Piper Shelly's Blog, page 262

Its name was little bird

A story.

Today, I’m not going to tell you anything new about my books or what’s going on in my writing world. What I want to tell you now is something that happened to me this week.

 

On Wednesday afternoon, my son came home, quite excited, and showed my husband and me what he’d found. In his hands, he held a baby blackbird. That wee little something was only about two inches tall and scared as heck.

 

I don’t like birds.

 

He’d found the poor thing under a tree in front of our house. Apparently, it hadn’t moved or chirped. There are lots of cats in our neighborhood—I have two myself—and to my son it was clear that the bird wouldn’t survive another couple of hours if he’d left it under that tree to fend for its own.

My husband likes animals, but he doesn’t like to interfere with the circle of life, so he would have liked my son to put the bird back under that tree.

Well, I’m a little different. I’m like my son (or he’s like me) – I just can’t look away when animals are suffering; it doesn’t matter if I like them or not. So I decided the bird was going to stay. I took it to my writing room, the only place where I can lock the door, and researched for information on how to nurse a baby bird. Well, it didn’t sound too difficult, just very time-consuming. I was ready to do whatever was necessary.

On Thursday, I tried to feed it with gruel (that’s what the local vet told me to give it) and guess what, my husband even went out and caught some insects for the little fella, too.

Feeding the bird was a hard job. Sometimes it would open its beak but I didn’t get the food in. Other times the gruel landed in its mouth but came out again. Well, I’m not a bird; I had to learn how to do it right.

In the evening, I finally got the hang of it. Whenever I put the bird into the nest I built up on a shelf for it (so it would feel like back in the tree, you know) and grabbed the bowl with the food, I only had to whistle once and the baby bird opened its beak, chirping loudly. If I took too long to get something prepared to stuff down its throat, it used to get impatient and fluttered on my head, which made me jump out of my skin the first time. And all the following times, too.

 

The little bird started to grow on me.

 

The baby blackbird was allowed to run around on the floor or sit on furniture. Yes, there was a lot of acute cleaning to do, but I didn’t mind. Sometimes I took the bird out into the garden so it could learn to fly. It wasn’t able to start off from the ground, but it took off from my hand and glided down, flapping its wings fast. That was good training.

On Friday, it finally started picking ants and other little things from the grass. I released a deep breath, because it looked like the bird was over the hump. If it knew how to find food, it had a chance to survive outside.

By this time, the little thing and I had grown so close, that it followed me everywhere. I only had to lower my hand and it jumped right onto it. The bird liked to be carried around. I guess I’d become “the mother bird” so I also figured it was time to give the nestling a name. After all, I was going to keep it until it was ready to fend for itself. And who could know, maybe one day it would come back and sing me a song …

 

I loved this little bird.

 

However, the name giving troubled me. There should be the letter I in it was all I knew, so I tried all kinds of names that I could think of. Minnie, Winnie, Micki, Phillie, Lili, Twinki, Tink. But nothing really fit. I gave up in the evening and decided to try again today. We’d bought a little cage to put it in at night, so it wouldn’t wander around in the dark and get caught behind the radiator or something. It inspected the cage with interest and some excitement, but when I turned off the light, it happily settled down to rest. I was sure, in only a few more days, my little foundling would become a fine lady bird and fly out through my window.

But when I walked into my writing room this morning, there was no happy bird greeting me like the days before. In fact, the bird looked unnaturally exhausted. I took it out of the cage and put it on the floor, as always. It didn’t run around, curious as it used to be. Instead it fell asleep wherever I put it. And while sleeping it chirped once every few seconds.

 

Something was off.

 

I sat it in the crook of my elbow, its favorite place to be, and let it sleep there for a while. But after some time, the bird started to tip over. It quickly straightened again, but it kept falling to the side. And the chirping stopped.

This was when I figured out that it wasn’t just an exhaustion the bird was suffering from. It was going to die.

My heart was already aching.

I don’t know what I did wrong. Maybe I fed it too much or with the wrong food, or it drank too little. What if I touched it too often and it got ill somehow? Or maybe it just couldn’t stomach being in the cage over night or it could be the training was too hard. I really don’t know. But whatever I did wrong, I’m sorry about it.

