Tag: No. 1 Reader's Club

Books · brain chat

Pre-Empting Burnout and Turning Off the Internet for a Bit (except not here, here is nice)

FrancescaLeave a comment

This time a month ago I wrote about feeling like we were all living in the Nine of Wands. I still do, but the end is in sight. Or if not sight then it’s around the corner and down the road a bit. My diploma is almost finished. This stage of lockdown is almost finished. I got my eyebrows waxed yesterday and I feel like I can finally do my sarcastic eyebrow raises with precision. My final hand in date is the same day the lockdown eases up, which I only realised last week. It’s all a bit… soon-but-also-not-soon? Time has moved so differently since the pandemic began. Except for my eyebrow hairs, which have continued their mission to become one single eyebrow. (No shade to the Frida Kahlos of the world; I wish I had your gumption but I was brought up in a time of tweezed brows and the societal damage has been done. Also I really love that slightly sharp look that comes with a well defined brow. All the better for expressing my distaste for idiots without saying a single word.)

Point is, I’ve got a few important things to do – finish my final project, reread the entirety of the Raven Cycle and the Dreamer Trilogy before Mister Impossible comes out, repot some of the more substantial courgettes – and I reckon it’s time to do the smart thing and go on an official holiday, so I can focus properly and not collapse into a heap when something minor sends me into a tailspin. If you’re a colleague and you’re expecting to hear from me next week then ignore this completely: I’m a) not going anywhere and b) really just turning off my social media. I can’t afford to stop working. I’m thinking of this as more of a break from other people’s voices, even if those voices are really funny on Twitter. I’ll pop in a few times a week to check my messages but otherwise I’ll only be posting on this blog, my Patreon or sending out my monthly-ish newsletter. This blog doesn’t feel like work (and I have lots of posts I want to write up!) and Patreon technically is work but is also mostly me doing tarot readings and telling short stories. Which I will have more head space to do once I’ve turned off all the Twitter voices, handed in this soul sucking, brain eating final project and remembered what it is to be a human being again. I might… go to the shops. WITH NO PURPOSE EXCEPT TO BROWSE.

The thought makes me dizzy.

If you need me urgently, hit me up at francescaswords [at] outlook.com. I’ll get back to you within three business days. I’m not sure when I’ll be back to posting regularly on social media: maybe June? July? I will set up some posts to feed the algorithm, but if you need me… check back here, I guess. Here is a picture of my life post-diploma:

spine photograph of Maggie Stiefvater's UK editions of 'The Raven Cycle' series plus 'Call Down the Hawk. Partial showing of Iris Murdoch's 'Existentialists and Mystics' and Brandon Sanderson's 'The Final Empire', also in paperback.

My darlings. I haven’t read The Raven Cycle since 2019, since before Call Down the Hawk came out. Soon, my precious, battered, non-Insta-friendly paperbacks, I will inflict more spine damage and probably use you as coasters. Can’t bloody wait.

Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to stories and chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, use the button below for one-off support of as much or as little as you’d like (if you’d prefer, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi). If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buy my book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailers and as a paperback from Amazon. (That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos, you know?)

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brain chat · DISCUSS. · Money

Making Money: introducing a quarterly income round up!

Francesca1 Comment

Hi hi lovelies. A slightly quicker post from me today. More of a heads up kind of a thing? I’ve been sharing a survey on my socials about how I can improve my Patreon page, the No. 1 Readers’ Club (please take a couple of minutes to do it, whether you’re a member or not, because more voices equals better direction for me, and your input will influence the posts I share here).

One of the suggestions that has come up so far is more transparency about where patrons’ money goes. I’d already been considering sharing a post, or posts, about how I earn my money, because I’ve had a lot of questions about book royalties and how they work. I figured that, since royalties are a quarterly thing, it might be more useful to do a quarterly ’round up’ post detailing all my income rather than a monthly one… also, frankly, I don’t earn enough at present to warrant a monthly post. So what I’m thinking is, I’ll do the first one when my first royalty statement comes through. That will be some time in March, I believe. I can also talk about the money I get in from my stationery shops, plus of course income from my patrons. I’m not sure how long the post will be, but I want to be as transparent with patrons as I can, so I figure I’ll do it every quarter? I won’t be sharing how I spend my money, but the number of questions I’ve had about book royalties alone has convinced me that the general public could do with a little bit of an education about how much authors actually earn.

Spoiler alert: this will be my face when I calculate how much I’ve earnt versus what publishing dragonnovel cost:

Gerard Way pulling a face next to a BBC reporter at Reading Festival in 2014
from bloodinfections.tumblr.com, according to my computer

(That image has been sitting on my computer for SIX YEARS.)

Anyway. Leave a comment if you’d like to see anything in particular in this as-yet unwritten income round up post! Let me know if you have any questions about book royalties and how they work, or how publishing works, and I’ll do my best to add those in too. I feel like people tend to think of the creative industries as a bit mystical and opaque, not to mention lucrative, so anything I can to, you know, add some reality to the perception is something I’m interested in. I know March isn’t for ages, but this is the sort of topic that requires planning and I want to do it properly.

Look after yourselves!

Francesca

Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to stories and chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, use the button below for one-off support of as much or as little as you’d like (if you’d prefer, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi). If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buy my book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailers and as a paperback from Amazon. (That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos, you know?)

BuY Me a Coffee! Or a small gin and tonic.
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Books · brain chat

New Year’s Intentions 2021 aka Aiming to Survive the Year

FrancescaLeave a comment

Happy new year lovelies!

How are we doing? Does 2021 feel any different from 2020? I’m not going to write a post about Girl Bossing© 2020, nor a detailed plan for Girl Bossing© 2021, because who can actually take that seriously? I’m writing this in December of 2020, and have not at time of writing come across any ‘2020 was MY YEAR’ social media nonsense. I’m hoping I don’t. [Update from 2021 Francesca: I didn’t! People read the room, huh.]

