Author: Kara Jorgensen

Kara Jorgensen (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary oddball with a penchant for all things antiquated, morbid, or just plain strange. While in college, they realized they no longer wanted to be Victor Frankenstein but instead wanted to write like Mary Shelley and thus abandoned their future career in science for writing. They meld their passions through their books and received an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing in 2016. When not writing, they can be found hanging out with their dogs watching period dramas or trying to convince their students to cite their sources. To find out more about her books go to https://karajorgensen.com Sign-up for her newsletter and get a free short story: eepurl.com/bfJTW9
new blog post: Get 2 books for $2 Get 2 Books for $2
The Reanimator's Heart · the reanimator's soul

Get 2 Books for $2

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment
Get the Reanimator Mysteries books for 99c each at all major retailers mm historical, paranormal romance books 1 and 2 on sale an autistic necromancer x undead adhd-er pushing daisies x sleepy hollow book 3 coming October 29th

From now until August 28th, both The Reanimator’s Heart (TRM #1) and The Reanimator’s Soul (TRM #2) are on sale for $0.99, so you can grab both books for $2. It’s the perfect time to read and catch up before The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3) comes out October 29th.

an array of covers behind a banner that says Indie Sale fantasy, science fiction, and horror, August 24 to 26, 2024

There is one day left in the Narratess Indie Sale (ends the 26th), so if you are looking to beef up your to-be-read pile for Indie August, swing over to the Narratess Sale to check out over 200 indie books that are free to $1.99. The Reanimator’s Heart is part of the sale as well as books from many of my friends’ books.

new blog post: 10 reasons to read The Reanimator's Remains 10 Reasons to Read The Reanimator’s Remains
The Reanimator's Remains

10 Reasons to Read The Reanimator’s Remains

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

As we get closer to the release of The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3), I wanted to talk about some reasons I’m excited for you all to read this book.

  1. Gwen is on the case! In this book, Gwen gets to come along and be an active participant in the investigation since it’s up her alley. She may have gotten more than she bargained for.
  2. More of Felipe’s backstory. We get to see more of Felipe growing up, for better or worse. Poor Felipe is going through it in this book.
  3. ANGST. See above, lol. There’s a lot of internal angst in this book.
  4. Quilts are important. Being a crafter and coming from a family of crafters, the idea of fabrics and quilts being passed down becomes an important part of the story. I love the idea of legacy and love being stitched into blankets.
  5. A creepy forest. The Dysterwood is the star of this book, I think. If you liked the creepy cathedral in book one, you’ll love this forest. It has a lot of personality and creep factor.
  6. Scandinavian influences. I’m bringing in the Scandinavian flavor for this book. It appears in some of Oliver’s history already, but there’s definitely more of it in this book, especially in the mythos influences and environment.
  7. We learn about Oliver’s parents. They have been sort of shadowy, enigmatic figures in the series so far, so prepare to find out what happened to them. This feels sort of Hey, Arnold-ish, so prepare yourselves.
  8. A proposal. If you haven’t read the short story, “An Unexpected Question,” you might want to before reading The Reanimator’s Remains because spoilers. But yes, someone is getting proposed to in this book.
  9. Another dog. This one is named Argos, and he’s a large, brindle mutt that sort of resembles a hippo-shaped pit bull. As always, the dog will always be fine.
  10. It’s the set-up for the final book. There will be one more book after The Reanimator’s Remains, and there are some hints in this book as to what will go down in the final/fourth book.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, I hope you’ll preorder The Reanimator’s Remains, coming out on October 29th. You can get it all major retailers, and the paperback will be out in October.

Or start the series with The Reanimator’s Heart in ebook, audiobook, or paperback (and in library systems).

new blog post: trusting your writing intuition Trusting Your Writing Intuition
Writing

Trusting Your Writing Intuition

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

As some of you may know, my writing process is a delicate dance of two steps forward, one step back. I’m a writer who edits as they go, which I know is not how many authors or writers work. There’s a lot of advice thrown around in the writing community about when to edit. Some people overthink things and need to power through a draft to get it out before going back and fixing it. I am not one of those people. I don’t like mess. When I cook or bake, I clean pans and utensils as I go. The same applies to my writing.

Recently, I was working on The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3) and was finding myself slowing. Every time I tried to work, I sort of stalled out, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had an outline, I knew where I was going, I double checked the outline made sense, yet I still couldn’t convince my brain that we needed to keep moving forward. Sitting with the feeling, I realized I wanted to edit earlier parts of the book. Not a major rewrite, but I wanted to tidy things up again and reacquaint myself with the first half of the book. I kept telling myself no. No, you need to write forward, not go back and fiddle with the book, especially when I already knew act 1 was solid.

