Another Thursday. Strange how that keeps happening!

 I have to make at least four phone calls that I do not want to make. Two that involve house insurance and two that involve taxes and my LLC. I have yet to receive the Alabama state income refund for last year, it's now December. I have yet to do that federal compliance thing for my LLC. Maybe they're related. I don't know. The house insurance thing is about a policy that was cancelled before it was set to renew, but they submitted the bill to my mortgage company anyway, and mortgage company paid it before I could call them to tell them to ignore that one, they then paid the replacement policy when it came in, and now I am getting letters from the mortgage company about the excessive insurance and that if something isn't done my mortgage will go up in January. While waiting for a check from the first insurance company that doesn't seem to be coming. And you'd think my local agent would be up to date on what is going on with the first policy but apparently not. And since my mortgage is already seven hundred dollars higher than when I originally financed, I can't afford it to go higher.

So yes, right now, I'm again seven hundred short of this month's mortgage payment. And fuck all if I know what to do about it right now. If, they said, I make three special payments, they will do a loan mitigation in January and the rate will go down. And if mortgage interest rates are lower then, the payment will be even less. That's all I'm trying to get through. That seven hundred more a month may as well be seven million. 

Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

I'm tired of dealing with shit. 

So, yeah, no, this is as Christmasy as it will get here. I'm just trying to keep a roof over our heads, the rest of it isn't happening.

Not asking for anything. Just talking.

Now about the books and the reason I have this blog:

Last days for the next batch of books still in Kindle Unlimited. At midnight on the 24, 10 or so will fall out, and I do not plan to put them back. There will be six left in KU until January 24. I will leave all books on Amazon until then. I'll make the final decision to pull everything completely then. Again, it would be cutting off my nose to spite my face, but no book sales anywhere is no book sales, right?

I don't know. I have good days when a whole bunch of books are bought. then many days of no sales at all. Still waiting for Kobo Plus for last month. I hate that they still don't have real time borrows in K+. I hate that it takes a month to see what those borrows were. I do like that I'm not forced to be exclusive, and that they pay for multiple reads by the same borrower. Those are plus to Plus. I guess. 

There's a part of me that is seriously thinking about taking my husband's entire paycheck tomorrow and driving to Florida and buying a couple thousand lottery tickets.

Wonder what the chances of breaking even would be?

SIGHS!

Why yes I should write a new book. Why yes I should write more books. Why yes. I know this. I'd have to set up a crowd fund for covers and editing to do so. And get past the hates everybody and everything thing I have going on. It would be dark and ugly. But the books that did well were written right after my father died and they were dark and ugly so I guess that's the answer to that isn't it.

SIGHS! AGAIN!

It is what it is. I wont talk about the last five books doing absolutely nothing in sales. And not wanting to continue that pattern. Or I could just write straight smut and move on. Or... close everything down and go back to ebay sales full time. I know I have to sell the house. Right now I won't make a dime and rents around here are barely less than what I'm paying for much less space.

I don't know what to do. So I'm going to bitch about it.

Don't mind me.

I will probably talk to you the day after Christmas.

So wishing you the best for the season. Or, if you're like me, just a nice day home. Maybe I'll drive over to Buc-ees and piss some people off again this year. Seems like a tradition to keep going.

Happy, Merry, Blessed, Joy Joy

Peace,

Mercy

Ahh, Thursday, my old nemesis

 Back again I see!!!

I don't know what it is about Thursday. I rarely ever notice what day it is until Thursday rolls around. 

Anyway, slogging along.

We're almost to the end of this month and year and first half of a decade, if you count from zero up, if you count from one up then next year. Most people count from one as we did at the millennium. I mean last century was the 20th, which means it ended with twenty. The new century started the first day of 2001. So, there. You can argue all you want, but we didn't start counting up in the year zero. You don't call a new born baby zero years old. But since we did start this millennium in the year zero then this is the end of the mid-decade by default.

Not the point.

Not sure there is a point. To anything. At all. Anymore.

We're just here, we pay some bills, we try to survive, maybe we have some kids to repeat the cycle, then we die and become lost to time. 

Or we could talk about planners and the two I have for next year that I will never really use and my thoughts on 18 v 12 month formats.

Or we could talk about the weather. It's cold. I'm cold. I don't like being cold. The sun is shining. I want to hibernate. I can't, I have more bills than money and each month seems to be more on the bills side than the money side. Gotta go out and get that dough somehow. I have ugly feet or I'd consider selling pics of them. Alas, can't even do that.