The little bird’s death struggle went on for a few hours, where during the last hour I held it in my hands the entire time. Sometimes I would whistle softly or just speak to it so it knew I was there, and it opened its eyes again. In the end the little bird’s breaths slowed and set out for seconds at a stretch. It fought to come back time and time again. Death throes are terrible to watch. But all I could do was hold it and talk to it and pray that it would be over soon. And cry.

And well, crying is what I did a lot today. I buried the baby bird under a tree in front of our house and put some daisies on the grave. Even now, as I’m writing this, I can’t stop the tears from streaming down. I know it’s silly, because I only had this animal for three days and then I’m grown up and all and should know better. But still.

 

Just little bird is the name I gave it in the end, because it’s the only name I ever really called it. In a strange way, I’m thankful that my son brought me the foundling. It’s been a special few days. Since the little bird never learned to fly, I hope an angel carried it to paradise where it now can sit in a tree and happily chirp all day…

 

I miss my little bird.

 

 

 

What’s happening to TONY?

Hey folks,

 

Some of you may have noticed that T IS FOR…, the third book in the Grover Beach Team series is currently not available on Amazon or elsewhere. Don’t panic! Everything’s all right.

The GBT series was originally meant to be one of novellas and short novels. T IS FOR… with its 97,000 words was far too long to fit into that scheme. Also, the editing wasn’t very well, which I only realized while I was translating the book into German these past few weeks.

I have a wonderful editor now. She already did a great job on all my other books and is currently working on Tony’s too. However, this will take another little while, and when edits are finished, I’m going to re-release the story in two volumes. There will be no change in the story or the chapter structure. The book will merely be split up in the middle.

The title of book 1 will stay the same, T IS FOR…

Book 2 will be titled KISS WITH CHERRY FLAVOR

I’ll give out a fair warning with the summary of the books on every internet retailer and sales platform. Customers, who actually read the blurb before buying a book, will notice what’s going on. No big deal.

I also put some serious thought into the book covers. Both show the same picture, but the first is kept in black and white. This way you will know the books belong together but are really two books you need to get.

 

My apologies, if these changes confuse you. But I want the series to stick to a certain consistency. If you already read T IS FOR… in the past, don’t buy the books again. You’ll find nothing new in them. If you buy them anyway, please don’t hold me responsible for any wasted money.

The book you want to buy next is BOOK 5 in the series.

It’s about Susan Miller and her love interest. I’m not yet sure, but I might write a companion book to hers too, like I did with Liza & Ryan Hunter. This means, book 6 in the GBT series could be Susan’s story from the guy’s POV. No promises at this point! ;-)

 

xoxo

Anna

DMCA – To all the book hacker assholes out there!

I’m generally known as a friendly person. I work really hard on being one. But there’s one thing in the book world that seriously pisses me off and brings out the worst in me.

Book hacker sites! Also known as book piracy sites.

If you ever uploaded a book to such a site, YOU are an ASSHOLE.

And if you’re downloading books from there… finish the sentence yourself as you see fit.

Maybe you’re waiting for an excuse for my being so rude now, but I’m not going to. Because the truth is I’m so mad right now that I’m actually shaking. And the rude person is YOU.

Do you want to know what it takes for us authors to get those sites to take down our books?

Now, do you want to know the conditions for uploading any author’s books to this site? There are none! You’re free to go. No rules, no conditions, no legal punishment. No nothing. Fair…isn’t it? :)

 

Please let me explain now why you’re an asshole.

 

First, I want you to boot up your brain and do some simple math.

Writing my debut novel took me two years and a half. I had a part time job back then, came home at noon, started my computer and wrote for additional 8 hours every day. EVEN ON WEEKENDS!

How many writing hours are that, can somebody sum this up for us, please? No? Okay, I’ll do it for you.

8 hours * (365+365+182) = 7.296 hours for SUMMER OF MY SECRET ANGEL

I’m married and have a son. This is time I DID NOT spend with them. Time I DID NOT go out with friends or shopping or for walks or just relax on the couch or read or watch a movie. It’s fucking time I SPENT working for YOU!

Do you have a job? I hope you do. Let’s say it’s a 9 to 5 job and you’re getting paid, what, $15 an hour?

So, writing the book should have earned me … $109,440

Oh my freaking goodness!!! That much?!?! WOW! And only for ONE book!

 

Guess what! No one’s going to give me that.

 

All I can hope for is that people buy my book. With an average price of $2.99, I have to sell about 80,000 copies to earn what is rightfully mine, because not the entire amount is what I get to keep. My share of any book sale is 35% to 70%, depending on the price set. Oh, make that twice as many, because in Austria I have to pay 50% taxes too.

