Writing one book at a time can be hard enough. But what if you want to juggle two? This is my favorite way to work for productivity, but I will discuss the perils and pitsfalls, and tips for making it work well.
2025-12-27 18:15:11 +0000 UTC View PostIt's that time again! Please let me know if there are any topics you'd love for me to cover in January! After a few days I will gather them all into a poll. Thank you!!
I will also be posting the first of the December members videos in a separate post shortly, and the second one will drop next week before the new year.
2025-12-27 18:08:32 +0000 UTC View PostLate with this again, but hopefully not for much longer. I'm not listing on Ebay anymore, except for a few stragglers that need boxes, but it's the sales that are killing me during the Christmas season. I thought those Thanksgiving weekend sales were going to do me in. Packing from lunch until 11 pm, then back up and packing on Monday morning, until the last minute before the post office was going to close...oof! But other than that craziness, my focus is shifting back to the channel and this community, and THANK GOODNESS. I had fun chatting about how hard it can be to form communities...but how worthwhile I think it is, too.
2025-12-04 00:15:32 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
I mention this in the video, but just for those of you who don't watch this one, once again it was a very close race for what videos to do for members-only, so I will be doing the top 4 in some order across November and December.
I chose this one first because it was easiest to blab about! And I am now in the FINAL stretches of the great decluttering/Ebay month. We just finished the last big job, which was repairing all of Dade's childhood GI Joes. They all needed to be unscrewed to replace the rubber ring inside, a 5 minute job once you get the hang of it, but he had about 60 GI Joes. I feel like I'm qualified to be a Hasbro factory employee in 1983 now. =P
The second November video will be on being an introvert vs. connecting with a writer community and that will be coming soon as well. I probably got way too honest in that one, LOL. Enjoy!
2025-11-22 18:05:27 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
I just have a spare moment, which I've had VERY few of lately, so I wanted to give you all a quick update! As most of you know, in October I realized that if I really wanted to achieve the great purge of our possessions before we moved, I needed to get it all listed SOON. I know from experience, it takes about a year to sell the majority of what you list on Ebay, unless you really slash prices and take a hit that way. Which, of course, I would rather not do.
So I made an assessment of about how many more items, in theory, we needed to sell to have enough savings cushion to move back to Maryland. I landed on 500 items. Then I made myself a ridiculously ambitious goal to get all of those items listed by the end of November. Note that about the most I have EVER listed on Ebay is 200 items in a month and that was working very hard with pretty easy listings.
I also had a third potential problem: getting Dade to part with enough additional things to make 500. He had already worked his way through a lot of his stuff and 500 is no small number!
Well, now we're halfway through November and I have listed 350 items. I think we're going to make it. I wish I'd had more energy to chronicle it, as it was rather interesting. We went through one loaded bin of 1980s toys about as old as I am that I don't remember EVER seeing before in our 26 years together...
Will it be enough to move? I don't know, it depends how much people actually buy, but my best chance is to have as much listed as possible for as long a time as possible. It is kind of working--as the holiday shopping season draws close, I'm starting to sell so much that it's hard to keep up with packing it all. I packed 40 items last week, which means I spent about 14 hours last week JUST for packing, shipping and post office trips. It feels like a scary time to plan big things, so I have one foot in the planning stages and the other one in the moment.
Adding to the anxiety is the situation with health insurance in the US. This is something I'm asked about on the channel every time I talk about money...what do I do about the cost of health insurance for self employed people? Well, I lived in Maryland when I first was able to get health insurance through the ACA, and I definitely had some sticker shock when I moved to North Carolina and was paying about $100 more, but I've still been able to afford it...until 2026. My insurance jumped $200 for next year, and meanwhile I looked at the Maryland estimate website and...insurance there is still barely more than I was paying in 2019! Honestly that was jaw-dropping to me after the climbing costs in North Carolina. Health insurance here is now more than my mortgage, and that's for nearly the worst plan with a $7000 deductible. The only (slightly) cheaper plan basically doesn't cover any local doctors at all, AKA the "ghost network". I just can't do it this year.
Why yes, I AM feeling pretty saucy about all this, but I do talk about money for artists a lot so I wanted to give you all the update, like it or not. Plus, I just wanted to give you the update on why I have been sort of absent online for the most part. I've been SO mired in this, and the last month has felt like many months, but the end is in sight and hopefully...I can get back "home" and have health insurance for 2027! Asheville HAS been good to me in a lot of ways. I just took out the trash and looked at the beautiful clear mountain sky, full of so many visible constellations. A place so beautiful is impossible to dislike, I'm just ready to move on.
I'm also SO so ready to get back to writing and creating, and the exciting thing is that after all this crazy hard work, I'll have a nice breather before I have to think about packing and realty and all of THOSE horrors. I have lots of interesting topics planned for the channel and my characters are invading my brain.
And that's the update! I'll have a members-only video tomorrow and of course my Sunday usual!
--Lidiya
2025-11-17 04:56:35 +0000 UTC View PostThis was a big topic, because there are so many different ways a scene can be boring, or become interesting, but I tried to think of some common issues I've had and went through some scenes I worried could be boring while writing them and how I planned them out to (hopefully) avoid that problem.
I hope it is helpful and feel free to ask any follow up questions!
2025-10-30 00:05:07 +0000 UTC View PostIt's that time again! Please let me know of any and all topics you would like to see for the members only video poll!
2025-10-21 23:18:47 +0000 UTC View PostIt's the first October members video! I break down how much I've made this year so far between book sales, Youtube and memberships. This does not including Ebay sales since those are finite and going into the "moving fund", although if I wasn't selling all this stuff on Ebay I also would have gotten a subsidy for my health insurance, so I wouldn't need to make quite as much. Argh.
I also talk about spending. A couple years after I first tried to do "no buy", I am getting better all the time at actually doing it!
