New Blog? What I’m working on…

So, I’ve realized that I don’t share a lot about myself and what I’m working on, and I thought I would start trying to do that more. Right now, I’m in the process of trying to spruce up my website and make it look a little more like a place you’d want to visit, with more stuff, that’s all easier to navigate.

Part of me has always resisted having a blog simply because, by nature, a blog is something you have to do with frequency and with commitment and I never really thought that that was something I could take on. But lately, I’ve been thinking again about it all and the truth is I really enjoy interacting with my readers, the ones that send me emails and banter with me about silly fun things on Twitter, and similar questions always come up: what I’m working on, when such and such is going to come out, etc.

And to further kick this new, more communicative G off, I actually went as far as creating a Facebook page which, to be totally honest, pained my soul because Facebook screwed me in the past. For those that followed me there a couple of years ago, you might remember when they shut down my account because they said I was not complying with their terms of service by having a pen name, which to me is bullshit simply because I am my pen name, whether I have ID for Giselle Fox or not. My working persona is me, and I have 20 books to prove it, ffs.

Anyway, I’m not going to get into a fist fight with Zucks. It’s his show. Still, he’s a dick that does f*ckery on the daily, and that is just a fact. But hey, it’s also 2019 and my readers are on Facebook and I love my readers more than I love my opinions about social media moguls, so there.

Anyhow, I constructed a Facebook page and promptly left it sitting dormant because I really have no clue, really at all, how to Facebook Page very well. So I’ve set aside some time to research and watch videos on the matter to get up to speed.

What have I been working on, aside from all the administrative stuff that unfortunately goes along with being a writer, is book number 10 for my Claire and the Lady Billionaire series, which I know a lot of you are very excited about and I am, too.

I recently went back and edited book 1 of the series, which was interesting because it’s been ages since I read it, and I was wildly horrified with how many errors there were in it–and probably still are because, hey, I’m a better editor than I was, but I still have a long way to go.

Anyway, the new improved version of Claire 1 is live and available on Amazon as we speak.

It’s interesting to go back and read your work again after months or years. Some parts you end up liking more, some parts you wish you’d done differently. I also re-edited Slow Burn in Tuscany, and that was fun because it was my very first novel, written before I knew anyone was reading my books. I found there to be quite a few moments of naive abandon in it. Even though I had no idea what I was doing (and arguably still don’t, haha) I felt there were times where I did manage to click into my writer flow.

Things really change once you know people are reading your stuff. Really, all you want to do is please everyone that will ever put your book in their hands–which is impossible, since you truly can’t please everyone. The most I can hope for is that I never disappoint anyone enough to the point of them never wanting to pick up another one of my stories.

And that’s actually a lot of weight resting there in the back of your mind, ready to pounce on and squash every whim and creative thought that pops into your head, It makes the whole writing process a little less organic feeling and a much less flowing. It’s a growing pain, and growing pains are a nice problem to have, I guess.

My main goal has always been to elevate the quality of my books, the depth of the stories – whatever kinds of stories they were meant to be, the message in them, and to really try to deliver a more artful package for my readers to chew on.

Writing is hard. I guess I never realized that it still would be even after writing so much. Even after producing steadily for the last three or four years, I can still say that I still have very little confidence of what I’m about to do when I sit down and try to build a new world with a new set of characters and a new love story. It’s always new ground. It will probably always feel like new ground.

If I’ve learned one thing in 4 years and 18 or 19 books, it’s that every single time feels different, and maybe that’s because every time I sit down to write another, my life is different, and that background of current events, the concurrent emotions, life stuff and stresses, friendships, struggles, all of that, can’t help but inform the book I’m about to write and the words that will make it onto the page.

I’m learning to be okay with uncertainty, because trying to be formulaic about art just doesn’t work.

I’ve completely gone off on a tangent, I was supposed to tell you what I’m working on:

Claire and the Lady Billionaire book 10, and also a stand-alone novel that I’ve been working on for the last six months that I was hoping to publish at the beginning of September, but summer holiday with my kid being out of school is just not a time where I can focus much on writing. I’ve come to the conclusion that July and August will just be about having fun with my family and not worrying about output.

I also have another novella in the works. I very much enjoy writing novellas. Some stories are just better suited to getting in and getting out fast. So that’s the three projects I have on the go. There is a fourth, which I’m not ready to disclose just yet but one I am very excited about. So that’s it for now, my friends. I’ll be back soon.