Fair enough, in the past three years I became a faster writer and I quit my day job to fully concentrate on writing. However, any good book you get from me is the result of about 3000 to 4000 working hours. Writing, revising, editing, designing covers, and preparing the book for release.

I published ten books. I should be a millionaire by now. Well. I’m not.

Now be honest.

How would you feel, if you went to work for almost two years (because that’s the time you spend in work, if you have an average 40 hour week) and at the end of the day your boss tells you, thanks for coming, but I decided not to pay you for it, because I found a way where I just don’t need to. Laters, sucker.

Wouldn’t that be just a little bit mean? I don’t wish this upon anybody, but I wish all of you would really understand how it feels.

Guys, I don’t get it. Why is $2.99 a price too high for you to pay for a book that takes you away to a wonderful, different world for hours? Days even. You can read books time and again. No extra charge, just the simple good feeling.

Would you ever walk into Starbucks, order a coffee for $4.75 and leave the shop without paying? Would you steal the cup of coffee?

Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re violating copyright. You are stealing books.

YOU’RE A GODDAMMED THIEF!

Still, I’m not wishing anything bad like scabies or cooties upon you. Because I believe in karma. I believe in the simple rule of life that one day everyone gets what he deserves.

I just wish karma would work a little faster sometimes…

 

Now, if you’re a real booklover and a true fan, help us authors in the battle against book piracy. Share this post. Write your own. Comment here. Share on facebook. Tell everyone you know. Do whatever it takes to stop those cruel, brainless people from destroying the wonderful world of books.

And ask yourself one question.

What would you do, if we stopped writing books for you?

 

From the heart,

Anna Katmore

AVAILABLE … NOW!

And here we go…!!

PAN’S REVENGE, the sequel and ending to Neverland is out. A day early, but who cares? I don’t. Do you? ;-)

Cross the bridge to Neverland…

Happy reading, everyone!

 

xoxo

Anna

DON’T PANIC!

Hey everyone!

I have important news which basically concern all the fans of my Grover Beach Team series.

In the process of translating T IS FOR… into German, I was once again reminded of how long this book really is. With its length (3 times as long as Play With Me) it doesn’t quite fit into the series.

On another note, Liza and Ryan’s story was told in two books. I’ll repeat this with Susan’s book and probably with Chloe’s too. You see, there will always be companion books for each separate story.

For this reason, I decided to split T IS FOR… up into two books!

I pulled it down from all the Internet retailers and will make appropriate changes over the next few weeks. The book will run through another professional edit as well.

Beware, there will be no new text added.

I’ll only break up the book in the middle and make two books out of a long story. When all is finished, I’ll re-release both books within a short time. The cover for the first part will stay the same. The cover for the second part will have a new title and different colors but the motive will stay the same. So it will look signiffically different but at the same time similar enough for anyone to recognice that the books belong together.

This is most important for those of you who already read T IS FOR… because even if I’ll add a warning in the blurb at Amazon and all the other sales platforms, there’s a chance you might get confused about the sudden appearance of Book 4. For you, Book 5 is the one you want to buy next. :-)

 

I hope I’m not causing too much confusion with this change, but sometimes things just need to go by a certain consistancy.

Happy reading and thanks for being such wonderful fans!

 

xoxo

Anna

The fantastic world of NEVERLAND

Why is there a boy who doesn’t want to grow up?

How can an apple start the sweetest romance in fairytale history?

And what does a ruthless pirate have to do with it all?

 

I bet there has been at least one moment in your life where you wished yourself to Neverland. To find adventure there…danger…mermaids…maybe some pirates…and then lots of romance, right?

Honestly, which guy did you dream yourself in love with? Peter Pan? One of the Lost Boys? A pirate…?

I have always been in love with only one guy from Neverland. With the meanest of them all. ;-)

In a world full of magic, what would you do if you had to choose? Find a way back home…or stay in Neverland forever? 

Angelina McFarland loves reading fairytales. But she never dreamed of falling right into one herself. That’s exactly what happens when she slips on her balcony and a flying Peter Pan catches her mid-fall.

