When I Realised I Was Bisexual

Hi all,

As it's Pride Month, I thought I'd share the story of how I realised I was bisexual. I came out a few years ago but I never shared the story of how I realised I wasn't straight.

During secondary school, I did have a crush on a girl in one of my classes. I think I was in year nine or ten, which would have made me about fifteen or sixteen. At the time, I thought it was normal. The other girls would go on about their 'girl crushes' so I assumed that it was normal to like girls in that way. Before that I thought that girls were really pretty but again, thought that was normal too. 

As I got older I found more women attractive but didn't really see a correlation with it until I was eighteen. I discovered the word bisexuality during Pride Month and figured that the label would fit me, but I wasn't sure. I still didn't know if I was experiencing what everyone else experienced or if it was something else.

When I was nineteen I broached the subject with one of my friends at the time. She laughed me off and claimed that I couldn't be bisexual as I hadn't dated a woman. She told me that I was seeking attention and looking for something that would make me stand out from other people. That annoyed me at the time, but I couldn't fully articulate why so she just made fun of me further. She also liked to make fun of my body, anxiety, depression and boyfriend at the time.

A few weeks later she messaged me that she had a dream about having sex with a woman, so she must be bisexual. At that point I lost it and cut her off, as I knew deep down that she was just trying to agitate me. Well, it worked but I'd had enough of her antics at that point. I haven't spoken to her since. I didn't want to hear her constant put downs, especially about my sexuality, which I still wasn't sure about.

Since then, I've come to terms with my sexuality and came out. I still find it to be so empowering when I write my sexuality on forms, it makes me feel like my feelings have been validated.

If you are questioning your identity, don't listen to those who put you down. Give yourself time to figure things out and don't feel pressured to come out. You do what you want on your own time. It took me a few years, but I'm now comfortable with who I am and who I'm attracted to. I'm still me, no matter what.

If you are wondering if you’re bisexual or you’re not entirely sure what it is, do some research and see what it means to you. I’ve had a look at this website which specificlly focuses on bisexuality for those who want to learn more.

That's it for this week! I've got another blog post planned for Pride Month, about things I've heard as a bisexual woman. See you next Sunday. 

PS; don’t forget to check out this fantasy book promo:

June is for Unicorns (and other magical creatures)

Tips on How to Get Out of a Reading Slump

Hi all,

I know we've all been there, where we just can't bring ourselves to read a book. Where it starts to feel like a chore rather than an escape. This week, I thought I'd give you some tips on how to hopefully break out of your reading slump!

Re-read old books

If you have a comfort book, give it a read again! It doesn't matter how many times you read a book, as long as you enjoy doing it. Re-reading an old favourite might reignite your passion once more.

Read audiobooks

This can make reading easier as you just have to listen. You can read while doing chores, going out or even just laying in bed. Instead of having to focus on the page, you can just let your mind drift off.

Read graphic novels

Graphic novels are easy to read and have plenty of visuals for when your mind doesn't feel like imagining the book's events. Some of them can be quite short as well, so you don't have to spend hours reading it if you don't want to.

Read a short book

Instead of picking up a full-length novel, try a novel or a smaller book. You'll find yourself enjoying reading again without devoting too much time to one story.

Read fanfiction

If there's a book you absolutely love and that's what you want to read more of, try fanfiction. There are thousands of stories out there written by fans to suit anyone who loves a book.

Read short stories

Short stories won't take too long to read, so it won't take too much of a toll on your mind. After reading a few, you might find yourself building up to bigger books again.

Read a book by your favourite author

If you've previously loved a book by your favourite author, why not try one of their other books? You might be pleasantly surprised to find a new favourite!

Read in short bursts

Instead of pushing yourself to read a few chapters or for an hour, read in short bursts instead. Maybe ten pages and then take a break, or just a chapter. Your mind will dwell on the book's events more and you might find yourself going back to read more.

Read a new genre

If you're not interested in any of the books that are out in your favourite genre, why not try a new one? Several genres have a lot of crossover that can make it easy to read a new one. Like horror? Try mystery or paranormal books. Like fantasy? Try LitRPG books.