For a few days, I ignored this compulsion to edit, and guess what happened: I still didn’t write. Finally, after several days of stalling, I gave in. I had Word read the book back to me, and I edited through the entire first half of The Reanimator’s Remains. It took two days since it’s already been gone over several times, and during those days, I didn’t write anything new. At the same time, I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner. My subconscious was begging me to edit the first half of the book and reacquaint myself with the major threads before going on, but I ignored it. My brain literally had to force me to stop writing in order for me to listen.

The worst part is that I understand why I refused to stop. I need to be productive. I need to write every day. FORWARD MOMENTUM IS KEY. But editing is a large part of my process that helps me maintain forward momentum, and somehow, I forgot that key point. Going back through that chunk of the story helped to remind me of all the threads and little details I need to pluck at in the second half of the book. I made a list as I went through the first half and went through the parts of the second half that I’ve already written to sprinkle them back in. Continuity is key, and my memory is certainly not infallible. Actually, it’s more like an internet browser with 123 tabs open, so going back through the earlier parts of the book was vitally important to not making a huge mess had I gone further into the story without checking what I needed to add in.

This whole do I or don’t I edit again debacle really comes down to trusting your intuition. If your brain is saying, hey, we need to slow down and refresh our memories and/or tidy up, we need to listen to it. Often, your subconscious knows something you don’t. Same thing with when you stall out while writing and can’t figure out why. It’s usually because you messed something up earlier, and you need to fix it before going forward.

After over a decade of writing novels, this is still something I need to remind myself: trust that inner voice when it’s telling you to stop and regroup. 99% of the time it’s worth it.

new blog post: july 2024 wrap-up post July 2024 Wrap-Up Post
Monthly Review

July 2024 Wrap-Up Post

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

July was my birthday month, and luckily, it was a good one for getting writing done. Despite the heat and humidity, I enjoyed July and tried to take time to keep myself from flaming out. A reminder of our goals:

  • Write 25,000 words
  • Outline next chunk of book
  • Do a cover reveal and make graphics for them
  • Maintain my mental health better (oops)
  • Blog weekly
  • Read 8 books
  • Send out my July newsletter

Books

My goal was to read 8 books, and I read 10 books.

  1. The Christmas Chevalier (#1) by Meg Mardell- 4 stars, a historical romance with a trans masc MC who is a bit of a bohemian who falls for his ex-governess best friend and offers her the chance at a new life on her own terms. Oh, and there’s a masquerade ball.
  2. The Moon on a Rainy Night (#3) by Kuzushiro- 4 stars, a sapphic YA featuring a hard-of-hearing MC and the hearing girl who is in love with her. I love the dynamic between these two as friends and the potential for more.
  3. The Moon on a Rainy Night (#4) by Kuzushiro- 4 stars, see above
  4. The Moon on a Rainy Night (#5) by Kuzushiro- 4 stars, see above
  5. I Hear the Sunspot Four Seasons (#2) by Yuki Fumino- 4 stars, we’re starting a new arch where we find out more about the one mc’s backstory and meet some new people who may cause trouble.
  6. A Highland Hogmanay (#2) by Meg Mardell- 4 stars, an heiress runs away from London to a Scottish castle to avoid pushy, fortune hunting family and not only falls in love with the land but the woman who cares for it.
  7. Fiction Blurbs The Best Page Forward Way by Phoebe Ravencraft- 4 stars, useful for doing blurbs, but I think the original blurb book by Bryan Cohen is better, mostly because I wish it came with finished examples at the end.
  8. A Chaperoned Christmas (#3) by Meg Mardell- 4 stars, a thrupple story featuring a London lady, her ex flame, and the woman who had a crush on her years ago.
  9. A Restless Truth (#2) by Freya Marske- 4 stars, a sapphic historical fantasy on a ship where an old woman with a very valuable magical artifact is murdered, and her young traveling companion and an ex-actress must find it and survive the trip.
  10. Ennead (#3) by Mojito- 3 stars, not sure I’m going to keep reading this one if the next volume doesn’t hook me. There was some dubious consent in this one, and the writing is a bit… sparse/loose to me.

Admin/Behind-the-Scenes Stuff

  • Finished outlining the rest of TRR
  • Paid Crowglass Design for the cover of TRR
  • Did a cover reveal for TRR
  • Made so many graphics and videos for TRR’s cover reveal
  • Celebrated my birthday with my partner and had a great day
  • Edited previous chunks of TRR
  • Maintained my sanity as best I could
  • Blogged weekly
  • Sent out my newsletter
  • Signed up for the Naratess Sale in August

Blogs

Writing

So I didn’t quite hit my writing goal for July, which is fine because I wrote a lot. In June, I mentioned that I was flirting with burnout (and I still am), but days when I felt like I was overloaded or tired, I took a day off. I ended up getting a few migraines that took me out whether I wanted to write or not, which sucked immensely. The good thing is that I think the rest of the book will be fairly smooth sailing since I know where I’m going and what I’m doing to get there. I’m a plantser/gardener, so I generally have an idea of where I’m going, but it isn’t set in stone. Now, I have the vast majority of the plot solidified, so there’s less time spent waffling and staring moodily into the void.