Ending up in Neverland where no one seems to age and laws of nature are out of control, Angel has no idea how to get home. Worse, the ruthless Captain Hook captures her and keeps her trapped on his ship, the Jolly Roger, where she gets caught between the lines of a timeless battle. But the more time Angel spends with the captain, the more she sees beneath his ruthless façade.

As Angel desperately tries to find a way to return to her real life, she discovers a train ticket to London in her pocket. It won’t be any help in getting off the island, but as her memory fades away the longer she stays, this is all she has left to remind her of her former life and why she can’t give up trying.

Or is staying in Neverland forever the better choice after all?

Grab a happy thought and follow Angel on an adventure that will keep you breathless and smiling long after you read the last page…

The book is available on Amazon. But beware, there’s a HOOK in the story. ;-)

 

And now… Be prepared for the fantastic sequel and happy ending to Neverland!

Coming out July 5th!

 

Happy reading!!

xoxo

Anna

 

 

PLAY WITH ME is undoubtably one of the best coming of age stories available today! ~ InD’Tale Magazine

Coming up soon!

I know there were rumors, discussions, hopes, fears and wishes…

It’s finally time to let you all know: PAN’S REVENGE, the beautiful sequel to NEVERLAND is coming July 5th, 2014.

An adorable, new and wonderfully romantic take on Disney’s classic Peter Pan.

With a guarantee to fall for the meanest pirate of them all… Captain James Hook.

Enjoy the adventure!

Anna

You’ve gotta watch this!

My book…turned into a movie!

One word:

AWESOME-NESS!!

 

This is a cinematic book trailer that Red14Films made for my novel Summer of my Secret Angel. Here you get a glimpse at how an actual movie could be like. It’s after all what you guys ask me time and time again…to turn my books into motion picture, right?

Now, if you help me share this little trailer with the rest of the world, one day the right person will see it and forward it to Summit, Dreamworks, or Disney. Come on, everbody, help me make this dream come true!

Thanks for sharing!

xoxo

Anna

 

 

 

 

How to self-publish a book with Amazon

How to self-publish a book with Amazon…

 

I’m a YA romance author, and I seem to have done something right when I hit the publish button for my first novella PLAY WITH ME because, from day one, sales shot straight to the stars.

Ever since, I’ve been asked whether it’s hard and worth the effort to self-publish a book with Amazon, or if trying to find an agent and publishing house would be wiser. My answer…it’s the easiest thing to self-pub and totally worth it. I wouldn’t do it any other way.

The next fifteen minutes, I’m going to explain to you the hang of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and, in another post, how to turn your script into a beautiful paperback. But first let me tell you why, in my opinion, self-publishing is the right way to go.

 

There are two main reasons.

For one, you decide about everything on each step of the way.

What does this mean?

If you go with a traditional publisher, your script will be hacked to pieces, edited in a way you may or may not like, you might be forced to rewrite parts, rename characters, hold back a release for 6 to 24 months if you’re new on the market, have little say in the title and even less say in the cover design.

Does this sound fair, considering you put about a year of hard work, sleepless nights, bleeding fingers and twenty liters of sweat into your novel? To me it sounds like total crap.

So if you go Indie, you release your book when you’re ready, and it will look exactly the way you want it to be.

Sounds a lot better, eh?

 

And reason number two, well…it’s a money thing, really.

What would you say if you worked all those many months on your book, did everything to make it perfect, and when you’re ready to start making money, your neighbor comes around the corner and asks you to give him 93% of what you’re going to make with the sales. Would you say, “Oh sure, here you are. I’m glad I could help you. Have a good day and have fun spending my money.”

Really, would you?

Be prepared to tell that your publishing house if you find one, because that is what’s going to happen. They’ll grant you 7% royalties for something you alone created. Oh, I almost forgot. If you’re with a literary agency, they’ll take another 15% of those 7. Do the reckoning yourself.

If you publish with Amazon, you’ll not only be able to choose the price for your book yourself, but you’ll also be given 70% of that money. No shit.

 

Now, if I could convince you that Indie-publishing is the right way to go, let me tell you how it works.

 

First of all, WRITE AN AMAZING BOOK. It can’t be just something you pieced together in a couple of weeks. Writing has to be outstanding to make you a celebrated author one day, and a rich person.

Take your job serious. If you write a book, give your best. And when you finished a great story, HIRE A COPY EDITOR OR PROOFREADER. You don’t—really, really, really don’t—want to publish a book without having a professional editor extinguish all your errors. Or most of them, because no book out there is 100% error free. But again, it should be the best possible work you can deliver. Otherwise you’ll ruin your career before it even started.

