I'm writing in my ritual room. The altar is off on my right, our goddess of abundance burbling away in her fountain. It's going to be warm today, but there's a bit of chill this morning, so the fire place is on to my left. My laptop sits in my lap as I rock in my chair, my right leg pushing me, while my left leg is curled under my right knee. Music plays in my bluetooth headphones.
Across the room there's a futon; some of the rituals need that.
I'm in the ritual room, because writing is a part of my spiritual practice. I've taken vows to teach about love and intimacy. Fiction is part of that. Our imagination is strong enough to let us live for a time in worlds just different enough from our own that the differences give us perspective to actually understand our world rather than just living in it. Fiction also lets us put aside a bit of the fear that fills us: it's not real, which gives us permission to be more vulnerable than we might be on our own.
One other detail would be obvious to you if you were here even though it almost slipped my mind. The music and fountain are not the only noise. As I type, my computer speaks the letters: I am totally blind.

Honestly, I don't know all the ways. I live in my own head, and it's hard to know how we're different from other people.
Book covers suck! Graphic artists want to deal in pictures. "So, something like this?" they ask, as they send you something to look at. Dealing with the cover is the most vulnerable, demotivating part of the entire process for me. Some day I'll find someone who is able to work with me more in words. Oh, at the end of the process, I'll find someone I trust to review the final work. But I dream of a day when I can find a graphic artist who can help me turn ideas about theme and setting into images rather than expecting me to come with an idea of the images I want.
Clothes are hard too, as are facial expressions. This is an area where AI tools like Chat GPT can be useful. Fans are helpful too, and if you'd be interested in helping bring a bit of color to my worlds, please join us on the Discord; there's a link from immortalitycurse.com

Originally, I started publishing my stories as serials on a site that focused on adult content. For those who are old enough, think back to multi-part stories on Usenet. My goal has always been to encourage people to think more deeply about how we relate and the things that get in the way of connection, and so I was able to get readers hooked with the steamy bits, and then surprise them with a world that worked differently than they expected. Now I am looking to reach out to a more general audience.

Even as a kid I knew I wanted to write. I was sure it was not going to happen though: there wasn't enough time. Then, as I started working as a spiritualist and sex/intimacy educator, I was too afraid. There's enough stigma associated with talking about sex in the non fiction world. I was afraid that if I wrote fiction, there would be some controversy surrounding something I said, and that would make it harder for me to reach people in the real world. I was ashamed facing the ideas my imagination was coming up with.
The universe had other ideas though.
I was approaching one of my big spiritual initiations; there's a lot of soul searching preparing for that kind of ritual. In the middle of that, I was returning from a conference. I had a vivid dream about a world where love and connection were not optional. In that world, if you were not tied into a constantly refreshed web of connection with the people around you, the shadows would come get you in the night.
I couldn't not write, and on the plane trip home, I wrote several thousand words. I spent a couple months polishing off my first novella.
Along the way, I realized that there was power in writing. I felt more myself; I could reject the shame that prevented me from expressing myself. Living authentically was more important than any trouble I might face because people did not like what I wrote.