2025-10-11 20:21:06 +0000 UTC View PostIn which I answer a viewer question about how many hours I write and whether it's better to have a schedule or block out large chunks of time...among other things! I had more to say than I expected!
2025-10-01 02:20:26 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
My new book, Wanted: Brooding Man, Tragic Past is out this week!
It’s now in paperback on Amazon and on wide retailers!
It actually released on Monday and I have done this book absolutely dirty as far as marketing it. Poor Una and Varrie deserve better than me. This is a cozy spooky season read about avid gothic novel reader Una, her unrealistic expectations for love, and sweet goth boy Varrie, who went missing in the war. The reviews have been lovely!
“…a delightful, cozy read that is sweet, tender and romantic (and full of humour!) though it also deals with some serious subjects.”
“I absolutely adored the relationship between Varrie and Una not only when they were together, but when they were apart. The lead up is such a treat where I was screaming GIRL, OF COURSE YOU LIKE HIM WE’RE IN A SWAMP RN C’MON, NOW”
“Lidiya does a fantastic job luring you in from an early page and you have no choice but to grab tea and sit down and curl up for something cozy -- which is exactly what I did.”
”Please write more in this world - crossing fingers there are many more to come.”
There absolutely are many more books to come! I really appreciate everyone who has read my books, and especially my Hidden Lands books. They keep my Youtube going. They keep my soul going!
I’ve been struggling to write a proper email about it for days. I feel like I should say something profound and interesting. My brain has been crapped out all week. I’ve just totally overextended myself in the last few months. I keep trying to look for areas of life where I could scale back and give myself a break, but it’s very hard, so mostly I just keep working all day every day until I melt and can only stare at Stardew Valley. (I’m now working on a farm for Una, who is wooing Sebastian, since there is no Varrie in the game. I’m having fun finding goth-y decor for her house.)
It’s also about the anniversary of Hurricane Helene here, and my little town is thriving again—yet, the bookstore remains ignored by the landlords. Last night I had dreams that we were fixing it all up yet we still had no window glass. My old boss dropped by a few days ago just to bring me a fancy chocolate bar; he’s still the best boss ever. I’m hoping I can attend the anniversary celebration on Saturday and celebrate how resilient we are here—we have a new antique mall opening, a gourmet taco restaurant, and more!
And we’re getting proper autumn weather soon! I can’t wait! Maybe I’ll feel better about promoting my autumn book when the humidity stops being 95%!
I hope you’re all doing well!
—Lidiya
2025-09-26 01:43:45 +0000 UTC View PostI talk about the struggles and benefits of decluttering my bookshelves, show off the absolute terrors of the basement, and do a little theoretical house hunting in Baltimore.
I don't SEE anything embarrassing in the background of this video & I also don't want to encourage looking too hard, LOL, but the basement is still crazy so just know that if there is, it's probably my father in law's, I promise. =P
It's still August somewhere...isn't it? Maybe?
Well, I was close.
By the way, the poll for the September videos was, once again, VERY close. The clear winner was:
Time management and how many hours I spend working!
But then we had a two-way tie for second place between:
Cozy chat on decluttering and moving to Maryland
How to make a chapter interesting
And a VERY close third place was...
An update on finances and earnings.
So, I think I will just, once again, make these the videos for September AND October (in whatever order makes sense as I go) since all of these selections garnered so many votes, and it saves me the time of running polls every month, which lets face it, I clearly need! Time management is not easy! If you're not a member yet, let me also just take a moment to say that member videos are also ad free!
But for now, enjoy this new members video!
2025-09-02 00:40:17 +0000 UTC View PostAs usual I got a really interesting list of topics. Vote for the ones you would like to see!
2025-08-25 03:03:57 +0000 UTC View PostMy routines have changed over the years, as my life and goals change, but one thing remains the same…I HATE mornings.
2025-08-19 23:36:42 +0000 UTC View PostIt's that time again! Let me know if there are any video topics for members only videos you'd like to see for September! I'll run a poll in a week or so!
2025-08-19 15:32:15 +0000 UTC View Post
The Una/Varrie book now has a title, cover, and preorder! (Some vendors aren't up yet.) This will come out on the autumn equinox and will be perfect for cozy-goth vibes. The video about finishing it and planning the release will come out soon, but for now, check it out and if you'd like to be on the ARC team, drop me a message!
Una has one dream: to fall in love with a tall, dark, and handsome man worthy of her favorite gothic novels. With the war over, men are in short supply, but a mysterious limp, a haunted gaze, and a tragic back story are pluses in her book, so the perfect husband must exist.
Then why does she keep thinking so much about Varrie Lumanar, once the best employee at Beldar’s Books? With his overenthusiastic smile, bright yellow scarf, and cheerful demeanor, he’s an insult to brooding manhood.
He also went off to fight—gifting her a perfect book before his departure--and never came home.
When the Keeper of the Dead comes to town, using his magic to report on the missing soldiers, Una learns that Varrie is alive. Shouldn’t someone go look for him? Must that someone be her? Apparently it must.
But the mission to save Varrie also leads her to take a hard look at herself—the writerly ambitions she abandoned, the friendships she would never sacrifice for romance, and that maybe an overenthusiastic smile is worth more than a tragic past.
This novel takes place in my Hidden Lands world, and has cozy-goth gaslamp vibes with a touch of Northanger Abbey homage. There is some battlefield injury but otherwise it’s pretty much just a cozy read all the way through with a sweet romance and friendship.
https://books2read.com/u/4A6Z5A
2025-08-15 03:07:05 +0000 UTC View PostI outline the three broad stages of "success" and what to do at each one to try and build on that success or at least hang in there!
2025-07-30 16:23:48 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends,
The summer doldrums have arrived. Everything feels slow, including me. This past week officially marked the beginning of too-hot-to-think weather, and yet…I have to think. At least some of the time.
I got to the very end of the Una and Varrie book, and then my brain just…crapped out on it. I don’t want to work on it. Something about the outline for the ending has me unsatisfied, and I’m not sure what it is—because on paper, it sounds fine. It just doesn’t FEEL right. I’m not even sure what thread to pick at yet.