 

Once you got your clean novel back, do the FORMATTING. That’s an easy thing to do for Kindle. (I’ll talk more about paperbacks in a later post.)

Kindle goes with Times New Roman. Use bold fonts for the title, maybe 14 or 16 points, and center it.

No page numbers, single spacing, one inch margins, 12pts for the text.

Indent the first lines of each new paragraph for the entire novel, except the chapter headings and the first line of each chapter. The body text should be hyphenless justification.

Add whatever copyright information you want for your novel, author information, acknowledgements, sneak peeks and dedications.

 

When you did all this, use the function “search and replace“. In the search for line you type: one space, then ^ and the letter p. It should look like the text within the quotation marks if you typed it right. ” ^p”.

In the replace line you type the same, but without the space in front. “^p”

Then you click replace all. Click it again and again until word tells you there have been 0 replacements.

Why did you do this? Because with it you eliminate all the empty spaces after the end of a paragraph. If you don’t do it, your text will look like crap on any Kindle or eReacer.

 

Do the same replacing thing again, but this time type the space after the letter p in the search for line. “^p “. Replace it with “^p” like before, and as many times. Now you eliminated all empty spaces at the beginning of a new paragraph. You wouldn’t believe how many of them you work into your script without knowing.

 

All done? Great. Your novel is formatted and ready to upload.

 

UPLOAD TO AMAZON

Go to https://kdp.amazon.com and read the terms and conditions. It’s really a lot to read, but it’s very helpful. You should invest the time, especially since you’re going to get a lot of money from them if everything works out well with your books, and you don’t want to miss any important details like taxes, stating your bank account or whatever is necessary. Read carefully and check the box.

Now create your account. It’s really an easy step-by step thing. You can choose whether you want your money paid into your bank account or get a cheque every month. It’s all up to you.

 

Are you all set up? Good, because now the most important thing happens. You upload your book. Therefore go to your bookshelf within your new account and click the yellow button “Add new title”.

Every step on the following site is self-explaining, but if you need help, move your cursor over the “What’s this” link and you’ll get extra information.

 

The very best thing about publishing with Amazon is, you can make changes at any time!!

You can upload new versions if you find mistakes in your book later, you can upload new covers, you can change the title, author name, blurb, search keywords, you name it…

 

Enter your title and series name if it’s a series, or leave it blank if it’s not.

You don’t need a publisher name or an ISBN. Amazon will give your book an ASIN once it goes online and that’s totally enough.

Description: Put your blurb here. Make sure it’s not too long and really catchy. It’s what you want to read on the back cover of a book. Get help when you write it. It’s, apart from the cover, what’s going to sell your book!!

Click the button “Add contributors” and add your pen name. If you co-authored with someone else, you can add all the author names there.

You hold the necessary publishing rights.

Target your book to customers. “Add Categories”. Pick the categories that represent your genre the most.

 

Search keywords: This is important!

Don’t use random words that have to do with your novel, like High School, Beach, Flirting, or Death in small town. They are inefficient. Rather find a bestselling book that is like yours the most and check out on which Amazon bestselling lists it is ranked. Use those words for keywords.

Example, and here I’m using my fantasy romance NEVERLAND to show you what I mean:

teen & young adult, romance, fantasy, science fiction & fantasy, teens, love & romance, contemporary

These are the lists that it’s been on and which represent the genre of my book.

 

Now you can upload your book cover. There are guidelines you can read for help, like it should be about 1800 pixel in width and 2600 in height, but most important: It should be in high resolution and really outstanding. Your book can be fantastic, but no one will buy it if the cover stinks. You need to make it as catchy as possible. Look at book covers that sell. Go for something similar but still unique. Use colors that stand out. Find a handful of pictures on any stock image plattform and have a cover artist piece them together. You don’t want to go with just one picture that might be on 15 other covers, too. That really turns me off as a reader. Use the right signs, persons, poses for the right genre. A romance cover should hold a couple in an intimate position. A horror cover should scream “scary” at me. You get the picture? Good. Because you only have one chance with this. If you screw up with the cover, you won’t make it.

On the plus side, as an indie-author you answer to no one and you can change your cover any time if the one you have doesn’t work. No big deal. But really, put enough thought into the first cover. It’ll pay off!