Hopes for August

  • Write 25,000 words
  • Start edits
  • Prepare for my classes
  • Make the online parts of my classes (bleck)
  • Continue to try to maintain my tenuous grip on my mental health
  • Blog weekly
  • Send out my newsletter
  • Read 8 books
new blog post: emotional whiplash Emotional Whiplash
Personal Life

Emotional Whiplash

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Not gonna lie, I’ve been going through it emotionally lately. It’s hard for me to talk about feeling anxious and depressed when nothing obviously horrible is happening in my life. Knock on wood, no one has died, nothing catastrophic has happened, but if I think a little too hard about my current situation juxtaposed against the state of the world, I find myself k.o-ed by a brain death spiral more often than I would care to admit.

I often think about Otto Dix and other Post-WWI artists and authors. When I was younger, I never understood how they could all be so sad and traumatized years on, even though the 1920s seemed so upbeat, especially compared to the 1910s. I get it now. The big joke about Millennials is that we’ve lived through too many historic events. A merry-go-round is fun until it won’t stop spinning, and you’re ten seconds from hurling or jumping off. That’s where we are. The only time in my life where the world was stable was from ages 0-9, which was just enough to lull me into a false sense of security that things could get better. Things have never gotten better in any meaningful, big picture way. I look back at those poor, ennui-filled people living through WWI and then a pandemic and then having to face more of life’s messiness with no real hope of things getting better, and I’m like yeah, same, bud. At the crux of that ennui is the idea that so much of this death and destruction could have been prevented.

Instead of WWI, my generation has the Palestinian Genocide. Day after day we’re confronted with horrific images of children being blown to pieces, bombs dropped on schools, on mosques, on ancient sites, libraries, universities, whole communities and families wiped out in a senseless instant. Even worse is knowing that an AI algorithm decides who lives and dies while Israeli troops post videos of them proudly rummaging through Palestinian people’s houses on Tiktok. I often think it isn’t hard to be not be a shit head, yet every day people seem to prove me wrong. Much like WWI, it’s all about land ownership. Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Palestines lived side by side for centuries, and they could again if it weren’t for people who are hellbent on turning Gaza into a seaside resort and running Palestinians out of the West Bank, once again, for the real estate.

On top of all this, there’s the pandemic, which, FYI, we’re still in. The radio silence from our leaders about Covid grates on me. Wastewater data doesn’t lie that we’re currently in another wave of covid. Each infection has a good chance of leaving you with long covid, for which there is no cure or treatment. There’s something about people willfully infecting themselves and their children with something that could give them brain or organ damage that fills me with far more dread than nearly anything else. I can ride out economic mess, I can white knuckle it through more trans- and homophobia, but I can’t stand that people won’t mask up because it “salts the vibe.” Sorry, baby, covid isn’t done with you yet, and viruses don’t care that you’re tired of their existence. Studies have proven time and time again that it isn’t milder, it isn’t a cold, and vaccines protect against severe disease only and do not prevent you from catching or spreading it. Masking would prevent so much sickness and disease, but so many well-meaning liberals just won’t anymore, no matter how much you explain how this affects chronically ill or disability people or even themselves (I mean, who wants to potentially become chronically ill or disabled?). I don’t know how to make you care or appeal to your humanity when it apparently isn’t there anymore.

“Pandemic fatigue,” “compassion fatigue,” what I’m tired of is the bullshit from people who want to pretend nothing bad is happening and that they can’t possibly be complicit. Newsflash, you are.

At the same time, I’ve been heartened by seeing others online masking, especially as the #Yallmasking went viral on Twitter. I didn’t feel so alone seeing so many people post selfies in their N95s and KN95s. Seeing the sudden renewed verve for pissing off conservatives and calling out their ridiculous bullshit has been heartening since Kamala Harris announced her run for president. Do I think she’s perfect? No. Do I think she’s spurred something akin to hope? God, I hope so. I feel like democrats are suddenly growing something at least vaguely resembling a spine, and I think Harris can be pushed further left than we’ve been in a long time. If we can gain that momentum and keep pushing left, we may actually make headway. I feel like I need to guard my heart against hope because I’ve been burned one too many times, but if there’s progress to be made, I need to feel that disenchantment, burn it off, and pick myself up again.

