Paper Cuts (deeper than you might think)

The release of this baby has been stalled so many times, and in the end it felt pretty rushed, what with one thing and another. But it's here now 😁

Wet and bloody in my hands, and screeching its papery little head off.

Paper Cuts - A Collection of Short Stories

On the 31st (tomorrow), it will be free on Kindle. A flash sale, if you like. Consider it a Halloween gift from me to you.

It's also available on Kindle+ (Kindle Unlimited to you and me). If you aren't familiar with K+, basically: it's like a library. The book is free to you, the reader, and authors get paid for page reads.

This is my 3rd collection. I never expected to do more than one. I did Glass Dolls because there were a few in there that were really important to me, and I wanted them to exist out there, in the world. On real pages, between covers. You know? I also thought it would have tickled my dad for me to have put a book out. I dedicated it to him. I kicked myself a bit for not having done something like it years ago, when he was here to appreciate it.

It has 12 stories in it, and you can tell I am an absolute noob, because there is no cohesiveness whatsoever. I can't say, "This is a dozen scifi stories about lesbian space pirates" or "this collection is all about grief", or what have you. They are just the pieces of myself that I wanted to share. That's really the only thing that unites them. (Rookie error, and it makes marketing an absolute nightmare, by the way.)

I did the second one, Summer Leaves, because I wanted to try doing a better job of curating a selection. I was really pleased with the result. It's still quite scattered, because it turns out I suck at sticking to a genre. It's a struggle for me to even admit what genre it is, because I prefer to surprise you. Maybe I'm a bit worried I won't live up to the expectations a genre would set, or maybe I'll be tempted to subvert them, and break too many rules.

All the same, the stories are really carefully chosen, and put in a specific order. Often, with a collection, people flip through it and read whichever story grabs their attention in the moment, or whatever suits their current mood. My plan for this one, was for people to read it chronologically, the way they would a novel, and to experience a mood shift. Nostalgia, bleak sadness, hope, joy - similar the cycle of seasons. Summer leaves, but it comes back around.

I didn't tell this to many people at the time, because I wanted you to stumble on that little nugget and feel pleased with yourself that you spotted it. But it's been out a while now, and I don't feel as secretive about it anymore. (Did you notice it?)

I was also completely in love with the cover. My daughter made it for me. I still adore it. I think it's completely perfect. I dedicated that one to my children, because they are some of the best people I know. I suppose it might be kind of cool for them to still have a bit of me around when I've popped my clogs (hopefully many years from now).

I made this one, Paper Cuts, because after a year of writing a short story every day (2024), I had more stories and ideas than I knew what to do with, and it seemed silly to sit on them all. I wanted to document my story a day project, and I wanted to highlight some of the ups and downs of writing. The nakedness of it, the vulnerability.

Cutting is a recurrent them, so there's a splash of gore in there. Only a splash, mind. It's usually not gratuitous.

I make a gash and bleed on the page...

-Me, The Process

Imposter Syndrome rears its head, the challenges associated with being unapologetically Yourself. There are a few random outliers in there, just because. Because I liked them, and I wanted to share them. Because they were fun to write. Because why not?

The rise of AI makes itself felt, here, I think. For the first time, I felt a need to put a disclaimer at the front stating the entire work is human generated.

I've tinkered with sci-fi ideas before. What if...? What if we had this gadget - what implication would that have on us all? That's an easy story idea, right there. It comes through more strongly in Paper Cuts than it did before, I think. AI is bound to be the reason. I step back and look at it, and the thread running through those types of stories is resistance.

My daughter made the cover again. I asked her to keep it really simple, and I'm happy with what she came up with. I don't love it the way I do the one for Summer Leaves, but I don't think I will ever love another cover that much. I know you aren't supposed to have a favourite baby, but that one is definitely the most beautiful.

I dedicated this one to... well, to you lot, really, and all the pen-wielding pixies in my screen that love and write stories.

How am I doing? I think there are still a couple of stories from Glass Dolls that I will never top. I must have been on something when I wrote those. But overall, I think the quality has gone up in terms of the stories themselves. How the volumes are put together is definitely better, but still sucky in terms of cohesiveness, or obedience to a genre (any genre). Curation peaked with Summer Leaves, I think.

If you've read any of these, I would appreciate a review. You probably already know how important early reviews for releases, and I don't think Paper Cuts has any yet.

Anyway. Happy release day to me, happy Hallowe'en to you, and thank you in advance for any reviews!

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