2020 had some highlights, but let’s not insult our collective struggles by pretending that any of us ‘won’ the year. That any of us have managed to continue with milestones like having babies and celebrating birthdays and buying houses since the start of the pandemic is testament to humanity’s determination to create nice things however we can… but shall we not brag to our grieving friends or jobless family, eh. With that in mind, I wanted to share a few new year’s intentions. My only real goal is to survive until 2022, but I’m living in tier 4 for the foreseeable future and I need to feel like I’m working toward something, so I’ve got some gentle intentions, too:

Read some books

For the first time ever, I’ve made myself a reading list for the year. It’s composed partly of books on my shelf with unenticing covers, or meaty non-fiction I haven’t had the brain power for, and partly of books I just think sound cool and haven’t gotten around too yet. I’m going to try to share some of them on here too. Expect some YA, some pretty covers and probably some mythology.

Copies of 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' by Remi Eddo-Lodge, 'How to Build a Girl' by Caitlin Moran, 'House of Ashes' by Monique Roffey and 'Eileen' by Ottessa Moshfegh
I guess I’ve committed to finishing these, huh.

Write some books stories

Yeah, probably no book releases this year. But I’m not working as a freelancer anymore so I have a bit more time to split between college and my writing. I’ve made myself a timetable and everything, with writing time allocated its own colour. I tend to work obsessively on one thing for hours/days/weeks/years and then burn out, so I thought I’d try giving myself time to do specific things. I’ll be sharing stories with the No. 1 Readers’ Club on Patreon, although they won’t be as regular as they were last spring (one story a week can’t happen now I have college if I want to, you know, not melt). There might be one a month, there might be one every two months. Let’s see how the year plays out. They should be good, though… I’ve had a lot of short story practise in the last year!

And that’s it. Well. I’d also like to grow my business while maintaining (who am I kidding, while building) some sort of work life balance, but I think these two intentions encompass that. Reading improves my writing while removing me from the hell of our current reality. Win win. Sharing books I’m reading may help grow this blog; sharing short stories may help grow the No. 1 Readers’ Club, both of which will in turn pay my bills and provide more time to read. The circleee of liiffeeee…. plus I’ll have learnt some new words.

Do you have any intentions for the year? How is 2021 treating you so far?

Look after yourselves!

Want to support this page and/or enjoy exclusive access to stories and chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Or we could just get coffee?

brain chat · Etsy · School *choke*

In which I am grateful to be kind of snotty

FrancescaLeave a comment

Evening! (It’s not five as I start this but it’ll be waaaay past five by the time I publish.) How is everyone doing with the new-ish social distancing/lockdown rules? I’m assuming they’ll have changed by the time you read this. At time of writing, I’m 90% sure that I can’t socialise with more than 6 people, and probably shouldn’t hug my nan, but I can go to my local, badly-ventilated Spoons with 100 other people as long as we all get up and leave by 10pm?

I’ve got a cold at the moment – standard autumn snottage, nothing corona-y – and I can’t lie, it’s nice to have a different type of illness to think about. I might be a brain foggy sneeze machine but my toes look all right and I don’t need to lock myself in my bedroom for two weeks… ugh, the luxury of a common cold.

I feel like I have loads to update you guys with, assuming you’re here for hot gossip about my life. Over the last few weeks, I’ve discovered that 25 is the birthday at which people start gifting you candles, and that Microsoft Teams is infinitely superior to Zoom (remember Skype? Awww, Skype. I don’t know why I’m saying that, I still use Skype). WHAT AN ADULT SENTENCE. What a 2020 sentence.

Why are you using Microsoft Teams, I hear you wonder, are you conducting online tarot readings?

Ha, no. I was supposed to start a degree this week, but the college cancelled it back in August; I deferred my place and I’m doing a diploma for a year instead. Then the diploma went online-only because you need so many metres between so many people and the upshot is Microsoft Teams. I bought a folding screen to block the sunlight and create a ~ dedicated workspace ~ so now I have to do my homework, because folding screens are weirdly expensive given how little they weigh.

I’m only a week into lessons and have so far learnt that a) my note-taking technique is hellish, and the Cornell method is something secondary school teachers should have a legal requirement to suggest and b) I’ve very slightly improved my attitude to homework and time management since I left school, but like I said, it’s only been a week.

Speaking of time management, I’m going to be closing my Folksy and Etsy shops for a few weeks of October, November and December (and realistically January, etc.) so I can meet my college deadlines and my story deadlines. Also so I don’t, you know, drown under pencils come Christmas. Or drown a little less than I did last year? Maybe?

I secretly love drowning beneath pencils. Ugh. Please buy some. Oh! I almost forgot: I have an offer-y thing going on the No. 1 Readers’ Club until Wednesday 30th. Anyone who joins until the end of Wednesday will get a cute little story, by me. Well. It might not be cute, it might be ghost-y or magic-y since Halloween is coming up. Also since ghosts and magic are two of my favourite things to write about.

Right. Pitch over. I’m going to go nurse the cold and check my homework’s done for tomorrow – no call to 111 required! Just an early night and lots of liquids! I’m almost enjoying thinking about it! – so I will leave this here.

How is your autumn going? Has anyone else started school/college/work? This time of year always feels like a mini-new year and a fresh start. I’ve been watching YouTube videos by people who vlog entirely about studying. I feel like I might have turned over an academic new leaf… I am realistically going to continue watching Schitt’s Creek, as soon as I’ve checked my planner, though. Maybe I’ve turned over a baby leaf. A little petal. Ha.

Look after yourselves!