Wonders if a romance between a person who sells foot pics and another person who falls in love with their feet meet in real life and... nah, that's just creepy.

But then half the romances out there are somewhat creepy. I'm no prude. I write some insane shit. But sometimes the most prudish people write the most deranged rapey fetish stuff... have you noticed that? 

But that leads to a convo that will devolve into politics and I don't want to go down that path.

Ever.

I'm a damn Anarchist, politically. I live in a society in which I believe we should all work together for the betterment of human, animal, and planet kind. So therefor I side with the left. Because I like to drive on roads without holes in them and bridges that don't fall down, and I did not want to homeschool my children because those fuckers could drive dry paint crazy. (Smart kids can come up with the craziest shit) 

I believe in a world that has never existed and never will exist, at least not in my lifetime. I do not believe in religion. Or much of any thing organized. But I am not all hippie-dippie love and whatever that was. I actively hate much of humanity. We live in a world of hate and honestly fuck them assholes who seek to suppress others.

So that's my politics. The shit I don't talk about. And won't talk about on social media. I don't watch the news. I don't want to discuss world events. I loathe people who do. I am very aware of what is going on but I can't stay sane in a world of doom scrolling. And neither can you. It's all propaganda. All of it. And it will destroy you.

So, now that we're done talking about just about everything else... 

uh... 

Why do you still bother reading my rantings? I mean there's only about ten of you still reading this. So why?

I don't actively publish anymore. I haven't finished writing a damn thing in more than two years. And this is a blog for my pen name. Mercy should be blogging about book stuff. Instead, Marcia blogs about all the shit that filters through my head. And if you read it all you have to wonder how many personalities I have.

Just the one. But it's autistic, ADHD, and super dependent on how much sleep or stress it's under at any given time. Some days are not so very good mental days. Some days are hyperactive mental days. And some days are reflective. When I figure out what today is, I'll let you know.

Okay, just so we keep some sort of writing talk alive, remember, I have 9 or so titles that will leave Kindle Unlimited at the dawn of Christmas Eve. I have no plans to return any books to KU ever again. 

I'm still debating removing all books from Amazon completely, but that's still where the bulk of my two hundred bucks a month in royalties comes from. I don't like the creator of that site and yes, he is still the major stockholder if not the CEO. But, it will be actually cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Don't ask me what books are leaving. I don't know right now. Not the Adventure INK series. The Cold and Lace series yes. I can't find the notebook where I have all of that written down. And I don't feel like searching for it now.

And about social media and where I am and where I am not and where I'm considering not being.

I deleted my Twitter and Threads accounts. I'm considering leaving Instagram. I don't like the picture format because I don't take a lot of photos and I don't want to spend my time formating pictures I've lifted from the internet to play on there. And the no active links thing and well, I'm not a social person, if I can't use it to direct people to the places to help me pay my bills then what is the point of being there.

Despite my feelings for the owner of Meta, which isn't good, and getting worse by the day due to his politics, I will not leave FB. I prefer the FB format to all others. Despite the algorithm suppression of links. 

I am on BlueSky now. I'm trying. It's very much like old Twitter, and I didn't do well on Twitter. I feels like flinging shit into the breeze to see what sticks. Constantly. I don't like to constantly be active in social media. And I feel like I'm bothering people with spam when I try to promote my books.

Obviously I prefer long form content like this. And if it gets seen, it gets seen, if it doesn't, it's still here, in a logical row to be seen later.

And TikTok. My autistic squirrel bait brain loves TikTok, I could, and have spent hours on there a day. I don't create anything there. I just watch content. And if it does go away next month... I fear the only thing keeping me sane is TikTok and that's about the state of it all right now.

Go to Amazon, search for Mercy Celeste, scroll down, click the KU tab, you'll find everything still in KU, if you missed it, grab it.

Oh, and as a heads up, when those books come out of KU, the prices will go up. Inflation, you know.

Laters.

Mercy

Blink and it's Six Days Later

 I hate that I do this. Time impermanence I believe it's called. I have an inner clock like you would not believe. I rarely ever need an alarm or a wake up call. I always seem to know what time it is, give or take half an hour or so. I can't tell you what time it is without looking at a clock, that's not what I mean. I mean... I don't know. It's like I'm highly attuned in the moment. But things like future and past things... those may as well exist in a bubble floating around some metaphysical realm in my brain. December 1st was yesterday or never ago. I did a thing. I posted a thing. I walked away. Thing was always just done in my head. Not a week ago not a month ago. Not really even a day ago. Just ago. It was just Halloween. It was just Thanksgiving. And now it's December 6, nearly a week since I last posted. To me I just wrote that post. I just did a lot of stuff. Never mind that I haven't touched whatever it was that I thought I just did in weeks.