This is a common feeling for many of you, I’m sure! Some books flow easily, while others present road blocks that seem to loom out of nowhere, like cruising down a highway, turning a curve and hitting a massive traffic jam. For hours, you can’t even see the end to know what’s going on.
In the past, I would have just powered through. You know, I do have an ending and it would probably be good enough. I think readers would be happy with it and might never know I struggled. And sometimes, in fact, you do just have to power through, even to learn what’s wrong. This is especially true when you haven’t seen many projects through.
But in this case, my instincts are telling me I need a break from this story, and I should take one…because I can. For many years, I didn’t have that luxury. I needed to make money and hit my deadlines. You just get it as good as you can by the deadline, and if you were never happy with it? Well, you try not to think about it.
In my most recent members-only video, I talked about how lately my moods are very random, yet distinct. The old familiar pattern of my menstrual cycle is gone, replaced with chaos. One day I just want to read, the next two days I’m an organizing fiend, a week later I wouldn’t clean for a thousand dollars because I’m writing for two weeks straight, and then suddenly I have no energy for much of anything…for an entire month. As someone who has always made myself plans and deadlines and generally met them, this is driving me bonkers. I can’t seem to MAKE myself do what needs to be done anymore. It’ll all get done in good time, my subconscious seems to be saying. Just trust me. Go with the flow.
Go with the flow? That’s not the Capricorn way! I have a WORK SCHEDULE, damnit!
Well, you can probably feel where that’s going. That’s probably the exact behavior I need to let go of. I can kick and scream my way through midlife, or I can try to listen to what my instincts are telling me. This is a transformation.
Remember when you were a kid? You probably followed your whims about what to create and learn and do a lot more often. Maybe I’m supposed to get back in touch with that. If this book doesn’t come out for many months, so be it. It’ll come out one way or another. In the meantime, I’m thinking about Tashaya and Atorra and the rest of the Dragon Kingdom gang I left stranded back in the 1890s. I’m excited to get back to the exploits of Alfred and Livonya. I have no end of stories to write, so why force myself to write any given one on any given day? And taking a day or even a week off to read over the summer won’t kill me either. As a kid I did it all the time, and it was often followed by an explosion of creativity.
Of course, I still have obligations, but I’m going to try not to create false obligations on top of the real ones. I’m going to try to have a summer following my intuition instead of locking her in a mental dungeon. (Ooh, that’s such a brutal metaphor…did I really go that far? Sometimes I’m afraid it’s true.) Wish me luck, and if you’ve been stressing yourself by creating extra deadlines for yourself, consider this permission to stop.
-Lidiya
2025-07-11 21:43:35 +0000 UTC View PostI had a surprising amount of fun with this topic, even though perimenopause SUCKS. (But it's not all I talk about! I swear!)
2025-07-11 00:38:24 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
I apologize for the delay in the June member video, but it’s here now and I will have two more for July.
I hope you’re having a good weekend. Sure, I’m worried about the future of the country, and indeed the world since the environmentalist in me hasn’t felt great about much of anything in a long time. It’s Independence Day here in the US and I’m feeling very nostalgic for my childhood where we used to really celebrate the heck out of it with my mom hanging up flags and Andrew Copland on the radio and the whole family would get together for grilled food and a rousing Bingo tournament. My aunt Julie who recently passed away was the most hilarious of all Bingo callers.
But as I’ve said before, feeling sad and nihilistic isn’t good for anything or anyone. When I feel empathy for other people and I can’t do much to help, I think making myself feel bad can be a natural response, but way more would be accomplished if we were aflame with hope.
We’re hoping to head over to my parents house for some grillin’. (It is somehow, a summer requirement that a gathering with food on the grill isn’t grilling, but…grillin’.) Unfortunately, my arthritic little Betsy-cat hurt herself last night trying to make a jump and is now limping very badly. Luckily she doesn’t seem to really be in actual pain, more like she just can’t use her leg well, but is totally content once she’s sleeping. But…this sort of thing ALWAYS happens at the very beginning of a long weekend when you can’t make a vet appointment!
Anyway, send some healing thoughts to my sweet Betsy if you have any to spare and enjoy the video!
--Lidiya
2025-07-04 19:09:21 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
A quick update for paid members: I owe y'all one more video for June. This video has been recorded, as have both July videos, so they are all coming for sure. I'm running a little late because I am nearly at the end of the Una and Varrie book and my brain is actually working this week. My haywire midlife hormones give me a lot of days where I just can't write for love or money, but I can edit videos even when I feel brain dead. So if everything's working to get this book done, I'd better take it! Once this is done I will catch up on video editing, so there will be three July member videos.
Even though I know it seems like all I do here is kvetch about perimenopause these days, some things have actually improved over last year since I saw an understanding doctor. I recall that last summer I was having insomnia for the first time in my life, was dead tired every day, and truly struggling not to take naps on top of my long yet tortured sleep.
This year, the insomnia is gone and although I still have some of that afternoon slump, it’s way better than it was. Which means I am actually slowly but surely getting more on top of things. I got the notes and recordings done for nearly all my July videos already. This is the first time I’ve ever managed to be a month ahead. It feels amazing.
I’m also really trying to prioritize exercise, which is so hard when you’re tired or dealing with other physical or mental blahs, and especially hard in the summer, but…it REALLY REALLY helps if one can manage it.
If you’ve been following my Stardew Valley adventures, Sorla married Elliott. (“Wait, what??” snapped Dorr.) I’m already planning to do a goth farm with Una next time and set her up with Sebastian. I can’t wait to share the Una and Varrie book with you. It’s probably the coziest and most light-hearted of the Hidden Lands books so far, which is the mood I need right now, and it was so much fun making up gothic novels for Una and Varrie to talk about. I plan to release it at the beginning of September, so I have proper time to gather up reviewers, and just in time for fall vibes. Sure, a lot of it takes place in the summer, but as Varrie notes, “Una was an autumnal creature, that was certain, the type of cat who was happiest by the hearth and not in the baking sun.”