That's it for this week! I've had reading slumps before and they can be tough to get out of if you're not motivated to read. But I hope this post helps anyone who might be struggling. See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out this month’s book bundles:

Spring into a New Woo-niverse Giveaways: Supernatural, Fantasy, Paranormal, Magical Realsim, and Sci-Fi

Kindle Unlimited with the occult and supernatural

Witchy Ways: An All-Genre Giveaway for Stories with Witches or Magic

May Giveaway

My Favourite Non-Writing Podcasts

Hi all,

Today I'm going to talk about a few podcasts I listen to that aren't writing related. My boyfriend and I usually listen to them before we go to sleep which I found has gotten me settled a lot more quickly.

Hat Films.

Hat Films are three YouTubers who I've been watching for years. They are absolutely hilarious and I managed to get my fiancé into them as well. They usually talk about random news or scenarios that their Patrons can vote on. Their videos are great and their podcast is just as good. I love listening to them rant about various topics or try to come up with ways out of certain scenarios. Whenever a new video comes out, that's the first thing my fiancé and I watch. They are great entertainment and I would highly recommend checking them out.

SCP Archive.

This is a podcast that I've been listening to for a few months and I really enjoy it. I've known about the SCP Foundation for years and I've read into a lot of them. My favourites are the dangerous ones that could end the world in a few seconds if they were released. Hearing the stories being read out with various voice actors is great. The only thing that I wished they would do explain the SCPs a bit more. They just read out what's on the pages and some of them can be confusing.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

I've only just started listening to this one but I love it so far! The TV series is one of my favourite shows and I knew I'd love the podcast too. They talk about various episodes and so far I've listened to them talk about their parking a lot!

The Office Ladies.

This series is a favourite of mine that I love to rewatch. So to have a podcast is a great bonus! I love hearing all of the behind the scenes stuff and deleted scenes. Angela and Jenna are fantastic hosts and they are so entertaining to listen to.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading and will check out some of these podcasts! See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out this month’s book bundles:

Spring into a New Woo-niverse Giveaways: Supernatural, Fantasy, Paranormal, Magical Realsim, and Sci-Fi

Kindle Unlimited with the occult and supernatural

Witchy Ways: An All-Genre Giveaway for Stories with Witches or Magic

May Giveaway

I Dyed My Hair Purple

Hi all,

If you've been reading my blog for a while then you may remember last year when I dyed my hair green. This year, I've decided to go purple!

It's my favourite colour and when I got hit by the urge to dye my hair, I knew it would be the next colour. I went to same hairdresser that I went to last time and I absolutely love it!

Thankfully my alopecia hasn't been too bad for a while so I've been able to dye my hair in recent years. It's nice to be able to try different colours after spending years not being able to.

Will I go a different colour in the future?

Probably. I love how I look after getting it done and I'm excited to try other colours too. Maybe next time I'll try a blue colour.

The only problem is that now I'm finding purple hairs everywhere. Mishka doesn't seem to mind too much though as she's still trying to eat the hair from my head.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles before you go!

Epic Fantasy Spring Giveaway

Fantastic Fantasy

I'm Finally Listening to Audiobooks

Hi all!

I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to be writing about based on the title alone. Yes, I've started listening to audiobooks. No, it's not in the way you expect.

I listen to audiobooks to go to sleep.

If the narrator is right, I find their voice really soothing and it helps me to drift off. So far I've listened to some mythology books, a history book, some Doctor Who and some comedy ones too. I'm still getting engrossed in the stories and I'm getting excited to go to sleep because I can listen to the next part. It's not a conventional way of reading books, but I find it's really helping me. If I'm feeling overstimulated or anxious, I find that having something on in the background that I can focus on just helps me gently drift off to sleep. It doesn't even effect Mishka, she'll happily settle next to me and sleep as normal.

So far, my favourite books have been The Stone Rose and Unruly. They both kept me so hooked and I was looking forward to hearing it before bed. I managed to stay up to listen to all of The Stone Rose! I'm listening to them in thirty minute pieces, so it gives me enough time to actually get some sleep instead of staying up all night.

It was my boyfriend's idea, he's listened to a lot when he sleeps to help him settle and now that we're living together I'm doing the same thing. It's nice that I've found a way to enjoy audiobooks as I've always wanted to get into them but find it hard to concentrate on them. I usually lose my place in the book or tune out and stop listening. But at night it gives me a chance to unwind and listen to a good story as I go to sleep.

That's it for this week! See you next Sunday. 

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles before you go:

Finished Fantasy and Sci-Fi Series Prequels

A Box Set of Young Adult Magic

The First Draft of Street Rats is Finally Complete!

