News, Updates, and Minor (Major) Ramblings

It has been a while. I know it seems like I've vanished off the face of the Earth, but like most USians, I had a hard time processing the election, and that coupled with my normal depression and some family things, made existence painful. Now with the coming of Spring, well, Summer at this point, and a move, I'm hoping I'll be able to get back into the writing and publishing game. Before I jump into what this post is truly about, I wanted to say I went to Queers and Quills over the Memorial Day weekend, and it was an interesting event to be at since the only writer events I've been to has been GCLS, which is about sapphic books and the authors that write them, who are primarily women identifying folx. So, going to an event where all of the queer community represented was interesting, but also a little refreshing. The queer community isn't a monolith, but sometimes we fall into the pit of putting ourselves in cliques, especially now and in the US. You can see it in t...

No blog post or newsletter in August. Or maybe there was a newsletter. Hang tight. There was one! So I'm not doing tremendously horrible. There won't be one in September. I'm actually contemplating on shutting down my newsletter, and starting a Discord server to distribute news, new releases, and the like. It's much easier for me to maintain that, and I don't have to come up with content. I'm shit at coming up with content. I'll probably make a final decision on that at the end of the year. Still chugging away at re-writes for Outside The Game. I lost all motivation to work on it or anything for that matter, but I'm going to get back into it this weekend, and try to get out of this fifth chapter and get into the sixth. A part of the lack of motivation is due to work. Going into the office 3 days a week and then staying until 5 or 6P and dealing with traffic is just exhausting. Miss the work from home days. With all this being said, will this book come o...

This post is soooo late. I started writing it on the 8th, but now it's...whatever date I decided to post it, and boy is that a gap. I have no genuine concept of time. It's a social construct anyways. Newsletter went out on the 15th, if you're not signed up for it, you missed out on my "interview" with fellow indie author, Luc Dreamer . I use the word interview loosely because I just sent him some questions and he answered them. The interview wasn't long, but I wanted to showcase another trans masculine author who writes in the realm of Sapphic fiction. He was a great sport about it, and I had fun doing it. Will this be my only interview? Probably not. That newsletter needs something to go into it, and sometimes I run out of ideas. However, it's not going to be a monthly occurrence. I also have my question corner as well where people can email or submit questions to me. So, if you have any questions or comments for me, email me or you can submit one throug...

Found out the 15th is at the end of the week, and it blew my mind. March will be halfway over next week. Like damn, and I'll be going to Pittsburgh on the 16th to watch PWHL Toronto take on Montreal on the 17th. Hopefully their streak will be alive and well by then. Because of that, I have this month's newsletter rearing to go, and if you haven't signed up for it, well, you will get your chance to at the end of this post. If you haven't been lurking around on my Mastodon profile or Facebook page, the first two chapters of Outside The Game are available to read until the end of this month. So, if you want to see how E.J.'s story starts, head on over to Bookfunnel and read those first two chapters. I also encourage you to sign up for my newsletter while you're there because release date and pre-order information will be announced to newsletter subscribers first and everyone else a week later. Maybe later. I sometimes forget to do things. I'm 5 yards and goal ...

Greetings to one and all! We have made it to the end of January, and into February. Here in VA we had a wicked bad cold snap a couple weeks ago, and other than causing my electric bill to jump, I tried not to leave the house, but that thing I call a day job (insert depressed groan here) made me. Granted, there was one day where I had to work from home because the roads weren't the best. Looking forward to some warmer weather. Not Summer, but just mild weather. The kind of weather where you can open the house windows during the day, and burn a nice fire in the pit at night. That kind of weather. January also saw the return of my monthly newsletter. If you received it, what'd you think? It wasn't anything special, but I think it was a good way to re-introduce myself to my readers. If you haven't read it yet, you can head over to the archive on my website and read it. Do note, any freebies or coupon codes in archived newsletters have expired, so there's no point in cli...

Hope we're all fattening up and getting ready for a long winter's nap. Ha! Wouldn't that be fantastic? Just be like a bear or a chipmunk and get fat over the course of fall then sleep my way through winter. Ugh. Such a good life. The closest thing humans get to hibernation is the food coma we fall into after a big meal. Speaking of big meals, Turkey Day is coming up for USians, so I'm excited to stuff my face and the 2 weeks I will be off during November. It's much needed. A couple of weeks ago, instead of editing the first book of my novella series, I read the second book in the Detective Miller series, which is titled Grisly Politics . I hadn't meant to do that, but I completely forgot how the story ended since it has been a year since I finished writing it. I opened it up, and I was cool with reading just the ending, but when I did that, I was like what happened here? So, I ended up reading the whole thing. I am really happy with how that story turned out. L...