Una and I don’t have TOO much in common besides reading…but I, too, am certainly a hearth cat. So is Reinhart, who spends much of summer in the coolest room in the house, under Dade’s bed. But I don’t want life to pass me by too fast, so I’m hoping to wrap up this draft and enjoy a little lazy day reading this July.
More soon!
-Lidiya
2025-06-30 21:26:25 +0000 UTC View PostThe second June video will be up next week, and in the meantime, let me know which of these you would like to see for July. I allowed multiple choice this time, because I just realized you can do that, and there are two videos per month after all.
2025-06-19 00:34:59 +0000 UTC View PostIn this month’s video I discuss exactly how many copies I sold on what vendors, how much I made, how I marketed (and why I chose that route), and how I’m feeling about this release!
—Lidiya
2025-06-12 01:13:35 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
First, a couple people have called to my attention that the Potion Dealers paperback was missing a paragraph at the end of Chapter 10. The missing text reads:
“and imagined him having an airplane toy as a child. He was probably a curious kid who asked a lot of questions. She noticed again that he had very nice expressive hands, and she noticed George noticing both of them. He gave her a look that said, Yeah, I know what’s going on here, and I’m not saying a damn word.”
I uploaded a corrected file to Amazon but I apologize for that. Vellum exported the file without that page. And it kept doing it until I added an extra paragraph break! That has never happened before!
Okay, so if you’ve been reading my books, I just have some random Hidden Lands extras today. Some spoilerish content ahead if you haven’t read them (also none of this will make sense anyway).
I also have one of my ridiculous little comics. If The Potion Dealers was a manga this would be one of the 4 panel gag comics at the back.
Lastly, this is a story I started writing quite a while ago about what Velsa and Grau get up to after Doll Girl Meets Dead Guy. In DGMDG, Sorla has left her adoptive parents with the bakery, but they don’t really like running a bakery! Meanwhile, Grau comes into some money due to inventing a superior skin for Fanarlem, so they take some of it to open a school for Fanarlem. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it, but if you want to see how things are going for them, I just thought I’d share.
Chapter One
The House of Bells
Velsa Thanneau’s footsteps echoed through the empty rooms, no matter how softly she walked. The only occupants were spiders, and their neglected webs spanned every corner. The size of the place was intimidating; larger than any house she had ever imagined buying in her wildest dreams, with vast rooms and wide staircases meant to be crowded by many feet.
“And it’s forty ilan a month to rent,” Grau said, looking up at the ring of nearly-spent candles hanging over their head, and their crown of cobwebs. “Would you consider thirty? I don’t think you’re likely to get other offers. It looks like you haven’t…in quite some time.”
Velsa looked at him anxiously. Thirty ilan a month still seemed like far too much to pay, for an endeavor that was so likely to struggle. When she suggested all of this, she thought they might be able to buy the old place outright. It had just been sitting there, abandoned, the entire time they had lived in Dor Temerna.
But, no, of course it had to be owned by a stubborn matron whose father had bought the place fifty years ago and she was determined not to let it go cheaply, even if it meant the place would fall into utter ruin.
“Thirty…” She frowned.
“Wouldn’t it be nice just to know the shelves were full of books and the rooms were full of children again?” Grau said.
“I don’t especially like children,” Madam Mirafar said.
“Do you like adults?” Velsa said.
“They’re an improvement over children, at least, if they have some sense.”
“Well, that’s just it,” Velsa said, trying not to look pleased that the woman had walked into this answer. “Schools are where children can become adults with sense.”
Madam Mirafar nodded in grim acknowledgement. “All right. You got me there. Thirty ilan a month, but I can’t help you with the cleaning or repairs.”
“Thirty ilan a month fixed for five years,” Grau said. “And we’ll pay for the repairs.”
“Five years!?”
“I counted eight broken windowpanes alone, so take a moment to do all of the figures for that.”
She actually fished a piece of paper from her pocket and started scribbling down estimates. Grau looked at Velsa with a shrug. “And mending that wall on the east wing,” he added.
She pulled him aside while Madam Mirafar was thinking.
“Are you sure about this? Thirty ilan a month is still so much! We’re not going to be able to get that back in tuition…”
“No, of course not. We’ll fund it ourselves. What else do we need money for?”
“I’m not sure, but we could certainly have a nice house of our own, and horses, and…luxuries. I’m getting nervous in these big rooms. It feels like too big of a dream, and I don’t know the first thing about running a school.”
“We don’t need luxuries,” Grau said. “We’ve certainly made it long enough without them. What you do need are big dreams, tikirsa. You’ve worked so long and hard to help me achieve mine. You believed in me when everyone in town thought I was crazy, and what better use of the profits than your dream? Besides—this is the natural next step. Better bodies are one thing, but now we can sharpen up some minds. And if we don’t know how to run a school, well, it can’t be worse than the school the Fanarlem have now, which is none. If anything else, let’s work on improving the quality of our dinner guests… The people here are kind, but sometimes I miss…”
“Book learning?” Velsa smiled. “We just can’t take the Daramon out of the man. All right. If she says thirty ilan, let’s go ahead.”
“If she sticks to forty, I’m still doing it,” Grau whispered.
But by the time Madam Mirafar had run the numbers, she agreed to Grau’s terms, and Velsa had herself one big, abandoned school building with no teachers and no students.
For years now, Velsa had looked at the old building and slowly allowed a dream to unfurl in the back of her mind.
At first, it the sort of idle dream she never expected—or even especially wanted—to come true. Velsa had never considered herself good with children, and she had certainly not fancied herself a teacher or mentor for anyone. She was still quite young, but she realized that she had an advantage most Fanarlem lacked.