Since you’ve gotten this far into my soapbox rant, I hope you will

a) mask up for your own health and the health of those around you. If you can’t afford masks, see if there is a mask bloc near you

b) support the Airborne Act of 2024 by calling your congress people and asking them to support this bill, which gives tax incentives for businesses and public spaces to filter the air, which would help current and future pandemics

c) demand your congress people support a permanent ceasefire in Palestine as well as reparations for the Palestinian people, so they can rebuild. You can also leave a message for Vice President Harris.

new blog post: The Reanimator's Remains Cover Reveal The Reanimator’s Remains Cover Reveal
The Reanimator's Remains

The Reanimator’s Remains Cover Reveal

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Today is the day we have all been waiting for, the cover reveal for The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3). Crowglass Design has outdone himself with the cover for The Reanimator’s Remains! I absolutely love what he’s come up with, and I think it fits the vibe of the story so well. Plus, it’s my favorite color.

If you haven’t read book one, you can start the series in ebook, audiobook, or paperback, or you can grab book 2 in any of those formats.

The Reanimator’s Remains is the third book in the Reanimator Mysteries series and will be out October 29th, 2024. You can preorder the ebook now at all major retailers, and the paperback will be available in October closer to release day.

Check out the cover, current content warnings, blurb, and preorder link below:

An autistic necromancer, his undead love, and a covenant that must be broken.

Oliver Barlow never knew what happened to his parents. With a note from his mother as his only lead, Oliver had given up hope of ever learning the truth. But when the dead start rising in the town of Aldorhaven, Oliver jumps at the chance to take the case if it means he can investigate the last place his parents were seen alive.

Felipe Galvan would like to be anywhere but Aldorhaven. Between protecting Oliver and Gwen, dealing with distrustful townsfolk, and an unexpected letter from his estranged parents, Felipe is already stretched thin. But when he is suddenly plagued by whispers from the woods and nightmares from his past, Felipe fears he is only one misstep away from becoming the monster he was meant to be.

Far more sinister things than the dead lurk in Aldorhaven’s woods. A centuries old bargain has been broken, and the only thing that can satisfy it is Oliver’s blood. Together, Oliver, Felipe, and Gwen must finish what Oliver’s parents started, or they too will be ensnared by their devil’s bargain.

CWs include but are not limited to/are subject to change: suicidal ideation, self-harm, blood, gore, violence, death, descriptions of dead bodies, autopsies, on page sexual content, anxiety attack, mentions of

a black and grey background with green and white accents throughout. the top has Kara Jorgensen, the bottom says The Reanimator's Remains. In the center is a skull in an oval like a cameo. In the background are trees that turn into roots below. In the trees is a moth and in the roots a beetle. There's a man on either side of the trees. One is walking away while the other reaches for him

I may be a little biased, but I love this cover. I think Crowglass Design did a fantastic job. My favorite bits are… well all of it, but especially the moth and the beetle, both of which signify change. Do with that what you will.

If you haven’t preordered, The Reanimator’s Remains yet, you can use this universal link to preorder it at Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Apple Books, Smashwords, and more.

Or add it on Goodreads.

Paperbacks will be available closer to release day.

new blog post: on writer hustle culture On Writer Hustle Culture
Writing

On Writer Hustle Culture

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

If there’s something I hate seeing online, it’s the glorification of hustle culture. For those of you who are not chronically online, hustle culture is the hyper capitalistic, you must be on 24/7, #girlboss, #productivity, work myself to death with a smile because I’m making more money than you attitude. As you can probably guess from my past screeds, I’m not a fan of capitalism for many reasons, but as an author/creator/artist, it’s particularly shitty to be expected to grind yourself to dust while supposedly doing what you love. Because if you aren’t, you’re apparently doing it wrong.

I believe artists should be able to make money from their art. I believe there should be social/governmental safety nets to allow us to do so as there are in other countries. I believe artists should be compensated fairly for their work and do it in a time frame that is aligns with their process and health. I feel like these are all very reasonable things to believe, but if you start looking at how people behave online, especially in certain online writing circles, you’ll see that is not the case.

Something I’ve noticed over the past five years of watching authortube (authors on YouTube), writertube (writers on YouTube), and writertok (writers on Tiktok) is the prevalence of hustle culture but in a way that is softer and almost more insidious because it is less obvious. I do want to preface this by saying that I see this more often with younger or less experienced writers than with people who have multiple books published, though I will touch upon some of those people later.

Beneath the aesthetic “A Day in the Life” or “Write With Me” videos is the looming threat of toxic productivity. No longer are authors writing in their pajamas gremlin style, they are out in the world writing and making content and recording B roll while doing it. The problem is that one must still write in order to have content to pump out into the world, and when your social media relies on you being a #writer, you must perform being a writer. The performance of writing is pretty clear in these videos, but the part that I find to be most toxic is the focus on large daily word counts.