And, unfortunately, people are the same way to me. I just talked to or saw so and so. I just... dude that was a month ago, or a year. But I just saw them or chatted with them. Nope, it's been a long time. People too exist in a bubble. I know they exist. I love them, I miss them, but they're not right in front of me or hovering somewhere nearby, so they simple exist in the last form in which I saw them in a bubble in my little realm of things saved for later.

In other words I have a problem with out of sight out of mind. Things and time have no real object permanence in my timeline.

Okay, think about when you were a kid, and your parents went to work, or you went to school, and you found out your parents went to McDonalds for lunch, without you. And you're upset about it. Because to you your parents had no life outside of you and they just existed where you left them... maybe that was just a me thing too.

I don't know. Apparently it's an ADHD Autism thing. Maybe I didn't know this about myself until I found that side of TikTok and people diagnosed with both ADHD and Autism started talking about their forms of either/and... and a light went on in my little bubble realm. Like, okay, wow. I do this. All the damn time. I've done this my entire damn life. What do you mean it's not normal to have full blown conversations in your head ALL THE TIME! What do you mean that other people exist and have functioning lives outside of my visuals. What do you mean that you can just get up and function without standing on some proverbial crossroad in which you must decide which hyper focus you must choose for the day, and end up hyper focusing on the wrong thing and getting nothing done.??????? WHAT DO YOU MEAN!!!!!

But also what do you mean that it's not natural to wait to the last minute and do it all in half the time it should take. What do you mean you don't understand what I said when what I said was exactly and precisely what I meant and I didn't couch it in some social pleasantry that only you expect. I'm not bossy or rude. I'm just... don't have time in my ever expanding existential crisis of a life to beat around the goddamn bush... and that I remember every damn thing from the time I was 3 years old and maybe earlier and nothing at all at the same time. What do you mean that you don't know how to do this or that or the other thing... it's super easy.

No Marcia, it's super easy to you because your squirrel brain likes to take things apart and put them back together and when you're done with dismantling that you find new things to dismantle... and if you'd just get your fucking SHIT TOGETHER you really could take over the world.

Next week. After we fall down this rabbit hole and learn everything we can about piracy in the golden age or forget where we put that all important craft item we ordered from Amazon but forgot that craft existed while we waited for delivery but now we must do that craft and we can't find the damned sticky on magnets we bought for magnetic bookmarks... and... shit... I was going to write a blog post every day this month... but fucking seriously where the fuck did I put that sheet of magnets when I sorted the craft shit into appropriate places two months ago....... because I must make goddamn magnetic bookmarks or die.

Which, BTW, also explains why you get to the end of my posts and you're wondering why I just ramble and rant and lose the damn plot of the post.

BECAUSE MY BRAIN IS BROKEN AND THIS IS HOW I THINK!!!! and it's not natural but I didn't know it wasn't natural and I thought everyone was like this and it's why I can write such detailed broken characters or I can't write at all because my brain must have it all now and if it takes too long my brain goes fuck this noise and runs off to the ooh shiny hallway and takes out all the other ooh shinies... and wants to buy the tools to make spoon rings RIGHT FUCKING NOW! don't let my brain buy the tools to make spoon rings because I do not like the sound or smell of metal doing anything and we won't even talk about which spoon and fork must be used with what type of food and if I can taste the metal that spoon or fork is dead to me forever.

And now, as that guy whose name I've momentarily forgotten but will remember at some random time and will blurt it out for no damn reason whatsoever said, you know the rest of the story.

No, I actually did not expect to write any of this... what's your point?

Peace,

Mercy

December Eve

 Well, here we are. We made it. The turkey (chicken in our case) has been eaten. The dishes have (maybe) been washed. We've braved the sales (there weren't any sales to speak of). And now it's cold (finally!) (also when will this go the hell away? no likey) and tomorrow we start the first day of the last month of this dreadful year.

I try so hard to stay positive. I'm not a positive person. I'm a realist. A lot of people think realists are pessimists. I'm not pessimistic. I'm not. I report facts and how life is working for me. And that makes people uncomfortable. Why am I such a downer? Because Brenda, life has been sucking the life out of me and I am finding it very damn hard to see any silver linings. Well, if you just project happy thoughts you can change so much. Brenda, happy thoughts don't pay the fucking bills. Or stop the shower from spewing water. Or dogs from puking on your couch.

