Be Fearless, Be Free by AK Nevermore
FEARLESS FRIDAY
Please welcome AK to Fearless Friday on Discover... What a great post with a lesson for us all. Be sure to read to the end for a free novella! And now I'm humming Janis all day. Mysenior year of high school we were all required to choose a quote to go besideour picture in the yearbook. It seemed a momentous decision. At that stage inmy life, I was dancing at the edge of my small town’s accepted society andstaring into the mists of the future with no clue what would happen next. Heck,I wasn’t even sure I was going to graduate.
And itwas more than lacking a plan for after I left those hated halls. In a fit ofteenaged angst, I’d moved from home at sixteen and fallen into an alternatelifestyle. To look back on it now with a writer’s eye, I cringe at how well itfit the “good girl falls for the bad boy and has a self-awakening” trope.Spoiler, that chapter of my life didn’t have a happy ending and went on for waytoo long.
But bethat as it may, an inkling of my awareness-to-come echoed in the Janis Joplinquote I ultimately chose:
“Freedom’sjust another word for nothing left to lose.”
To thisday, I still get an unsettled feeling when Bobby McGee pops up onSpotify. A resonance in my soul. Ethereal fingers strumming the golden tethersof what matters in my life. My family, husband, and children. A roof over myhead. Not having to rob Peter to pay Paul every time a bill comes due.
I have thingsto lose.
Yet,those same things I eschewed until my twenty-somethings now define andstrengthen me.
Theyalso terrify me.
Thefear of “what now” has been replaced with anxiety over “what if.” And you know,I have to laugh sometimes. My kids think I’m the most boring person ever. ThatI never take a risk, always am thinking about the consequences, avoidingdanger. “Who cares if you don’t know what the parking situation is?” and “Doyou really have to wait for me outside the bathroom?”
I care,and yes, I do.
Whenyou love something, I think it’s ingrained in our DNA to hold on, to protect.You want to keep it safe, to succumb to this primal urge to lock out all thepotential ugly. The issue then becomes your daughter leaving the house in a fita teenaged angst when she’s sixteen.
Andyes, I’ve apologized for that. My parents handled the situation with more gracethan I would have been able to. Them letting go when I didn’t want to be heldallowed me the freedom to discover what truly matters when you have nothingleft to lose.
Lettinggo. There’s freedom in that, too, but it’s terrifying to give into the winds offate, allowing them to buffet you. Especially when it’s something you caredeeply about…but that axiom about it coming back if it’s meant to be?
I’m abeliever.
For aslong as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be an author. So, several years ago, Imade an intentional choice to pursue my dream seriously. I took the classes,followed the rules. Checked all the boxes— And got nowhere.
Myfrustration was palatable. I didn’t want to mess it up by not following theformula…but when had my life not been messy? It might sound odd, but therealization that I’d found myself in a cage of my own making, once again, withnothing left to lose, was liberating.
Andpulling myself up by my bootstraps is kind of my thing.
Thistime, instead of packing my bags, I opened a blank document. The words that hadbeen self-censored after months of academia flowed. I laughed, teared up, andwas satisfied when I typed “The End.”
I didn’tthink that manuscript would amount to anything aside from cathartic release,but I let it go, out into the world where all the ugly was waiting for it.Hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
Andultimately, it returned to me with a publishing contract.
To sayI was taken aback would be an understatement. That those fearless words I’d puton the page, the ones that sounded just like me, were wanted. Again, I’mlaughing. Flame & Shadow, my urban fantasy born of my angst, of mytruth, allowed me to achieve my dream.
Nothingleft to lose had once again given me my freedom, and opened the door to all the“what ifs.” And as I begin the next chapter in my life, I put pen to page witha new certainty. Freedom is more than nothing less to lose. Freedom is to befearless in your uncertainty. To believe, and to own your truth.
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Flame & Shadow features Envy Starr, an emotionallystunted halfling with a drinking problem and a bad attitude, destined to die onMidsummer’s Eve. The daughter of a Daemon and a washed-up Vegas showgirl, she’sbig on lamenting her fate, in particular the portion that has her dying avirgin during some crappy cult’s live-stream. With a scant month left to live,she escapes, and is thrust into her absentee father’s world of beautifullycultured cruelty.
Hit with a steep learning curve, Envy discovers everyonehas an ulterior motive, including the prehistoric Fae that’s been secreted awayin her chest as part of an elaborate game. Her only guide is Brennan, theDae-licious tutor her father, Silas, has hired to make her into a Fae lady, butBrennan’s contract isn’t just with him, and he’d do anything to break it.
When he’s suspected of reneging, Envy is forced to eatsome serious crow to save his life, but she’s not particularly wired forself-sacrifice, and there’s no way she’s doing it quietly, Bambi-onesie bedamned—
Yeah, that happened. Stupid Fae games…
Whatever. Midsummer’s Eve is rapidly approaching, andthat prehistoric pace-maker holds the cards to stopping a plot to screw overnormals and Fae alike. She’ll talk, as soon as Envy agrees to let the Fae wearher like a suit.
That’s not happening, but when the moon begins to rise,Envy finds herself a game piece again, and out of options. Pushed to her limitby a squid, schnitzel, and a golden ball, she’s determined to figure out how towin on her terms, no matter how the deck is stacked against her.
Flame & Shadow releases November 13th, 2023 BUT YOU CAN PREORDER NOW.
You can read the prequel, One Night in Bliss, free: One Night in Bliss
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AK Nevermore writes science fictionand urban fantasy with spice. She enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebasescoffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. Unable to ignore the voicesin her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes about dark worlds,perversely irreverent and profound, and always entertaining. Her debut novel, Flame & Shadowcomes out November 13th, 2023. You can find her on her websiteor follow her on her sadly neglected Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds.