 

Upload your book file next. If you wrote your book in MS word, the file is good enough to go. Just upload it. Once it’s there, you can check how it looks on a Kindle later, using the preview button. You don’t have to click through all the pages. Maybe just check the first few and the last few pages to see if everything looks the way you want. If something’s wrong, make changes in the real script and upload the new file. That’s it. Done with page one, now click Save and Continue and start with page two.

 

RIGHTS & PRICING

You choose the option Worldwide rights and the form of royalties you want.

If you go lower than $2.99 with your price, you can only click the 35% option. This makes sense if you’re about to publish your very first book. Offer it for $0.99 for a while, so more people will buy it and your book will be listed on the bestselling ranks soon. Why you want your book to be listed there? Because of the wider exposure. Customers will only see your book, if it’s listed really high.

Once it’s ranking close to the top, you set the price to normal, which would be $2.99 or if it’s a long book $3.99. Don’t forget to change the royalties option to 70%!!!

Whenever you see your book falling back and out of rankings, offer it for $0.99 again and make it climb up. You can change the price as often as you want, at any time.

 

That was it, guys. Now check the lowest box on the page, confirming you’re the rights holder and hit Save and Publish!

 

Congrats! You’ve published your first book!! Go celebrate!!

I’ll do a happy dance for you!

 

Okay, once the celebrating is over and you’ve sobered up, let’s do the fun stuff that comes with publishing really. Check your book reports.

It’s the second item in the menu and it tells you exactly how many books you sold in a month. Click the Month-to-Date Unit Sales for it.

You can check it daily and see what kind of progress your book makes. I started an excel list for all my books where I fill in the sales each day. With some easy formulas, you can calculate the book sales of each day. It’s fun and interesting too.

Every Sunday, you can check out how much money you made the previous week with your book sales. It’s the Prior Six Weeks’ Royalties button. In the search line, you type in the date of the last Saturday and then you see the royalties you got for each book. It’s awesome. You’ll love it!

 

Now one last important thing about Amazon and freebies, and then we’re really done.

 

If you want your book going out for free, set the price to $0.99 and at the same time make it free on Smashwords. (You do want to upload your book to Smashwords too, because they’ll retail it to Barns&Noble, Kobo and Apple)

Amazon does permanent checks on the market and if they find your book offered for less than you set the price on Amazon, they will lower the price automatically. Amazon is the only retailer that wants to be the lowest bidder at all times.

If you want your price back to normal, change it back on Smashwords first. They are usually very slow with changing all the prices. It can take up to three weeks if you’re a new writer. For bestselling authors it usually goes faster, like in about 3 to 6 days. Set the price back on Amazon then and all is good.

 

All right, I hope I was able to give you some insights into Amazon and how it works. And trust me, most of it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. Just try it. If you don’t like it, you can always change things or simply unpublish your book.

 

I’ll tell you all about CreateSpace and how to turn your book into an attractive paperback in another post next week.

 

Until then… Happy Publishing!

 

xoxo

Anna

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me? Procrastinating? No way…!

On a good day, I can write four to six thousand words on a book. If I wrote that amount every day, I’d be done with a novel within three weeks. So…what’s the damn problem?

I think the main problem that most writers struggle with is that we want to deliver only the best possible lines we can think of. It’s easy to write some bla bla on a topic that doesn’t really interest us. But when it comes down to what we love to do—create amazing stories that everyone can lose themselves in—we get picky. Picky in the way that we are afraid our books could only be nice, maybe well written, but not awesome and outstanding in the end.

As a writer I learned that I’m going through a multitude of moods within a certain span of time. I’m not talking about the various moods now, but it all boils down to the fact that I’m on a roll for about five to eight days, then I hit a black hole where there seems to exist no creativity at all. To get out of that hole again takes about three weeks. Anything I’d write in that time would feel wrong for me, and forced. I can’t do that to my beloved story.

So here’s the thing: I write non-stop for a week, and then spend three weeks banging my head on the keyboard, checking my emails and Facebook with an unhealthy frequency, update my playlist with songs that I’m only going to delete later again anyway, play fucking Bejeweled or watch some BBT, because that’s my rhythm. My way back out of the black hole. I don’t know for sure, but I guess it’s a brain thing. How I tick, you know.

Or, it could just be that the little fairy, who sits on my shoulder and whispers all these adventures in my ear has better things to do, three weeks of a month…