SIGHS!

I know. I KNOW! You get what you attract. I understand this. Doesn't make it easy to stop waiting for the next disaster when the disasters just keep on coming.

Again SIGHS!

I went to Target yesterday afternoon just to get out of the damn house and see what's up for the coming season. I didn't have any money to spend on non-essentials. They got rid of their DVD/Bluray section. It's just gone. They still have music, if you're into albums. I'm not. I didn't like vinyl when that's all we had. Yes I'm that old. I am 8 track old. My first cassette tape was Styx Cornerstone. I still have it. I think at one time I had around 200 cassettes. I think I still have around 50. Not all of them will play. And honestly, I'm not going to risk trying to play 40 year old tape when that stuff would shred brand new. When compact discs came out, it took me a few years but that's been my favorite form of music consumption. Yes, I still like to own my media.

Except books. Don't get me wrong, I still love books. I love the pretty covers. I love the feel of them. I love everything about them. Except for two things: the price. And, I can't see the tiny print to read them. I do prefer the price of e-books, the choices in e-books, and that I can change the font on my e-reader so I can actually read the damn thing.

So, to bring the topic back full circle to Target and the proliferation of books from an author that I think is a terrible writer to the point of having a whole damn shelf in Target and I...

I want to be in fucking Target. That's it. That's what I want. That's what I've always wanted. I wanted to be "real" published. I wanted bookstores and paperbacks and tours back when I was healthy and could walk and didn't look like a melted villain from a comic book. I WANT TO HAVE BOOKS IN FUCKING TARGET!

BIG FUCKING SIGHS!

Yeah, I'm... no I'm not jealous. I was about to say I was. I'm not. Does it bother me that there are books published every day that people love, by authors I think can't write their way out of a paper bag? Sometimes.

But, I know that my lack of that type of career is my own damn fault.

I made choices 15 years ago, to stop persuing New York publishers. I couldn't attract an agent back then. And I went with small press e-publishers and we all know how that went for me.

I am well aware that the loss of my self-publishing career is my fault as well. I couldn't compete with the likes of the author above, because, I don't know, I don't write the style people want to read. I let the constant tragedies in my life destroy my ability to write. 

I know it's my fault I'm not in Target.

And I don't know what to do about it at this late stage in the game.

And, forgive me for saying, I don't exactly write the genre that is going to show up in a Target. Yes, I know there are gay books in Target. I know one of the authors regularly sold there. But, honestly, to the best of my knowledge it's only about 3 maybe 4 authors of gay rom/fiction who make it there.

No, I'm not happy about that comment either. Again, I report what I see. And your Target might have a large selection of queer romance, but mine in the lower part of one of the reddest states, that is not the case. 

I started out writing M/F romance. I could have stayed in that genre. I liked writing MM. I felt more comfortable with the male POV than the female POV. I still prefer the male POV when writing. I don't think of myself as female. And when I do write female characters, they are women like me. I have tried to do the girly-girls and I can't. I don't identify with them. 

Sooo.... 

You see my dilemma.

I want something that is and has always been out of my reach. I know I have a talent for storytelling. That is not the world in which we currently live, romance wise.

So, yeah... I'm jealous. Of something I can't have. But if I had to try... how the hell would I even start??????????????????????????????????????????

So (yes I'm aware I use so too much) that's my thoughts on this last day of the 11th month of the 24th year of the new millennium. 

Here's hoping the 12th and last month will hold pleasant surprises and holiday comfort.

Peace,

Mercy

PS: What do you think of my new banner? Cooked it myself, words and all.

The Post I Didn't Want to Write

 I have put this off for weeks now. I don't like asking for help. I've done it a few times. I feel embarrassed and humiliated and like a failure. I try not to ask. I try to handle it alone. I try and I fail. And I hate like hell that I'm writing this to once again ask for help.

As you may know, earlier this year my husband had a major cardiac event. Not a heart attack exactly. He spent a while in the hospital and a bit longer of a while on unpaid leave from work to recover. We've used all of our miniscule amount of savings to cover what we could. But we are struggling. I was able to keep my house out of foreclosure by agreeing to a special 3 month repayment plan. And this month I can't make it. It's like everything that can go wrong, has. And the robbing Peter to pay Paul system I've been using the past few months finally caught up with me. I say me. Because it's me. I handle the bills. I stress the finances. I make the hard decisions. And because every single financial hit this year seems to hit me the hardest. Book sales died to nothing. I just can't go on. I can't sell the house. I could, but I've maxed out my equity staying out of foreclosure. If I sell I will walk away with nothing. Rent somewhere else would be the same or higher. I have three pets. I can't file personal bankruptcy to keep the house out of foreclosure because I don't make enough money to pay the bankruptcy fees much less restructure payments.