Hi all, 

If you've been reading my blog for a while then I'm sure you've heard about Street Rats. I originally started writing it in 2021 but I've struggled to get through the first draft. Even with less than 2000 words to write I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

But now, I've done it. 

Street Rats is done! The first draft is written and will now sit on the back burner until I edit it. I hope it won't take me years to get the courage to edit it but I'm so glad that I finally managed to get it done. 

At the time of writing it, I was being bullied and isolated in my job and it was spilling into my writing. The main character, Hailey, was hated for no reason and the other characters shunned her no matter what she did. Because I was feeling like that in reality, those feelings and scenarios spilled into the book. Even though I knew it was happening, I couldn't stop it. It felt like I was trying to justify the actions of the people around me by writing it in a book. But there was no justification for completely ignoring me for hours on end and making me feel terrible for getting stressed about doing the majority of the work. 

Even when I left that job I couldn't bring myself to finish the story. I just kept thinking about how much work it will need editing and how I don't want to revisit those feelings again. I don't know why I suddenly felt like I was able to finish it, but I have. My mental health has never been better and I saw it on my phone one day and just started writing. Now, it's done. 

Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty of work to do if I eventually want to publish it. But I love the concept and the world I created. I don't want to let that just sit on a computer for the rest of my life. It might take a bit longer to see this story and I do apologise for that. But getting the first draft done is a huge step and I'm proud of myself for that. I've come to terms with my feelings and what happened to me and I don't feel so bitter anymore. One day I'd love to have this book on a bookshelf next to all my other published works. 

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. See you next week. 

Rocky has Crossed the Rainbow Bridge

Hi all,

Some sad news this week. Rocky, my fifteen year-old cat, passed away on the 22nd August. He went peacefully surrounded by family.

If you've read some of my older blog posts then I'm sure that you're aware that Rocky was my first writing buddy, the one who was with me when I wrote my first book. I even turned him into a human character in Elemental Dragons, but tried to keep his personality the same. He became Hazel's overprotective older brother who was creative but a softie at heart. He was there for me every step of the way through writing Blood and Water, which was called Marine at the time. Even after I finished the book and started researching agents and editing the book myself, he was there by my side. Or sometimes, literally in my face!

The behaviour of the dragons in Elemental Dragons is mostly inspired cats. Rocky was my 'dragon' that I would observe in between writing to get some of his behaviours right. For example; the dragons sleep curled up with their tails covering their noses, which is what cats do.

I want to do something in his memory but I'm not too sure what yet. I would love to work with a cat charity and raise some funds for them or even run a raffle with my books as some of the prizes. I have a charity in mind already but I'm not going to rush myself into contacting them, I'm going to give myself enough time to grieve properly.

Losing him was heartbreaking and I know he would want me to keep writing, which is what I'll do. Mishka, my five year-old cat, has been helping me through this time and I hope that she will take up his role as chief writing buddy.

I loved him so much and I'll never forget everything he did for me. I'll find some way to do some good in his honour once I've sorted my own head out first.

That's it for this week. See you next Sunday.

The Impact of Writing on Mental Health

Hi all! 

This week I wanted to talk about the impact writing can have on your mental health. Writing can help me immensely when I feel low, but sometimes that can reflect what I write. I thought I'd list a few things here. 

Relieves stress. 

Even if you only write a few words a day, I've found that writing can be a huge stress reliever. It lets your mind wander for a bit instead of worrying. 

Get your emotions out. 

Writing can be a good way to get your emotions out, good and bad. It may help you with how you're feeling and relieve some of the pressure. However, this can also be a double-edged sword. I find that when I'm mentally ill, this reflects in my writing a lot. I tend to write the characters with what I'm going through and how I'm feeling. This is especially evident in Street Rats, which has taken over the entire story. 

It's an escape. 

You can escape for however long you want in writing. Even if it's just for a few minutes every day. It gives your mind a rest from what's going on in the world. But this can get unhealthy if you're doing this too often, you need to make sure that you're not making yourself more sick by writing longer than you need to. 

Improved mood. 

It can help improve your mood as it gives you something else to focus on. Afterwards you can come back from it with a clearer mind. 

Organises your thoughts. 

Writing can help you organise your thoughts and feelings by writing them down. You don't even need to write a story, you can just write about your feelings and what made you feel that way. 

I hope this blog post can make you feel better about writing, even if you don't feel like you're in the best mental state. I've found writing to be such a good thing for me and it gives me an escape but also a way to get my feelings down. I love writing and it has definitely helped me when I've been at my lowest. 