Now, there are some people whose natural writing rhythm is 3k words a day or to fast draft. That’s totally fine. We all have our own pace. My problem is with the people who write for the sake of getting those large word counts, draft the same book ad nauseam, chasing their tail but never finishing anything. Or even worse, they beat themselves up over a no word or low word count day, even when the word count is perfectly normal for many writers. I’ve watched so many young or unpublished writers do this and burn themselves out. There are times when I’ve suspected a writer is burnt out and not writing, though they read off some giant word count while never talking about their project in any detail.

I’ve complained about Tiktok and the capitalist drive to produce content, but the mixing of word count and content does nothing to help writers. It gives completely unrealistic expectations to newbies, it’s fake in some cases, and in others, it drives people’s mental health into the ground when they try to maintain high levels of productivity for way too long. As much as the idea of NaNoWriMo started out as a good thing, I lay the blame for this trend at their feet. I think a lot of younger writer thought, If I can write 1666 words a day for a month, surely I can do more and for longer, without understanding that NaNo is not meant to set the pace for the entirety of their career or life. As with most things relating to hustle culture, it almost automatically excludes people without ideal circumstances, so people with lower energy levels, people with kids, with demanding jobs, etc. Those people can never be #AuthorGoals if they aren’t typing 3k a day while taking aesthetic B roll at a coffee shop.

My hope is that newer writers will understand that a lot of what they see online is not real or is heavily curated to make it look better than it truly is. There are ways to be productive and have goals without running yourself into the ground or creating a facade in order to live up to perceived expectations. The key is to focus less on content production or high daily word counts and more on what works best for you at this stage of your life. For some, it is fast drafting, but for many, a more moderate or slower approach is healthier. Don’t get caught up in what you think you should be doing because someone online tells you that you should or because you see someone successful doing it. You don’t know how much help they have or how many hours they have to work.

Going off this, be wary of people who consider themselves to be writing gurus or who churn out 10+ books a year. Many people whose sole job is writing can write 4-6 books a year, but if someone is publishing every month, be skeptical. Often, those people use ghost writers, people on Fiverr, or now, they rely on AI to do the heavy lifting with their books. They may also have assistants who run all their social media profiles or spouses who take care of all the day-to-day life stuff that you’re still doing. Don’t fall for the aesthetic hustle culture you see in online writing communities. Being a YouTube or Tiktok personality with never be a substitute for good writing or maintaining your sanity and health through good habits when it comes to a building long-term career.

new blog post: why i will never be a brand Why I Will Never Be a “Brand”
Writing

Why I Will Never Be a “Brand”

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about brands, online personalities, and sincerity a lot lately. Without harping on past posts, let’s summarize the reason for this rumination as recent-past online trauma (if you know, you know).

Something you hear a lot as a new author is figuring out your “brand.” What’s your author brand? Build your author brand in 5 easy steps! Build your brand!

What building your brand should be is targeting your product to your ideal reader. Note: I said product. Your book is a product; you are not a product. I do have an author brand. I call it being a romantic goremonger. I write books with some gory, highly descriptive gross bits (usually medical in nature or having to do with a cadaver) while balancing that with lots of emotional intimacy between the two main characters. My ideal reader also enjoys historicals and is probably queer (or enjoys queer books) since those are basically all that I write. If you like Anne Rice, KJ Charles, Jordan L. Hawk, Cat Sebastian, Allie Therin, and Arden Powell, you’ll probably like my books.

What I don’t like and have come to actively distrust is creatives who treat their social media as an extension of their brand. There’s a big difference between throwing your audience a bone by posting a smutty snippet or sharing some cool research from your latest project and treating everything you post like it’s a direct reflection on you. When the latter happens, often people start posting less about things they actually care about and more about things that will reflect well on them as a brand. It’s the same reason corporations only post rainbow stuff in June or Black history infographics in February. It’s not that they care about any of these groups or want to foster equity of any sort. It’s that if they don’t, it’ll reflect poorly on their public image.

Years ago, I saw this mostly when authors completely refused to post anything “political” on their pages by abstaining from every mentioning a problem a person of color might face or that LGBT people exist. This was mostly due to the fear that people wouldn’t want to buy from them due to their lack of a stance (or conservative stance) on an issue. Unfortunately, we’re also starting to see it happen in the other direction where people make token posts about Palestine or trans rights because they feel they have to, not because they actually give a shit about either group. The idea is once again a preservation of their audience rather than a sincere post about something they care about. I’m totally fine with someone saying, “Hey, I’m not going to post about X because I don’t know enough about it.” I’d rather someone step back and educate themselves than make a knee-jerk post because they feel they have to. You should be supporting people of color, queer people, disabled people, etc. because you want to, not because you feel social pressure to do so. The social pressure on social media can absolutely drive this sort of insincerity, and I hate it immensely. The worst part is how many people seem very happy to tick off the boxes that make someone acceptable before supporting them when in reality it’s all for show and they don’t actually care.

Kara, how do you tell if someone cares? Well, at a glance, you really can’t.

