Day 66. 67 pages, 31,738 words.

As a first-world-struggling writer with two kids and a mortgage and car payments, I often find myself nearing the red line of zero cash by the end of the month.

A lot of this is my own doing. It’s not all greedy boomer-led corporations screwing me out of my hard-earned moneys. I mean yes, quite a lot of it is that – companies raising their prices beyond other companies’ salary-increase line in order to pass on the “value” to their shareholders (how much longer are they going to pretend to be shocked and outraged at how that isn’t working?) – but as much of it is my lazy and greedy purchasing of fast food instead of decent cooking ingredients (Mrs. Hatboy keeps me on the straight and narrow here but I still buy snacks), assorted silly impulse purchases, nights out and so on.

Can’t really argue with those things. Why am I bothering to earn money if it’s not to buy nice things from time to time? What’s the point of anything? Still, it’d be nice to wind up with a bit more to put in the savings account at the end of each month (on those months I put anything in at all … but even the fact that I have any such months makes my claims of being broke a bit insulting, I know).

Because sure, I do also save a tiny bit. It’s usually enough to get me past the next major house expense, like the new water pump or other renovations, but sure. Additionally, I save up my monthly pittance from Amazon and am proud to say that since 2017 that has come to enough to take us to Dublin for Worldcon, and that ain’t nothing.

Still, it discourages me, regularly.

And now I’m busy, trying to write this darn book, and I have made headway but I keep forgetting to make note of it in my word-count but whatever. Today I want to push your attention in the direction of another author in a similar situation to me, and remind you of the books of Lucas Thorn.

He does some great collaboration with indy artists too.

Thorn does good stuff. Easy reading, self-confessed pulp, and plenty of it for a good price. I try to make a point of plugging any artists I know of, especially those who need backup and attention. If it’s not my good friend Cat Protocol or my old chum Shannon Drake, it’s Mr. Thorn.

Soon as any of my other friends start selling their stuff, I’ll plug them too.

Just trying to keep my head above the surface right now, but it’s hard when you feel like every time your head sticks up, you get shat on. Kind of makes it difficult to care about anything much.

But Thorn’s books are good. That was the point of this blog post. I’m often broke at the end of any given month, but I hope I will never be so broke that I can’t drop a fiver on this guy’s latest e-book. And I always look forward to them.

Check out his website, which he changes all the fucking time but should still be www.lucasthorn.com.