After signing the informal agreement—to be formalized later—she and Grau had the keys to the old school and walked the rooms alone for the first time. She was already starting to know her way around. The large entrance hall with the wide stairs, which led up to the eight classrooms above them, each nearly identical. The dining hall, kitchens, and a Ven-Diri temple were to their right, and an assembly room with a theater and the most beautiful library were to the left, along with offices. If you passed under the magnificent staircase, you reached the rooms for boarding teachers and up a smaller set of stairs, the student dorms.
And if you climbed the stairs to the third floor, there was a bell tower. The bells must have been rung to summon the students long ago, and the older folks in town said they sounded ominous as a funeral, twice a day. Now a few legends floated about, of nights when the bells rang themselves, which was how the building came to be known as the House of Bells.
“It’ll be hard to sleep in this huge place by ourselves after everyone warned us it was haunted by ghostly bell ringers!” Velsa said, shivering. “I really am not sure that this isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever thought of.”
“Could be,” Grau said. “But what else do you want to do? You’re tired of running that bakery.”
“Oh, yes, I am so very done with that bakery!” Velsa perked up, thinking of that. “No ghosts there, just grumpy travelers…always mad that we’re out of nut buns…”
“Let’s pick our room,” Grau said. “They’re all a little different.”
The school had been run by the death-worshipping Ven-Diri people, years ago, so all the decor ran toward the heavy and gloomy, with walls of the darkest wood wainscoting and wallpaper of purple as deep as the last moments of dusk or red like drying blood. The windowsills were made of the same thick gray stone as the building’s exterior, although they did have large twelve-over-twelve pane windows. They all had a shelf at the entrance for storing the bones of the dead for the Ven-Diri family altars.
“But we can put our books there,” Grau said. “You don’t like any of the rooms that much, do you?”
“They’re all a little different, but not much.”
They were standing in the last room now, with the dark gray walls.
“This one reminds me of the color of fog on the marsh in the early morning,” he said, with that tiny hint of yearning.
“Then this one will do.” Velsa smiled.
“We can paint it,” he added. He caught her hands in his. “Remember the first night we ever spent together? In that little inn, in the rain?”
“How could I forget!”
“I thought I might have made the stupidest decision of my life,” he said. “And I wasn’t wrong. My old life died the day I bought you, although it took me a little while to realize it. At the same time, I knew it was the only one I could have made. I’m excited for you…my Velsa. This is the first really big thing you’ve decided on your own that I can help you with, and that isn’t life-threatening.”
She laughed. “We have had that kind of life, haven’t we! Oh, I am glad you made such a stupid decision as me. And despite my nerves, I am excited—and hopeful. I think we can really make a difference in this world.”
Like almost all Fanarlem, Velsa had not been born, but created from magic by the Daramons. Her soul was called from the spirit realm into the body of a lifelike doll, enhanced by magic into a striking semblance of life. She was raised in a house of concubines, to be charming and able to make conversation—but of course, to know her place. The Daramons regarded all Fanarlem as lesser beings—weak souls that were only able to be called into Fanarlem bodies as a punishment for misdeeds in their previous lives. Velsa was told over and over that the only way her soul could be cleansed for her next life was to submit and obey.
But Grau was the one who found her there, in the house of concubines—and he was an unusual Daramon. A sorcerer, naturally curious—and willing to question everything he had been told.
It seemed like another life, that night when he handed over coins to the house mistress and took her to an inn. She was sure he would just use her, as she had been told to expect, and was shocked when he spoke to her kindly and just let her sleep.
She learned, eventually, that he had gone out of curiosity, and that he had been enthralled with her at first sight. He wanted her, but he had waited for her to want him back. Was not wanting him ever a choice? Eventually he had proved it didn’t matter, because he had brought her here, to the Miralem lands, where she was free.
And it was here that he had been killed, and she had been able to choose him in return. She brought him back to life as a Fanarlem, closing the circle at last.
They had chosen each other, and his soul had returned to her—brought down to her level, now sharing her fate as the lowest of races.
She held him, feeling his body warm against hers. As a sorcerer, he knew how to drawn warmth in, and replicate the heat of flesh and blood when he held her, because he knew she missed it otherwise.
“I’m glad,” she whispered. “That we’re together in this. I’m glad…the kids can see their futures in you, too.”
“Are you saying you’re glad I’m a Fanarlem?” he said slyly.
“Maybe. Of course, I’ve always been glad, because otherwise you’d be dead.”
“Sure, but…I’ve been wondering if you would ever stop thinking of it as a compromise.”
“I hate that I’ve struggled with it. I still find you wonderful as ever, but…it really just shows me that a part of me still believes what they told me as a child. That Fanarlem are lesser beings, and it hurts me to see you become lesser. And that’s really at the heart of why I feel like we need to do this. I know every Fanarlem child hears the same things. And I want us to see ourselves the way you always saw me…like I was the most wonderful thing you’d ever seen.”
“We will build a world, Velsa, where Fanarlem know their advantages and can feel downright superior. Because I know the truth now. We are superior. A Fanarlem sorcerer of equal merit can beat a flesh and blood one any day. It might take decades—but the Kalanites will eventually rue the day they created their ‘dolls’. Maybe a legendary sorcerer or telepath will come from this very building. And it will all have begun with you and me and this dusty old building.”
“Let’s go home and get the brooms,” she said. “Or—maybe you make love to me on that bench in the library. And then the brooms.”
Chapter Two
A Man and a Mule
Velsa and Grau spent the next week moving into the House of Bells, filling the bedroom with Velsa’s handmade quilts and treasures they had mostly picked up on walks in the woods; animal skulls, unusual rocks, and magnificent pinecones. They chose one office and brought in their dining table to serve as a desk, and one classroom was filled with Grau’s potion-making supplies.
