I recently saw an amazing book cover, and I couldn’t help but wonder: How hard can it be to make something like that?

The answer? A lot harder than I could have imagined. Despite having a wonderful tool (Affinity Photo) and a lot of tutorials on both the Affinity site and YouTube, I really can’t figure out how to get the colours the way I want them or avoid all the lines that I end up with when adding pictures. Not to forget, how do you add clouds????

Sigh…. I guess I better practise a lot more, and maybe then I can make something halfway decent.

In the meantime, I’ll just admire the artworks of those that really know how to do this right.

Thanks to Jay Aheer for the inspiration and to Sam Crescent who chose it for her book. I’m totally envious, but who wouldn’t be?

No matter how many books I publish, there is still that tension after I’ve put it out there. I try to write something else, but I still have that nagging feeling distracting me, thinking ‘Is it good enough? Will they hate it? Maybe everybody will return their copies without telling me why they hate it?’.

Still, it always takes 1-2 weeks to know the answer, maybe longer. And I can’t help wondering if it’s the same for all authors? Particularly if you’ve spent 3 years writing it.

Lol, I guess it’s the same for anything that you’ve created yourself. But the reward feels a lot better knowing you’ve put your heart into it.

Still, in the meantime, I’m hooked on a logical tablet game where I only need to worry about placing tents in between trees. Trust me, you don’t want to start. It’s highly addictive. So, if I don’t publish anything for the next 2 months, you know who to blame.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot. 6 books just in the last 3 days.

And it’s so relaxing and fun (probably because I know I don’t have to edit the damn thing….lol).

But I discovered a few things that surprises me:

1. Even professional writers sometimes mix up “your” and “you’re”
2. Many of the books are rushed and not as good as I thought they could be
3. I still love them, despite the small errors and the annoying plotholes

And that is probably why we keep reading, isn’t it? As long as the pacing is good enough so we don’t fall asleep.

They are also a major inspiration to return to my own writing. In fact, I’ll do that right now, instead of spending all my time online…

I sometimes do a Google search on my pen name and I always get a ton of links to sites that claim that you can get my books for free – provided that you register and give them your credit card number.

It’s so depressing.

Not because I know my books can be stolen and put out there, but because it is so easy to be fooled by these guys and lose a lot more money than you hoped to save.

And the number of those scam sites seems to increase every time I run the search.

When I first started publishing, I filed a lot of Copyright Infringement reports, and in most cases, it does work. Particularly with large companies like YouTube and Amazon. But then you have all those smaller sharks that never answer, never list their email and generally don’t want to follow the rules.

But what can you do?

Get pissed and swear at your computer, vowing to never write another story?

Or simply laugh at them since they are showing the cover for one story while using the title for another story?

On a good day, I pick the latter.

But today, I think I’ll just stop writing altogether since it’s not worth the fuss (Amazon has just blocked one of my books again. I should probably start writing about cute kitties instead…).

I always make weekly lists of tasks that I plan to do. Even when it comes to my hobby: writing. But, it’s fun to notice how your mind wants to avoid doing what you intended, isn’t it?

Sometimes the best writing comes when I really don’t have the time. All the ideas pop into my head just before I need to leave the house or attend a meeting.

And then sometimes I have those weeks when I have crossed off all the tasks on my list. And I keep thinking: Why aren’t all weeks like that? Why isn’t it so easy to do anything creative within a timeframe?

Only to be reminded what Stephen Kind wrote about this in his book “On writing”. If the story doesn’t come, put it away for a few weeks. Let your subconscious mind work on it and the final result will be so much better.

He’s right, of course. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

As a writer, I often have to come up with stories before any big events, like Christmas. And ever so often, these stories must be done way ahead of the Christmas spirit itself.

Like this year. There’s a Winter Contest over at Literotica, and I’m dying to participate. I know, I know. I don’t have to…. But I want to.

So, how do you come up with a new story that won’t be totally cliche and boring?

When I find the answer, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, I’ll probably settle for cliche. As long as it’s not boring, right?

Screenshot from iTunes Top Paid Books in Australia, Oct 15th 2021

In an ideal world I want to ignore what happens on all sorts of charts and bestseller lists, and just focus on writing my next story.

But every now and then I get so starstruck I can’t write antyhing at all.

This is one of those moments, because never in my wildest fantasies could I ever have pictured one of my stories to be on the same bestseller list as Stephen King!!!! What are the odds for that? Gosh…

Okay, it’s one of his older titles, but who cares, lol. I intend to enjoy the moment – and save a lot of screenshots, lol.

But really, this just proves that it’s possible for all writers to get on the bestseller lists together with the best authors out there, and that is a comforting thought. So cool, lol

One of the questions I often hear from readers is this one: ‘How do you manage to come up with a new story?‘

And then they often add that they struggle to be creative.

Honestly, I never have a good answer to their question, other than to admit that I read a lot of books, and that some of them are so badly written that I feel inspired to write a ‘better‘ version.

Apart from that, I feel that creativity is like a muscle. The more you use it, the easier it becomes. But we all have those days when you feel that the well is completely empty.

Then again, I often get the feeling that we expect that the book should appear as one complete idea before you start writing. But the truth is the opposite. The book starts with one sentence, one scene or a feeling. When you write it down, your brain can start working on the next, and suddenly you have several more scenes which you can tie together until they become a short story.

This is one of the reasons I just love the Literotica site. They publish all stories, good or bad (providing you follow the rules), and allows you to learn while you write. If it hadn’t been for them, I would never have started writing. But after I read a lot of stories on their site, I figured I could actually have a chance to write one too. And I did – and it was actually accepted, despite a ton of grammatical errors.

And that is probably the solution to become more creative: Just do it! Right?

I believe I’ve discovered my most embarrassing mistake ever. In “Abduction”, onboard a spaceship, I’ve actually dressed the male humanoid alien in trousers and a shirt – with tiny buttons.

And I think the error has been there since I published the story in 2006. Ugh…

Did no one else find it odd to dress like that? He’s an alien. How would anyone desire to wear such difficult clothes if they can choose something else?

I feel so embarrassed.

My only hope is that the sex scene following that mishap, made everyone forget all about it.

But now I start wondering how many other errors are hidden in that story?

Right after I published the last blog post called “The Dare”, I was asked to participate in an Interview. The question came from another author over at Wattpad, and he was curious to know a bit more about my erotic writings and how I published my works.

Well, after feeling so brave about the last challenge I accepted, there was really no way I could refuse, lol.

And to tell you the truth, answering all those questions made me realise quite a few things:

• I actually have a publishing method (what?) – several, in fact
• I usually have a plan for what I publish (lol, this is even more surprising). And it’s based on statistics and research of best seller lists
• But despite all that, it all boils down to gut feeling and what I want to write

So, that third list element basically ruins all the well-laid plans. Gosh, I’m relieved that I’m not hired to do this. I would have been fired ages ago, lol.

Anyway, the answers are out there, and I guess it’s too late to worry about whether I revealed too much etc