This is the internet where everything is online for all to see, yet nothing is truly real. I think the only way you can truly judge is by looking at patterns of behavior. Do they continue support after X month is over? Do they seem to genuinely care about this topic/group? Do they retweet people who aren’t themselves posting about X thing? At the same time, some people only use their social media accounts for updates about their own stuff, so you have to take that into consideration. At a time where many people want a black and white litmus test for goodness or good rep, I’m here to remind you that nothing is that straightforward.

Going off of this, I will say the one rule of thumb that hasn’t proven me wrong yet is anyone who gets online and touts themself as an authority on anything is probably full of shit. Anyone who acts like they are the most queer, the most trans, the most Latinx, the most whatever because it makes them an absolute, unquestionable authority is probably pulling a Wizard of Oz act and hoping you can’t look behind the curtain to see who they really are. Authority should always be questioned, no matter if it’s in the community or outside of it. I feel like most people who know anything about something know that there is still a lot left to learn, and they are open to criticism or open to new information or outside perspectives. If someone’s online brand is that they are trying to cultivate a following that looks only to them or sees them as the ultimate authority on a marginalization or topic (like publishing), I would be very cautious as those people are usually grifters.

Has the idea of an author brand gone too far? I do kind of think so. The problem truly begins once a person gets a large enough following online. It seems around 3k-5k followers on most platforms is enough for fans/followers to start treating them less as a person and more of some random avatar that they can say whatever they want to as if they don’t have feelings. It’s weird, but I’ve seen it many times where people will suddenly say things to a person with a larger account that they would never say to someone they’re friends with who has 500 followers. The size of the account means the intimacy disappears and with it the humanity of the person holding the account. When we do that, we reduce a real person to only their posts, which makes it easier for grifters to turn themselves into an authority or “brand” that posts only to appease rather than sharing things they actually care about. Ultimately, it’s a problem that lies with the fans/followers as much as the creators. People don’t magically attain a different status when they reach a certain number of followers, and they are never going to appease everyone. Expecting them to do so will only lead to heartbreak, so keep your expectations in moderation and check yourself for parasocial relationships.

new blog post: june 2024 wrap-up post June 2024 Wrap-Up Post
Monthly Review

June 2024 Wrap-Up Post

Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

This month has somehow flown but also been the longest month ever. At least it was a rather productive month for me, so I’m content with that. I will say that I am lowkey flirting with burnout, but I think I’ll be okay if I am able to convince myself to play more games and chill a bit more. Here are my goals from last month:

  • Write at least 20k words
  • Outline next chunk of book 3
  • Start the cover stuff for The Reanimator’s Remains
  • Maintain some semblance of brain balance to avoid burnout
  • Keep up with the stitch-a-long
  • Read 8 books
  • Blog weekly
  • Send out June newsletter

Books

  1. The Magus of the Library (#7) by Mitsu Izumi- 4 stars, in this volume we have discussions about censorship, political upheaval, and how we navigate it without setting the wrong precedent.
  2. The Truth of the Aleke (#2) by Moses Ose Utomi- 4 stars, in book one, we got the story of a martyred boy and now we get the history of what comes after and how history gets twisted by time and politics.
  3. You Should Be So Lucky (#2) by Cat Sebastian- 5 stars, a baseball player falls for a reporter fall in love during early 1960s NYC. I loved this book so much, especially since it also deals with grief and finding your place/value.
  4. Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy- 4 stars, I struggled a bit with the backwards chronology, but it was interesting to see how history has led to the present.
  5. The House of the Red Balconies by A. J. Demas- 5 stars, an mm romance set in a fictional Ancient Greece where an engineer who comes to the island to build an aqueduct falls for a chronically ill courtesan.
  6. The Captain’s Holiday Homecoming by Meg Mardell- 4 stars, a widower stumbles across an old friend presumed to be dead in his stable and finds they may have a future together (definitely a HFN rather than a HEA)
  7. A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall- 4 stars, an epistolary novel between the siblings of two missing people in an underwater city, loved the agoraphobia/OCD rep.
  8. The Moon on a Rainy Night (#1) by Kuzushiro- 4 stars, a sapphic YA featuring a teenage girl starts falling for her hard-of-hearing classmate. Once again, great HoH rep that is obvious well researched.
  9. The Moon on a Rainy Night (#2) by Kuzushiro- 4 stars, see above.