Still, it felt terribly empty, as the previous occupants left little furniture, and Velsa kept startling awake, thinking she heard ghostly bells. One thing she had struggled with, when Grau became a Fanarlem, was that he no longer needed to keep a fire or have daily meals. When they were poor, these luxuries were abandoned, and right now, she felt as poor as ever, despite having enough money to rent the huge building and hire teachers.
They needed to begin hiring as soon as possible, as she hoped to begin taking admissions by August and it was already July. Velsa spread the word about both teacher and student applications to all the Fanarlem she knew, and posted notices in all the common places around Dor-Temerna. Most people in Dor-Temerna couldn’t read, whether Miralem or Fanarlem, but she hoped she could find enough Fanarlem like herself, who had an education. The Kalanites, whatever might be said about them, placed a high value on literacy. Slaves who were created for menial labor were certainly not taught to read, but some Fanarlem were expected to do secretarial work, or like Velsa, simply to make intelligent conversation at parties.
They couldn’t offer much for wages, but Velsa hoped that she could find a few like-minded people who wanted the next generation to have better opportunities.
One day, as Velsa was beating at the moth-eaten rugs they had dragged outside, a Fanarlem man came riding up the hill path on a mule. She paused to greet him, but hesitated slightly as she took in his long black coat, the knife strapped to his thigh, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and the funny little spot on his cheek that looked like it had been slashed, stitched back together, and smoothed over with illusion—but not very well.
“‘ello.” He lifted a glove. “You still looking for teachers?”
“Yes…” Velsa tried to send a telepathic message to Grau to join her, but she sensed him a couple of miles deep into the surrounding woods. Why did I insist I didn’t need help with these rugs? She had expected the applicants to be mostly women. “Do you have any educational background?”
“Of course,” he said, dismounting from the mule and leading it to a hitching post a distance away. “I worked on ships. Kept the books, kept track of supplies, and read maps. I’ve seen the world, too.” He looked over his shoulder at her, the cigarette still dangling. “This your school, then?”
“Me and my husband,” she said.
“Husband? Always the way with a cute little doll like you.”
Velsa lost all patience. “You talk like a Daramon,” she said. “And we’re not hiring anyone who is holding onto those ideas. You might as well take your mule and go right back down the hill.”
“Aw, blast,” he said. “I’m not a bad guy, I swear. I just can’t help talking like a sailor. And it’s true, the cute ones are all taken. You should see what’s left that I’ve been tryin’ to court.”
“No!” Velsa was only more annoyed and just pointed at the road.
“What did I say?”
“Everything! Everything you said. ‘What’s left’? You deserve to be alone, I think. The ‘cute ones’ can do better. I’ve never heard a Fanarlem man speak so disgracefully.”
He pulled off the cap he was wearing. “Really have never spent much time around women,” he muttered. “It always seemed they like hearing that they’re cute. But to be fair, I haven’t been around very sophisticated ladies. You’re not much like anyone I’ve met. But I could be a good teacher. A lot of Fanarlem haven’t been exposed to other cultures like I have, or spent so much time in business dealings. And if you want someone who’ll teach kids not to take any guff—” He shrugged. “It’s a tough world, but I managed it. I started out in the mines.”
Velsa paused. It was true, the world was tough and one thing she could say for him—he exuded brash confidence that was rare in Fanarlem. While she didn’t want to encourage children to talk like sailors—and for the boys to see the girls as ‘cute’ and ‘what’s left’—she also knew that Fanarlem who were raised to work in the mines almost never got out, almost never even saw the sun.
“I do want the students here to see that they can be bold,” she said. “But our teachers have to show equal respect to women and girls, which means any whiff of judging us based on whether we’re cute or not, and you will be shown the door. Immediately.”
He grimaced, but said, “Yes, madam.”
“And you have to pass a test and an interview, that you do have the skills you claim, and so we can figure out where to place you.”
“Makes sense.”
“And you can’t smoke indoors. Or close to the children.”
“Uf,” he said, but he stubbed it out on one of the stone posts that formed a fence around the building.
“If you want to wait inside…”
“Sure. This is a grand building. How much of it is yours?”
“All of it,” Velsa said. “This was a school for Ven-Diri children several decades ago. Now it will be our school.”
“All for dolls? Sorry—Fanarlem,” he said hastily. “Boy, you have a glare.”
“Do I?” Velsa couldn’t help being flattered. It was quite hard to glare when you were made to look cute. She showed him in the door, swelling with pride that this building was all theirs. Sure, it was empty and a little run-down, but with a little work, it would be as fine a school as anywhere.
“Who’s paying for this?” the man asked.
“We are. My husband developed a new type of Fanarlem skin,” Velsa said. “It’s so superior and cheap to make that now it’s about the only kind sold in Laionesse or Avalon, and we’re working on selling it to the Daramons too. I don’t really like doing business with them, but it can only be to the benefit of other Fanarlem to have better skin.”
“You don’t say… Is that what you’re made of?”
“We haven’t actually changed out our own skin yet,” Velsa admitted. “It’s such a pain to have done and we’ve been so busy…”
“Whose mule is this?” Grau shouted outside.
“We’re in here!” Velsa called back.
Grau came in, excited about the mule, as he had apparently been chopping up fallen trees on the grounds into firewood and wanted to haul it all back to the house.
“This is our first potential teacher,” Velsa said. “But…I wanted us both to speak to him.”
“Do you own the mule?” Grau asked.
“Yep. That’s my buddy there.”
“Well, I’m sold,” Grau said. “We could certainly use a mule. The grounds are vast and we can get a lot of good wood. Keep my wife nice and warm and happy all winter.”
*Grau! Your wife might be warm but she is not happy. We need to interview him first!* She spoke to him telepathically.
He winced, unable to speak back to her, although she could pick up some of his thoughts. We haven’t had a single other applicant…
“You need help hauling?” The man held out a hand.
“Sure.”
Grau and the man went off with the mule and a rickety cart down some woodland path, and Velsa never even got the man’s name.
