what Dad’s discharge and/or treatment plan should be. Besides Dad, the attendees of the conference were a doctor, the facility’s administrator, an occupational therapist, and me.

The meeting was in this claustrophobic conference room with no windows. The long table where the staff and I were sitting, waiting for Dad, took up almost the entire room. There was barely any room to pull back your chair.

At the head of the table, space had been left for Dad; but no chair had been set for him. The expectation was that Dad, ostensibly still too weak to walk, would be wheeled in via wheelchair. The door to the conference room had been left open, and I could hear the noises of daily life at the facility spilling into the hall.

Dad was late. And then, there was the sound of a walker rolling down the hall, and Dad came in, pushing the walker with enthusiasm. He had a fresh haircut* and was dressed in clean clothes. He smiled widely and said hello to everyone. The staff had to scramble to find him a chair to sit in. Then, once he was seated, he smiled around at everyone again, banged his hands on the table, and said: “Let’s get this thing started!”

He knew what he was doing, because the entire meeting seemed to have been set up to convince him he was failing, in every possible way: mentally, and physically. They discussed his kidney values, his strength, his cognitive test results. And through it all he maintained an alert, respectful demeanor that I marveled at. Because I was seething through the entire meeting. I knew Dad didn’t like to be treated like a baby, and that’s how they were treating him, I felt. But if that’s how he felt, too, he didn’t let on. (Though he did let on to me how he had felt later. After the meeting.)

He left the facility to go home several days later. It would be the last month of his life. The memory of Dad destroying the rehab facility’s staff’s staging of his “status” conference makes me laugh every time I think of it. He didn’t play their game. He won that round.

Bravo, Dad.

*There was a barbershop/salon on the premises, so this is possible. Either that, or he just had the look of a fresh haircut that day.