Tag: fresh start

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About Toi

It’s time to bloom!

Just a head’s up… I’m going to talk about my Patreon plans for the next week. After that, you’ll never hear about it again unless you want to be part of it. With that said, I’m so excited to share what I’m doing.

So, hope you saw my other post related to this, but if not, check out The Dreaded Newsletter: part 1 and part 2 here. Needless to say, Patreon is not a newsletter and I don’t expect people who’ve been following me for free for years to all of a sudden start paying for my content. Everything I’ve always done for free, I will continue to do for free.

This Patreon page is something new. This project is an opportunity for me to create something for someone else, a chance to create something with someone else, and a chance to help others create something they’ve always wanted to.

My intent is to start with family, friends, and associates to build a community and hopefully grow from there. It is my hope to share my process with a community that’s invested in my success. I want to share my strengths and weaknesses as I strive to entertain. I want to share positive and negative critiques that come along the way and I want to take reader feedback seriously as I strive to create stories that readers want to read.

And while I don’t claim to be a master of anything, I’ve been writing, blogging, publishing, creating video content, and more for over ten years and feel that I have insights to offer someone just starting out. I believe I can help others avoid mistakes I’ve made and teach a few things I’m actually pretty good at. If nothing else I can point someone in the right direction to find all the experts and sources I lean on every day.

This is not something I plan to do for a few months to see if it works out. This is something I plan to pursue moving forward. I’m excited about the possibilities. I’m excited about the possibility to bloom as a creator in a way I never imagined.

Below you’ll find the introduction video that will appear on my Patreon page when it launches on January 1st. I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you, more specifically, about what I’ll be offering to my patrons.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords #blacklivesmatter

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IWSG

#IWSG May 2016: Con Season

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Created and hosted by the Ninja himself, Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writers Support Group posts the 1st Wednesday of every month. Click the image to learn more or sign up.

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I’m currently insecure about my future, but I’m trying not to dwell on it. I’ve decided not to focus on trying to publish anything right now, but instead just work on my writing. We’ll see how long that lasts.

The month of April was pretty busy for me and even though I couldn’t stay on top of everything I wanted to, I didn’t let myself become overwhelmed. With one convention down (RavenCon) and one on the way (Tidewater Comicon), I’m pretty busy with preparations. As summer vacation draws nearer for me, I’m thinking about all the things I want to work on, including slightly increasing my blog activity. I let my posts slip a bit for the sake of other pursuits, but I think the summer will be a good time to regroup, refocus, and have a start fresh.

I miss being involved in virtual blog tours and think I will start that up again. It really is a good way to add to my TBR list and help support other authors. I’ll also be making strides to conduct more author interviews on my Tumblr and even reblog them here. And since I’ve long neglected my #BooktagsBloghop, I think I’ll try to get that back up and running. It’s not like I haven’t been reading books, I just haven’t been blogging about them.

Lastly, since I’m dedicated to this hop every month, I think I’ll start using it for personal and wip/writing updates when applicable. I feel like I need to share more about my creative process without being overbearing. So, that’s it. That’s all I have for this month.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Mother’s Day!

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What are you insecure about?
Any words of encouragement?
Any advice on reaching out to authors for interviews?

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After hanging out with Alex, be sure to stop by and visit this month’s co-hosts:
Stephen Tremp,
Fundy Blue,
MJ Fifield,
Loni Townsend,
Bish Denham,
Susan Gourley, and
Stephanie Faris!

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Click here to visit other IWSG blogs and sites to receive and share more inspiration and support. (This month, I’m #79).

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
IWSG

#IWSG January 2015: New Year, New Beginning

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Created and hosted by the Ninja himself, Alex J. Cavanaugh, the Insecure Writers Support Group posts the 1st Wednesday of every month. Click the image to learn more or sign up.

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UPDATE TO POST: I forgot I was supposed to be introducing myself. I don’t have any fancy or flowery words to throw together right now, but here I am.

I’m Toi. Married almost 10 years to my best friend and hopelessly devoted to my family in general. I write fiction, mostly sci-fi and paranormal, but I’m dabbling in romance and fantasy. I’m a geek who loves movies, comics books, vinyl records, tea, and chocolate.

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Well it’s that time again to offer up encouragement or seek some out. I’ll just go ahead and jump right into this spiel and try to keep it brief. 2014 was not a good year for me at all.

Don’t get me wrong, of course there were some good, happy, exciting, and wonderful moments. I’m blessed in so many ways, but I’ve never been so happy to see a new year like I was this year. While I won’t list all the reasons why last year wasn’t good for me, I’ll throw out the top three.

1. My sister-in-law battled and then lost her battle with cancer. Aside from the fact that she’s gone and I miss her, going through that whole process altered plans for my personal life as well as plans for my book. I had a tough choice to make and decided to put family before my book and I have no regrets, but I miss her and can’t get back all those opportunities I forfeited.

2. Constant and harsh personal illnesses both physical and mental. I battled a lot this past year, more than I ever want to again. I want 2015 to be a much healthier year.

3. Technical issues. After the ordeal of transferring my blog to self-hosting, the fun didn’t stop there. I suffered constant technical issues all year until my computer finally crashed in December.

But that was then and this is now. I am slowly getting back on my feet and looking to the future.

One more thing to add to the list, which may actually be a blessing, is the fact that I ended my contract with my publisher. I don’t even feel like dealing with the severity of that, but at least it was an amicable split. At this point I’m just going to create a new cover, since I don’t have the rights to the other, and just self-publish. I think that’s what I really wanted anyway. I like to be in control and never should have let someone else do something I’d rather do myself.

So, looking ahead, I’m putting off releasing my romance novel until later in the year and focusing on the sequel to my Eternal Curse Series. Also, I have a short story featured in a recently released anthology about time travel. Please check it out if you are interested.

I hope I didn’t bum you out too much and hope that you could sense a note of positivity in here somewhere. What are your plans for 2015? 

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After hanging out with Alex, be sure to stop by and visit this month’s co-hosts:
Elizabeth Seckman,
Lisa Buie-Collard,
Chrys Fey, and
Michelle Wallace!

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Click here to visit other IWSG blogs and sites to receive and share more inspiration and support. (This month, I’m #122).

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords