Tenebris Books
It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged here. Why? Because I’ve been writing everywhere else lately. Over the past year I have completed my first novel, come more than halfway through my second, written 9 short stories and started a writing blog. So you can understand how my little personal blog might get lost in the shuffle.
But that is not all. Though I recently signed with a literary agent, I had also been thinking for a while about taking further steps into the literary career track outside of merely writing. After discussing this with the person, now a good friend, who edited my first book, I discovered he had been in the process of setting up his own indie publishing house for literary fiction for some time. The woman who introduced us was already on board to run her own fantasy/sci-fi imprint under this house, and he would also run a further imprint for crime fiction. At the time I was considering self-publishing my own novel, if I didn’t have any success with agents. The trouble was, my book didn’t really fit into a specific genre that we could use an imprint for; it is a Young Adult novel, but I wasn’t interested in running a purely YA imprint. Partly because, to me, YA is a marketing demographic more than a genre, but also because I had a new idea. I wanted my imprint to cross marketing demographics and genre, and focus on that almost indefinable thing so many books I love have: darkness. Enter Tenebris Books.
As of this week, Tenebris Books is open for submissions, and I have already received my first manuscript.
However, I still work at Opera four days a week, and I’m also taking on some freelance editing work, both fiction and non-fiction. I also still have a two-year-old daughter. Oh, and did I mention I’ve just started a copy-editing course to refresh my skills?
This reminds me of the time I was working full-time, running a web-design business on the side, building a house, studying my Advanced Diploma and trying to get a visa for my boyfriend to stay in the country. That was ten years ago. Maybe it comes in cycles.
Yet, I’d never describe myself as a workaholic. Not by a long shot. There just seem to be times in my life when one thing sparks another, and I find more enthusiasm than I knew I had in me. And now it’s gone to a whole new level, because this time it’s about writing. The love of my life. I am finally in the publishing industry, with my fingers in many pies, and this way I get to taste every flavour. My cup runneth over… I just hope I don’t drown in it!