Admin/Behind-the-Scenes Stuff

  • I appeared on the Incoherent Fangirl Podcast’s Pride event, which you can watch here
  • Finished the Femurs and Fungi Stitch-a-long (and I plan to join Fine Frog Stitching’s next SAL in August)
  • Sent in all my info to my cover designer/Crowglass Design
  • Celebrated my 19th anniversary with my partner
  • Outlined the next chunk of my book draft
  • Edited the whole first act (again)
  • Blogged weekly
  • Sent out my newsletter in a semi-timely fashion for once
  • Attempted to relax more and refill the well by not taking on a shit ton of responsibilities
  • Wrote quite a bit (see writing section)

Blogs

Writing

This month has mainly been devoted to writing. I could feel myself flirting with burnout at the end of May due to the semester ending, so I took June to decompress and mostly write. On one hand, yay for doing quite a bit of writing. On the other hand, I’m still struggling to maintain any semblance of balance because I’m still mostly writing or staying at a Word Doc pretending I’m writing. The difficult part has been tearing myself away to do other things like reading and playing games, which ultimately keep me from frying my brain. My tendency is to give 100% repeatedly, even when I can’t actually give that much, until I’m beating myself up about how that current 100% is far less than it was a month earlier. I hope that makes sense. It’s really that I go too hard and take from a well that is rapidly running dry.

The Reanimator’s Remains is shaping up nicely though. I really love this book. I think it’s a little quieter than books 1 or 2, but it still has murder, mysteries, and some very tender moments between Oliver and Felipe. I eventually need to tweak the blurb for this book because it isn’t obvious, but Gwen is involved in this case and goes to the murder town with Oliver and Felipe. I know Gwen is a fan fav as Oliver’s bestie, so I hope you enjoy her getting some extra screen time.

Hopes for July

  • Write 25,000 words
  • Outline next chunk of book
  • Do a cover reveal and make graphics for them
  • Maintain my mental health better (oops)
  • Blog weekly
  • Read 8 books
  • Send out my July newsletter
new blog post: an excerpt from The Reanimator's Remains (TRM #3) Part 2 An Excerpt From The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3) Part 2
The Reanimator's Remains · Writing

An Excerpt From The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3) Part 2

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Last week, I posted the first half of the prologue for The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3), which you can read here. You can preorder The Reanimator’s Remains at all major retailers in ebook form. The paperbacks will be available in October, closer to the October 29th release date. Without further ado, here is part 2.

The hairs rose on her arms as she passed from the normal forest and into the other realm. When Joanna looked back, the path to the Allen’s was gone, and in its place stood a thick carpet of ancient trees and moss. Here, there was no smoldering house or in-laws to hunt her, and she didn’t know if that comforted or terrified her. The Lady of the Dysterwood did not like humans to intrude upon her domain, and those who did so uninvited rarely lived long enough to regret it. Joanna’s heart beat loudly in her ears as she tried to remember the direction she had come from, but everything seemed wrong. The trees felt different from the ones growing the Pine Barrens. The pitch pines and black oaks around her rose to monstrous heights, leaving only smudges of sunless, red sky. They seemed older, as if their roots ran far deeper than humankind, and they had tasted the marrow of the earth. The Dysterwood felt untouchable. No human would dare take an ax or fire to it, lest they be destroyed.

All around her the woods teemed with life. Moss, flowers, and scrubby brush grew so thickly on the forest floor that she didn’t dare move or disturb them. It should have been a peaceful place, but beneath its bows, Joanna felt a litany of unseen eyes watching her. Every tree and leaf housed the Lady’s retinue. Birds she had never heard before squawked high in the canopy while the insects and creatures on the ground clicked and hummed as if oblivious to her presence. Hesitantly stepping deeper into the forest, Joanna froze at the gentle patter of blood from beneath her petticoat.

More! the Dysterwood howled as the ground closed around her boot and yanked her to her knees. Intruder!

Joanna bit back a cry as she landed hard, her palms stinging with scratches. Blood wept from the cuts, and in an instant, all eyes were upon her. The creatures buzzed to the surface, and the trees hissed in anticipation of the Lady’s verdict. Before it could come, Joanna drew in a deep breath and ripped her foot from the muck.

Lifting her chin, she stared into the waiting forest and held up her hand to show the ring her husband’s family had passed down for generations before he slipped it to her. “Take me to the Lady. I would like to make a bargain.”

For a moment, the entire Dysterwood went still until, with a dull rumble, the forest floor roiled and parted. Wet, petrified boards and bleached, half-rotted bones rose through the moss, cutting a path between the trees like the spine of some ancient slumbering beast. Squaring her shoulders, Joanna stepped onto the first tread.

The Lady would see her.

***

Time flowed oddly in the Dysterwood. Joanna walked for what felt like minutes, and darkness descended thickly over the forest. Owls hooted and screeched in the pine trees, diving down on unseen prey. A flash of red or a flicker of motion would catch Joanna’s eye, but she didn’t dare step off the path or let her attention linger for too long. Keep to the path and no harm will come to you, Stephen had said to her, but she wasn’t one of them, at least not by blood. She had the Lady’s attention, but she didn’t doubt she would feed her to some creature for her entertainment if given the chance. As she passed through a thick copse, the sky brightened to the bruised red of sunset. The trees thinned, giving way to pockets of mountain laurel, bushes studded with white bearberries and fragrant, pink swamp azalea. Bees droned nearby, though Joanna couldn’t see them through the thickets of flowers.