But apparently, he was hired. She could guess he had something to teach, even if it wasn’t quite what she had in mind, and it was true. No one else had applied.
(sorry, it’s just an eternal cliffhanger now, but at least it fills a few things in!)
I had a request to do one about plagiarism! Does it happen? Should you worry about it? While beginning writers tend to worry about this more than they need to, there are still moments where I get protective...
2025-05-24 01:05:21 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
I just wanted to give a few updates about my books.
First, Amazon is changing their royalty structure and reducing royalties on paperbacks priced under $9.99 from 50% to 60%. This means on June 1st, I will be raising the price of all my low-priced paperbacks. If you have been considering buying any of my Fairy Tale Heat or Queen of the Sun Palace books in paperback, you may want to grab them now! (Note: I earn a small commission from using this link. Thank you!)
Second, The Broken Queen is finally available on ALL retailers! It’s been in Kindle Unlimited for the past year, but now it’s everywhere. This story is earliest in my Hidden Lands timeline and I’ll be jumping deep into writing the sequel shortly!
Also, Rescued by the Raven King, book 14 in the Fairy Tale Heat series, was supposed to be wide ages ago but I realized it was only live on three retailers! Kobo is still glitching, but otherwise it should be up everywhere.
And if you’re a member, please tell me what video topics you would like to see in June! Otherwise, I’m going rogue. ;) I’ll have a new members-only video for you tomorrow!
xo,
Lidiya
2025-05-23 02:40:26 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
It’s been a very busy month. I apologize for severe lapses in email and comment response. I’m overwhelmed and I think I should probably take a day off today. I’ve been in writing hyperfocus mode where it’s hard to stop, while also marketing my books including trying to learn the Ways of BookTok for an upcoming video, and of course keeping up with Youtube—I had more sponsorships than I’ve ever had before which meant having to get many things done ahead of time.
I found another old post in my email archives, from when I FIRST released the Potion Dealers as The Vengeful Half in 2016. For any of you feeling like your projects are taking too long, or are too ambitious, or it’s madness to work on them…this one is for you. Bear in mind that this ended up being only the BEGINNING of getting this book to its final form! We’re all mad here!
“Writing The Vengeful Half has been a long, crazy journey of persistence.
I mean, crazy. Like, plenty of times I felt like this whole world was a curse because people kept telling me to just drop it and not get hung up on a story. And sometimes we do get too close to things. But the best stories, I firmly believe, are stories that are loved. Those are the stories that come alive.
1993: I created the Hidden Lands. Very few concepts remain from those early days, because eleven-year-olds are absurd. Like, in the original, all the characters were thousands of years old for no good reason and I had a whole plot arc about characters getting turned into babies.
2000: I completed my first novel, “Selkie Rock”, which was a spin-off from the Hidden Lands. I was too nervous to do anything with it. I didn’t complete another novel for five years.
2005: I started writing this little romance sub-plot about Alfred, the heir to an organized crime family, and Olivia, who was a nature-loving, craftsy, vegetarian girl. The story had zero plot. But I loved the chemistry between Alfred and Olivia so much that I wrote 60,000 words in one month. I was shocked. I had written so much! Why wasn’t I writing more novels and trying to sell them? I had no idea how to turn 12 years of Hidden Lands writing into a novel, so instead I just wrote Magic Under Glass.
2007: I was still trying to rewrite/sell Magic Under Glass, but Alfred and Olivia remained my favorite characters ever! By this point I had completed a (terrible) Alfred and Olivia YA novel titled “Something That Sings” (soooo terrible). I sent it to some agents, and only one agent bothered to read a single word of it.
2008: I sent a newly revised version of Magic Under Glass to the one agent who read a single word of “Something That Sings”. She became my agent and sold Magic Under Glass in three weeks! I remember when she called me to tell me we had an offer. I was so happy, but the foremost thought in my head was still, “I wish it was Alfred and Olivia…"
2010: By this time, I had rewritten the book many times. It was better. I sent it to my agent again. She gave me some good revision suggestions, but she still didn’t feel it was ready to sell. I wrote Dark Metropolis instead, and she sold that in three weeks AGAIN.
2012: I revised it still more times. I had lots of people read it. One of my teen readers made up an Olivia Halloween costume, wore it trick-or-treating around her neighborhood, and sent me a photo. I started to think maybe I really had something here. But I was in the middle of the contract for Dark Metropolis.
2015: My two-book contract for Dark Metropolis was done. I had learned a LOT from working with my editors at Hyperion, and I did one big revision sweep of Alfred and Olivia, amping the plot way up. I was REALLY proud of this version. I sent it to my agent again…and got the bad news. She still didn’t feel like it was something she could sell and suggested I self-publish it. I ended our wonderful seven-year working relationship because I was determined to sell this book, and started looking for a new agent. Requests trickled in. Then a couple of rejections. Meanwhile, I started researching self-publishing, and my partner Dade started urging me to self-publish so I could get the books out sooner, tell a longer and more ambitious story, and include artwork and comics. I pulled the book from the agents who had it and started working toward self-publishing.
This was such a scary time for me! But I think it was all done the way it had to be done. I still adore my agent and I wouldn’t mind working with her again, but I’m glad I left her at the time. It was good to step aside from all the other voices that had gotten involved in my storytelling process. I’m glad for the past eight years of publishing contracts and my five previous published books, because I learned so much about writing that helped me to tell a more ambitious story, from both my agent and all my editors. It really wouldn’t have been good at all to sell this book in 2008.
The story you will read in “The Vengeful Half” is approximately my 30th draft of the novel and represents 22 years of my dreams and ambitions. I hope that, whether or not you read and enjoy it, you will be a little bit inspired to stick with the artistic projects that call out to you, even if someone has told you to ignore them.”
Oh you poor crazy girl.
