Minor Site Updates

I’ve made some minor site updates.

• Pages are now more mobile-friendly!
• Updated list of where you can buy I Will Rise, the poetry book I released last year on living with mental and chronic illness – find it on the published work page
• Updated summary for Love, Cori, my upcoming novella – find it on the upcoming works page

The Deep Darkness

Chronic illness and mental illness is a cruel combination. I survive it using my creativity, but damn, do they like to interfere with my ability to do anything creative.

Without my writing and general ability to create stuff, I wouldn’t be here today. It is my primary coping mechanism, especially when I get into the deep darkness that is bipolar depression.

If you have mental or chronic illness and you manage to do anything at all for yourself that brings you joy and helps you cope on a regular basis, you are fucking amazing. Don’t ever forget it.

The Amazon Boycott

I love protests and boycotts and anything that helps draw attention to major issues and maybe inconveniences some of the elite, but honestly, I’m really torn on this one. I’m going to tell you why, but I am absolutely not going to tell you what to do.

A lot of independent authors publish solely through Amazon. That is the only way that they sell their books. And, for many of those authors, the money that they make on Amazon is their primary or sole income.

It’s not just authors, either. A lot of small businesses and up-and-coming brands get a platform and get noticed places like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. If we boycott all of those places entirely, we are also boycotting all of these small, independent businesses that we are allegedly trying hard to help.

I know, for me, the boycott from the 7th to the 14th will be partial at best, because they already collected my Prime Music and Prime payments for this month. I actually have an Amazon Fire stick, so I can’t even turn on my TV without using Amazon.

Even if I don’t buy a thing, or cancel all my memberships with them today, they still got money from me.

I still have books downloaded in my Kindle that I will read and review to help those independent authors that I mentioned. I don’t just review things here – I also leave reviews other places to help those authors sell more of their books.

Also, my fear is that any boycott will directly impact Amazon workers more than anyone in the Amazon elite. Hours could be cut. Shifts could be pared down. More work could be piled on already overworked employees. I know they are overworked under grueling conditions because I was one of them for a very brief window of time.

I will be meeting myself in the middle and using the benefits that I have already paid for to support those who need support. I’ll use my Prime to buy from those small businesses. I’ll use my Prime Music to listen to less popular or underground artists. I’ll use my Prime Video to watch more independent films. I will buy only books from independent authors.

I will do more good that way than just letting them have my money and sitting here silently without TV, music, or books that I can comfortably hold with all my pain as I slowly go insane.

Now, I do not think the boycott is a waste of time, meaningless, or that it’s guaranteed to be ineffective. I’m just saying it’s not right for me, and I’m going to find other ways to take action that will be more meaningful and realistic for me and my circumstances.

Thoughts of the Day

If I’d spent just a fraction of the amount of time working on my writing as I did obsessing over whether or not it was good enough – whether not I was good enough – I would be a lot fucking better at it than I am today. (I’m still not that bad, though, ay!)

No one is harder on me than I am, but at one point, someone must have been. Otherwise, where would I have learned to be so damned ruthless with my own heart?

Poetry Readings

They. Are. Coming.

Get ready.