That's it for this week, see you next Sunday! 

Why I Dyed my Hair Green

Hi all!

Last week I got my hair dyed. You might be asking why this warrants a blog post, but don't worry, I'll explain! Firstly, check out the pictures below:

This is such a big deal as I haven't been able to dye my hair for over a decade. I have alopecia, though mine is quite mild. Alopecia is when the immune system attacks hair follicles to cause hair loss. Mine started when I was in secondary school, around the time I was starting my GCSEs. I was advised that mine was probably exacerbated by stress, which wasn't anything I could really do about until my exams were over.

One thing that my GP did suggest is that I should stop dying my hair, as this could be making the alopecia worse. I had reddish hair at the time, which I then had to grow out.

Luckily the trend for balayage came in around the same time, so no-one really gave much attention to the fact that I had long brown roots with red hair. Well, except my so called "friends". I got a lot of grief from them for the way my hair looked and was told to just ‘dye over it’. Although teachers at school were aware that I had alopecia, none of them did anything to help me with it.

A few years ago I got the bus and saw this woman with beautiful green hair. I knew that if I could ever dye my hair again, that would be the colour I'd go. Now after ten years, I'm proud to say that I have!

I love the colour and I'm going to get more green added next time as its quite subtle at the moment. I'm glad that my hair is finally at a point where I can dye it again without causing bald patches. My mental health has improved in leaps and bounds from where I was at the beginning of the year. I'm nowhere near as stressed as I used to be and my hair is in great condition. Even one of the bald patches that stubbornly refused to grow is now sprouting a few hairs!

I'm so glad that I was finally able to get it done and I hope that this shows that my alopecia hopefully won't be too much of a problem again in the future. Maybe I'll try some other colours too.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. See you next week!

PS; don’t forget to take a look at these books:

Fantasy & Sci-Fi Box Set Kindle Unlimited Promo

Magical Winter Fantasy

The Ivybridge Bookshop Book Signing Event

Hi all,

As I said in my last blog post, I attended a book signing event at The Ivybridge Bookshop! There were twenty-eight authors in total who attended, listed here:

Margaret Arnold

Charles Becker

Sue Blackmore

T P Fielden

Biku Ghosh

Alan Grant

Trevor Griffiths

Eleanor Halton

Adam Hart-Davis

Kathryn Harries

Judith Hasell

Alison Huntingford

Kevin Jefferys

Mary McClarey

Laurence McPartlin

Julian Mitchell

Jenny Moore

Pip Payne

Tony Rea

John Simes

Ewen Southby-Tailyour

Julian Stockwin

Clive Venables

Veryan Williams-Wynn

Jane Whittington

Anne Willingale

And of course, me!

The poster for the event

The poster for the event

There were quite a lit of people in the shop itself, which made it quite nerve wracking. I was one of the last to talk about my book, and read a short excerpt from Blood and Water about Aqueous hatching. It was fun to hear about other authors talking about their books and how they've sold. A lot of the authors based their books in the Devon area of the UK, often in the crime or mystery genre. I was one of the few that wrote Young Adult Fantasy.

I bought three books while I was there, which I have added to my to be read pile! My boyfriend, who came along to support me, ended up buying a book too!

A collection of photos from the event, courtesy of The Ivybridge Bookshop

A collection of photos from the event, courtesy of The Ivybridge Bookshop

Unfortunately, none of my books sold while I was there. I also brought along holographic stickers of Aqueous, a dragon character from my books, but no-one had any of those either. In total, I sold no books and didn't sign any either. It's disappointing, but I'm still glad that I did it. While waiting to read I was getting anxious, and when I spoke to the audience my hands were shaking so much that I had to cut my excerpt short. Still, it's good experience for if I get invited to one of these events again. It was nice to speak to other authors about their journeys in writing and see all of their books on display in one place.

You can check out the books by local authors here (includes the complete Elemental Dragons series!): Ivybridge and South Devon Authors

There are currently four of each of the Elemental Dragons books in stock, so if you want to buy my books and support a bookshop I would recommend getting them from the link above! I will also being doing a giveaway of some holographic stickers… So keep an eye out for that too!

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! For an idea of next week's blog post, keep an eye on my social media... See you next week!

PS; looking for some free books? Check out the amazing ones in this bundle!

High Summer: August Fantasy & Science Fiction Giveaway

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