August is almost over, and I had this post in my drafts since the beginning of the month and did not post it. Love how my brain operates. Just a quick check in this time around. I have paused on my Fate Unseen edits to do the edits on the first book of my new novella series IFL Tales. I definitely just made that up since I don't have an official name for the series. I currently have a name for the book, but I might need to change it because there are a number of books titled with same thing, and that's a sure way for my lil ole novella to end up buried even though it's not going wide for awhile. Anyway, I created a cover few weekends ago, and got a two thumbs up from one of my favorite people who I can trust not to bullshit me, which is exciting. I'm not sure if I've gone over what IFL Tales is about or what this first novella will be about, but I'll hold off on going into them because I want to be in my third round of edits before I do that. By that point, I k...

Oooh a second blog post for the month. I really must be getting back into this author thing, huh? We'll see. This post is more of a housekeeping/update post. I realized there were a lot of inconsistencies with my branding, so I've decided to eliminate the DJ Small Books, and just be DJ Small - Author. For the most part, it doesn't really change anything. I'm going to be updating my logo and the titling on some of my pages, but there shouldn't be any disruptions. If you run into any issues, let me know and I'll get it fixed. Work wise, Adventures of Swift will not be happening this year. While I was doing some editing, I realized I put myself in a hole with that one, and as I learned with Avery Lawson: The Last Pureblood, I don't want to leave things in a state where it sort of just ends and leaves people hanging. I got the message on that one lol. So, with that being said, I'm going to work on my novella, which I'm hoping to have out by the end of ...

Goodness it feels like June flew by, but not really. I think I owe it to those two weeks I had off from work. During one of those weeks, I went to Mass to visit some friends, and it was a bit of a culture shock. Back in 2016, Mass legalized marijuana and this is also the same year I happened to move out of the state. When my friend and I got into the Springfield area, there were cannabis dispensary billboards everywhere. It was SO wild, but like I loved it because I'm pro-marijuana. Then on top of that Springfield got a casino, which I knew about, and when they announced it, I thought they were going to build some gigantic skyscraper thing and mess up all of Downtown Springfield, but nope. They actually didn't do a bad job. The building blends in with the other ones, which have been there since forever, and it's pretty nice. Honestly, if it weren't for the signage, you wouldn't know there was a casino there. I did do a bit of gambling. I had managed to break even, p...

Whew, child! It is mid-March and I feel like I have nothing to show for it, which is so far from the truth, but I'm sure some of y'all know how it is. It looks like we might get a quote, un-quote, "normal" spring and summer this year, but we shall see. I'm headed to my first con since September 2019. It's just for a day. I want to see how everything is being handled by the coordinator of these events. If me and my apprehension feel okay with it, I might be headed to Tampa for QFX in May. I hate how everything is contingent on what this virus is going to do, but I'm going to do everything to protect myself, and try to enjoy life as best as I can.

It has been three months since my last blog post, which is fine by me, but I'm sure you all are patiently waiting for something from me. Possibly an update to one of my unfinished fanfics or maybe even a book. Luckily, I have been doing things, but y'all won't be seeing any of these things until 2022. However, with me doing things it means I'll have a backlog of already written things. They just need to be edited, which is a whole different animal on its own.

I started typing this up while I was logged into work since I was left to my own devices, and thought it was a good time to blog. Priorities am I right? I know it has been awhile, but with Spring being sprung, I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. I fcked up the blog. Fricking blogger changed their customizing page and everything looks horrible, especially with all that Arial font. Psh. Moving on.... Other than that, I would like to say in my absence I have actually been productive. I slowly getting a hang of my chord changes (anchor fingers are key), but more importantly, I have been chipping away at Fate Unseen bit by bit, and I've been outlining the second--and angsty as all get out--Detective Miller book. Can I pause for a moment to talk about this second Detective Miller book for a second? Of course I can. It's my blog. All right, so when I first started this series, I planned for it to be a rom-com that was sort of inspired by JD Robb's (Nora Roberts...

January came and went. It was pretty wild. The Capitol was bumrushed by terrorist. We got a new president that doesn't look like a bottle of Sunkist gone wrong, and some other things happened, but I cannot recall them. We had some losses too. Larry King, who I didn't know voiced the bar wench in Shrek (thanks for that Tumblr). Cloris Leachman who was always a delight onscreen, and lastly, but certainly not least, the iconic Cicely Tyson. Her most memorable role for me, at least recently, is when she was on How To Get Away With Murder , but that woman was an icon who had bigger and more memorable roles than that. I know I've been MIA for the last couple of months. I just didn't have it in me to do anything author related. Blogging, the newsletter, writing, editing....none of it appealed to me. Blame it on the holidays, or what, but I just wasn't feeling it, so my holiday break turned into something much longer. However, I did move into my own place at the end of Dec...