Anyway, thank you so much for your support of the Potion Dealers and if you’ve read it, liked it, and want to reward my absolutely insane level of persistence, please consider leaving it a review, especially on Amazon, or recommending it to other readers! Word of mouth is GOLD.
xo,
Lidiya
2025-05-19 15:49:45 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
One of the request videos for May was just to give you all a big pep talk! As I watched it back I think I could have actually said some other things too, there is an endless amount of pepping to be done, isn’t there? But hopefully it is helpful to someone out there.
As always, let me know if there are any topics you want to see for June!
2025-05-15 21:51:50 +0000 UTC View PostHello friends!
First, thank you all for an amazing launch week for the Potion Dealers. It’s sold over 100 copies, and that isn’t a ton, but for a book like this…it kind of is. In previous versions of this book I struggled to sell 200 copies TOTAL, while spending hundreds on advertising that wiped out all my profit.
So to see it sell 100 copies in less than a week without spending a dime, and to see a few glowing reviews trickle in? I cried a little.
I’ve been cleaning out some OLD unsent email, y’all, and I store a lot of old unposted blogs and things in there going back ages. I thought some of them would be fun to share. This was a post about why I enjoyed writing Alfred so much. And not much has changed, except as I have leaned more into cozy fantasy, Alfred doesn’t lie and connive as much. But he is still proud—and stubborn. (He’s a Taurus, ya know.) I also wouldn’t bring up Harry Potter this much nowadays…but overall, I think this is still some solid character advice.
1. He has a lot of problems, and his biggest problem is himself.
Every main character should have an obstacle. What is Alfred’s biggest obstacle? Well, for starters, he has been blind since he was a baby from a curse placed upon his family. That sounds like an obstacle. When I was a younger writer, I probably would’ve left that as his major obstacle. But, after all, Alfred grew up being blind and he’s used to it. A bigger obstacle comes in the form of the people around him who underestimate him because of his disability. That’s an obstacle too, but Alfred is pretty confident and good with people, and can usually manage to convince others that he’s capable. No, his biggest obstacle is that he is very proud, and he has a hard time backing away from a situation, even when he should. His pride stems logically from his position, and it leads him to lie, connive, and hurt others in order to maintain his power—which sometimes leads to him hurting even people he loves.
2. He could be a villain just as easily as he could be a hero.
That leads me to point #2. I could write a story from a different POV in which Alfred would seem like the bad guy. The balance between good and bad traits gives him constant inner conflict and keeps me interested in his story. You might think, well, not every story will lend itself to a character who could be a villain. But, there are all sorts of antagonists in the world, if you think about it. In Harry Potter, for example, do you think every kid at Hogwarts was thrilled to have Harry Potter there? Some of them probably got hurt or ignored because of all the crazy stuff that was happening and how Dumbledore paid so much attention to Harry. A question worth considering: How would your main character look from the point of view of someone who didn’t like them? Who might suffer because of your character’s actions?
3. He always wants at least two things that conflict with each other.
Some of the most common advice given in writing books is that a character must want something very badly, and that desire will drive the entire plot. Even better, I think, than writing one thing, is wanting two things that can’t be had at once. Like, “great power” and “a peaceful life”…which is, essentially, what Alfred wants. He wants Olivia, and he wants to give her a good, happy life. But he also wants to ultimately lead an organized crime operation. There is no way he can have both these things. In fact, every character in this story struggles with some variation of that same theme—power vs. happiness and peace. Writing workbooks will always ask you what your theme is. When I write the theme down, I often think, “Well, that’s SO basic, and it’s been done SO many times. How boring! Maybe I should think of a more original theme.” Resist the urge! There are endless variations. I feel that the theme of Harry Potter is, "the most powerful force of all is love.” Well, written out like that, it sounds cheesy and typical. But you can tell that story a gazillion ways. The human mind will never tire of a theme like “love conquers all” or “power vs. happiness” because we have to consider these themes throughout our own lives.
4. He can’t really be summed up in one sentence.
In writing, it’s important to be able to sum up elements in one sentence. And sure, I CAN sum Alfred up quickly. But I personally like a character who has more than one or two “things”. Most blind characters in other stories, for instance…well, that’s their “thing". I really didn’t want to write a character like that. My partner has psoriatic arthritis and most of his “dialogue” isn’t jokes about arthritis. That would just be WEIRD. Alfred feels more like a real person to me than some other characters I’ve written because he has more than one major character trait, more than one interest, more than one quirk. You don’t want to just pile on all these things randomly, but let them emerge organically from the character, and believe me, it will come more easily for some characters than others. There’s a reason I like Alfred so much—he told me about himself and I didn’t have to ask! But it’s worth spending a little time getting to know a character before you write their story, rather than just going “Cassie is snarky and she wants to be an artist” and leaving it at that. For me, creating music playlists for each major character often helps me get to know them better.
Now, click away if you hate spoilers, but I also thought I would add a list of all the little connections between the Hidden Lands books so far. If you want to try and spot these yourself, you can also click away now. Even though they all take place in different eras, I refer to this as a multigenerational saga, because there are many little connections.
—In the Broken Queen, Atorra’s best friend Lorsen is purchased by the cruel merchant Ankon Wode and endures abuse and trauma in his home before she is rescued. Ankon is the late grandfather of Alfred’s fiancee Thessia.
—Thessia’s mother Mevria is from a prominent Ven-Diri family, the Dorgas. She fell in love with an Atlantean merchant, deeply shocking and upsetting the Dorga family.
—Alfred makes an alliance with the Hohren boys, the two eldest sons of Grau’s sister Preya.
—He also makes an alliance with Lester Alamont, who is the adopted grandson of Dormongara and Kessily from the Cursed Soul trilogy.
—Alfred also mentions that he would love to make a deal with Flynn Fabulous, “the darling of the scene in New Sajinay”. Flynn appears in the Sorcerer’s Wife as the Peacock General’s party planner.
I think that’s it for now…but there will be more links when I finish the Una/Varrie book and Dormongara and Kessily’s story!
2025-05-07 01:56:28 +0000 UTC View Post