I am quite literally good and screwed.

And Monday I will be foreclosed on. Me. My house. The one I financed with my book earnings and the downpayment I'd saved from royalties. My forever home. And I will be homeless.

That's it. That's where we are. Where I am.

And I hate asking for help, because I feel like I'm begging. 

But please, if you have a little you could spare to help. Or if you'd like to buy my paperback books or my handmade jewelry... I'd greatly appreciate it. Not going to lie, it's a lot. But right now, anything to help get me to the point I can refinance the house out of the special finance program that would be great. And I thank you. I will post my links below, or you can find them all in the about me menu.

Thanks.

Mercy

My Ko-fi account.

My Ko-fi Shop

My Payhip Shop

My Venmo account (last digits of phone are 3340 if needed)

November, We Hardly Knew Ye

 What is with these blink and miss them months lately?

I know I'm getting old and my mother always said that time moves faster as you get older. But where the hell has November gone? And this time I'm not going to say it feels like it was five minutes and five years. No, this has been a five minute month all around.

Like yesterday we were standing in line to vote and now we're a week from T-day.

Speaking of Thanksgiving... my least favorite of all the days of the year. I hate that day with a fucking passion. It's the I cook food I hate all day holiday for people who also hate that food, but must have "traditional" thanksgiving food.

Okay, not my personal family. No one in my house likes turkey that much. Nor want to do some kind of formal dining event. But that's how it was when my birth family was still in my life. After my parents divorced and I got married it became my job to cook for my father and siblings. While they sat in my living room, didn't talk to me, or my kids, just to themselves, and when it was done and the criticism was out of the way, they'd mosey on back to Florida. And going back to when my mother, who was a terrible cook btw, did it, and I was the only kid she forced into helping... okay I can forgive my mother for Thanksgiving, that wasn't a her thing, that was asshole family members making demands without offering to help thing. She did try. We did a ton of food from scratch. Because we were country people and we had farm vegetables and well, it's how it was back then.

As the years went by and the crap piled high I stopped doing all scratch holiday meals. Turkey yes, mashed potatoes yes, the rest of it, nope. It either came pre-made from the store, or from a box, can or exploding tube of dough. And that's how it still is, if we do it all, minus the damn turkey, I won't ever cook another turkey as long as I live. I hate them. The smell of the carcass starting to roast makes me gag. I will bake some chicken pieces, and I might cook frozen field peas instead of canned green beans but that's as close to from scratch as I'm doing now. I don't have any extended family now. My husband's family, what's left of it, all live hours and hours away. So it's just us. And this year, if I could find a place open, I'd just order some pizza and bake some pies and call it done.

Sighs. I think I've said that all ready. And I woke up wanting pizza today. 

Anyway, this was supposed to be a post about the 12 books about to drop out of KU and possibly leave Amazon forever. I say possibly. I'm still on the fence about that, but the second leg is swinging over. I think I will hold off pulling them completely until the 30th. I still don't know. I don't want to continue to support a billionaire, but I've been informed that billionaire no longer has controlling interest in the company... but still... I still believe my sales have not been reported correctly, for many years, and well, it would be like cutting my nose off to spite my face........ My gut says do it. But I'm second thinking.

Doesn't matter, I'm about to default on my mortgage and I'm out of chances to pull out of foreclosure. Whatever I do this weekend will be too late so yeah. Either way, everything will go back into wide release, I already have 5 titles back on Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo and in Kobo plus. But the links aren't showing in search on B&N and Kobo even though they say they're published and even sent me an email, but I can't find them. 

So anyway, if you still haven't read the following books in KU you have until Friday night late to get them in your library.

And with that, if I don't get back before the holiday, I wish you catering and house keeping.

Mercy

All links below are Amazon affiliate links and I am legally bound to let you know that I may earn a small commission if you buy from it.

Double Coverage

Wicked Game

The 51st Thursday

Beyond Complicated

Need You Now

Six Ways from Sunday

Sidelined

Offside Chance

Light from the Dark

Out of the Blues

The QB Connection

One True Pair