Hopefully by the time I have posted this the US will have figured out who their president is. I'm sure the number of people that voted for the Orange Stain™ will get swept under the rug and people will proclaim this country has risen like a phoenix from the ash, but minorities like myself will realize that it will be nothing but a crock of shit. I've become bitter about this country, and I would apologize, but why? All right onto why I'm here—announcements all around! I finished The Adventures of Swift this week. Like actually finished writing it, and not that kind of finish where you still have like two more pages to write, but you say you're done because it's just two pages. No one else does this? Just me? Of course. It came out to 48k words, and hopefully by the time editing is done, it'll be at the 50-55k mark. Each episode doesn't go more than 10k words, and you would think that would cheat the story, but not really. I actually have a little wiggle roo...

I guess that's what happens when you're having fun editing. I just wanted to get in a minor update before the month is out. I hope we're all ready for Summer vacation and the heat! I am not, and I wish I was in the Arctic, but even that is getting a little balmy these days. Moving on.... Who is excited for Murderous Profession ?!?!?! I know I am super excited for you guys to read it. My second round of edits will be done this weekend, and then I'll send it off to my editor. The story sort of achieves what I set out to do, which was write a romantic-comedy. But when you're dealing with murder, there is only so much room for humor, however, there are funny bits along with some angst, and a touch of romance. It has a happy for now ending. Will this be then end for Eliza? The answer is no. This is going to be an ongoing series, which will not have a set schedule. Unlike The Last Pureblood series, this one could end next year, it could end five years from now. It'...

Last week, or the week before last, I posted an update saying I would be publishing my standalone book before the second Last Pureblood book. The story isn't one I have talked about with really anyone. I think I've spoken with one person about it, and that is about it. Then I posted an excerpt of it on Twitter to give my followers a taste of it. In the excerpt one of my main characters is talking about my other one, and though it wasn't the best sample of the story, I'm sure it piqued everyone's curiosity. Especially since one of my main characters is a sex worker, so I'm going to go into it a little bit more here. The story is set in present day New York City, but in a universe where sex work has been legal for the last two years. Readers are first introduced to Detective Eliza Miller and her partner Billy Chilowski, and we dive head first into the murder of a sex worker. As Eliza and Billy work the case they discover a link between the victim and an indiv...

First and foremost happy February and happy black history month. May we all learn something this new. So, the reason for this post is because I'm changing things up. I originally wanted to release book two of the Pureblood Series the first half of the year, and my standalone book the second part of it. I've accepted that releasing three books in 2019 isn't going to happen, but I knew it was a lofty dream. Thechange in my releases is due to the second Avery Lawson book being more involved the further I get into it. When I started writing it I was using the"pantser" method, and it's gotten complicated. For those who don't know what the pantser method is, it is when you are flying by the seat of your pants while writing with little to no outline. In my case I know what points I want to include but the in-between bits are a little dicey, and it leads to me staring at a blank screen. I've got a decent amount of the story written, but I want to take som...

Sigh. Let's rap good people. It has been a craptacular January for me, but I think things are getting back on track, especially after that bout of the food poisoning. I'm waiting to receive my survey on it, would not recommend. Last Pureblood Book Two I honestly have been plugging away at it and there is a nice chunk of it done, but I'm finding myself at a point where I feel like the pacing is sluggish and there are some elements I am truly struggling with. I find myself growing frustrated with it, but at the same time I also haven't been able to give it the proper attention it needs. Between the holidays, work, and life in general it barely got my full attention. I'm getting a new work schedule, and life is becoming less intense, so hopefully I can focus on the story and give you all the proper book you deserve considering the first one. I think my lack of patience is the cause of my frustration because book two is like the second part of laying the foundati...

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a good time ringing in 2019. Nothing exciting with this post. Just wanted to announce the new site is up and running. I have plans for it which is why I moved to a different provider. I'm downsizing the number of places my books can be bought, and when it is all said and done you will only be able to get them on Amazon and my website. Jury is still out on Smashwords. I'm also going to start selling exclusive content through the site, so the change was a needed one. One thing on the site I want to talk further about is I put up a form for anyone to fill to become a beta reader for me. I don't have anything yet, but it'll be nice to have people waiting to give me feedback before I put out a story. It'll be pretty cut and dry. You fill out the form, I reach out and let you know I got it. Then once I do have something I need feedback on I'll reach out and see if you can read it. There will be time frames, but they will be loose ...

Last week I accomplished a feat bigger than man, I finished writing the story that will be my 3rd book entitled Reappearance of Summer . I begin editing next week after taking a two week breather from it. Trust me, that breather was spent working on other things, so it wasn't even a true breather. Anyways, I digress. Some housekeeping information. I should have a release date by mid-August along with an idea of when pre-orders will be.  Due to my distaste for how Amazon handles pre-orders they will not be available there. You can pre-order on my website where it will take you to the various platforms you can pre-order from, which is just Smashwords and Gumroad. My distaste for Amazon is that they won't let you push back a pre-order date, and if you try to cancel a pre-order they pretty much penalize you for it. These other sites do not. They understand people are human. I'll put the links on social media and my website when everything goes down. Okay, now that that is o...