Hello.
It’s been a while, four months, to be precise.
Guess I’d better bring you all up to date on the wonderful world that is my life and writing.
First, I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me over the last year and a bit. It hasn’t been easy adjusting to the single life, but now my daughter and I are moving out of survival mode and into thriving mode.
But that’s enough about that. So much has happened since I last wrote on here.
I’m now home educating my daughter full time following a slight falling out with her school. It is time-consuming, and we have days when we would both rather jump in an active volcano than attempt maths, but it is primarily positive.
If you’d like to read more about our home education journey, the first in a series of articles is now live on Medium.
Of course, this has reduced the time I have available to write and outside of her education, the writing I do to make a living needs to take precedence. This means, for those of you waiting for my demon novel, I’m sorry, but it is still on hold.
The upside is I am building my audience on Medium and am writing more on there to create a small but increasing income. It is minimal, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Other work continues to evade me as companies tighten their belts and either bring their writing in-house or pay ridiculous rates that leave you working for nothing. This time of year is always quiet, and hopefully, things will pick up in the new year.
One significant change since I last updated on here is my Vocal page. I separated my erotica on Medium and considered what to do with Vocal. It has never been a great source of income, but it attracts more readers because you are not limited to a few reads a month if you don’t have a membership.
Anyway, I looked long and hard at my reader numbers and soon discovered that the works that attracted the most readers were my erotic stories and the original fan fiction. So, with this in mind, my Vocal page became home to my erotica under the name Lorelei Sands.
https://vocal.media/authors/lorelei-sands
I am so very close to earning my first $20 from reads on that platform. The other benefit of keeping the Vocal pages open is people can leave me tips if they enjoy my work. Tips were a vital source of income on the platform when I started writing there.
I’ve also joined a third platform in the hope of reaching a different audience. This is under Cathylouise and will focus on my family-friendly writing and poetry. Currently, I’m posting poetry daily and will eventually add articles and possibly even fiction works, but that is for the future. If you are interested, you can find the new platform at
https://simily.co/members/cathylouise/
It has been a difficult six months (yes, I know I updated four months ago). Some of those difficulties are still with me. My mental health is better but has taken a few knocks along the way.
I’m still involved with Character Creation Roleplaying and love every moment. I now play DnD on a Friday, and it is giving me a much needed social outlet. It’s great because we play straight after the kids in the same space, and the daughter is safe in the building with her friends.
I run creative activities during the monthly community board game day and may even branch out into teaching again, supporting home educated teens with philosophy and essay writing skills. Life is busy and chaotic at times, but it is primarily positive, and I tend to thrive on a certain amount of chaos.
I’m sure I’ve missed out loads, including my fall down the outside stairs (there’s a post about it on Medium) and the joys of having the new kitchen fitted, but I can babble on forever.
If I don’t update again beforehand, enjoy the rest of the festive season. Watch out for each other and stay safe.
Please consider buying me a coffee if you want to help keep the creative wheels turning.