Stepping onto the next plaque of bone, rusty red water pooled around the soles of her boots. Joanna drew in a ragged breath. The endless forest should have been a paradise, but beneath the cloying aroma of flowers was the earthy smell of rotting earth and peat. If she strayed from the path to pick a flower or follow an animal’s child-like cry, the hungry ground would swallow her up and drag her down. The bog yearned for more flesh, more iron, more, though she didn’t dare stop following the path of decay, even as her calves and core ached and the blood ran from her body in earnest. What other choice did she have? The Lady might toy with her and let her wander aimlessly through the forest for all eternity, but Joanna wouldn’t lay down between the pitcher plants and sundew and let the Dysterwood consume her until she finished her pilgrimage. Her thoughts flickered to Mercy and the baby, but she quickly banished them from her mind. In her domain, the Lady might know her thoughts, and she wouldn’t give her any more tricks to use against her. She had given Mercy and the baby the best head start she could. That would have to be enough.

When Joanna raised her gaze, she suddenly stood in the center of an empty glade, and the trees that had surrounded her only a moment ago now stood a furlong behind her. She shivered, despite the summer heat, at the wrongness of the clearing. Still water pooled on either side of her, leaving a strip of grass only wide enough to accommodate the treads of bone and wood. With every step, her feet sunk deeper into bog and the pounding of her heart grew louder in her ears. Her powers hummed a steady dirge as she crossed the narrow turf. Joanna told herself not to look, but she needed to know. Beneath the bog’s still waters, a man’s face stared back at her. He was pale and still as death, a ragged wound marring his neck. While his clothes were from decades before her time, the outline of his features reminded her of Stephen. She half-expected him to open his sightless eyes or rise to grab her, but he never moved. Bracing herself, she looked into the pool on her right, expecting to find another body. Instead, a woman’s reflection hovered beside her own.

“Do you like my collection?”

Joanna gasped and turned to face the Lady of the Dysterwood. Nothing Stephen had told her could have prepared her for that moment. The Lady felt limitless, too old, too much, magic made flesh, made shadow, a glimpse of something other that was beyond comprehension. Then, she pulled back and solidified into something approximately human. A shadow of a smile twisted the Lady’s lips as she watched Joanna’s breath hitch and her eyes widen with terror. She was beautiful in an uncanny way that Joanna feared hid sharp teeth or claws. Her copper hair had been woven into intricate knots and braids, while her heart-shaped face remained unmarred by age, she appeared far older than Joanna’s twenty-five years. Her clothes were a mockery of the sumptuous, crinoline-fluffed gowns wealthy women wore. The fabric of her dress was so deeply red it hurt Joanna’s eyes to look at, and the embroidery decorating the edges shifted patterns from flowers to hunting scenes to figures of death, and where there should have been a chatelaine or purse at her belt, a heavy gilt knife hung. Instead of a simple necklace or ribbon around her neck, she wore a heavy, golden, dragon-headed torc. When the Lady looked down at her, her pale eyes bore through her, weighing on Joanna’s heart like lead.

“You took something that belonged to me,” the Lady said, her voice as deep and cold as her domain. “Do you know what I do to thieves?”

Joanna’s throat tightened like a garrot as the Lady stepped closer. If Stephen’s family dealt with her for centuries, she could do the same. Her feet were numb in the cold water and her head swam with blood loss, but Joanna straightened her spine and met the creature’s gaze.

“I am not a thief. Stephen made his own choices. I took nothing he didn’t freely give.”

The Lady’s eyes narrowed, and the trees around the glen rustled with an unseen gust. “My patience wears thin, little thief, and your hunters draw near. All it would take is but a thought to bring them here. Tell me why you have intruded into my domain.”

“I would like to make a bargain.”

A chiming laugh escaped her lips. “And why should I bargain with you?”

“Because I have this,” Joanna said, holding up the signet ring.

“That ring buys you entry, not cooperation, child. Besides, what do you think you could possibly give me that I don’t already have?”

Rusty water lapped against Joanna’s calves as the Lady turned away. Joanna’s powers hummed in time with her hammering pulse. Something was down there, a hair’s breadth from her skin, waiting for the Lady’s signal to strike. Her mind raced. She had to say something. She couldn’t be bested by a capricious demon’s disinterest after all they had done. “Me. You can have me and all that comes with that in exchange for a new bargain.”

If you enjoyed this excerpt, I hope you will preorder The Reanimator’s Remains at your favorite retailer or add it to your TBR on Goodreads. If you haven’t read books 1 or 2, you can grab them in ebook, paperback, or audiobook. Keep your eyes peeled for the cover reveal in July!