Mornings With Marie - Special Edition
Happy Valentine’s Day, friends! 💖 Everyone seems to have an opinion about this holiday, but whatever that is, I for one just love an excuse to celebrate love in all its forms! I’m not a fan of chocolates though, and flowers while pretty eventually wilt, so I instead I come bearing gifts of the bookish variety! 🥳
Story of the Month
Last January I decided to start writing monthly short stories to share with my readers, though the first hurdle — to no surprise for those who know me — was choosing a topic to write about. So I took my indecision to Twitter and asked for help, and the verdict: a Philippine myth thingy. (Twitter polls have limited characters, okay 🤣)
Many plot bunnies and several revisions later, I finally have Crescendo, a short piece from a WIP dystopian retelling of Ibong Adarna (“The Adarna Bird”), a 16th-century Filipino epic poem about a magical bird. Fun fact: the longer form title of the original story during the Spanish era translates to “Corrido and Life Lived by the Three Princes, Children of King Fernando and Queen Valeriana in the Kingdom of Berbania.” 🙊 Yeah, it’s a mouthful. LOL
Humanity’s struggle for survival in a drowning world comes to a head with the discovery of Piedras Platas, an island paradise previously believed to exist only in folktales. With Berbania’s fleet at the brink of running out of fuel, King Fernando is desperate to find some place to land, so he sends his sons to claim the territory before any of their rivals can.
This is the account of Diego, the second son.
I know, it’s just a short piece, but I wanted a cover and my brother made me this really cool mock up to go with it. 🥳 Anyway, here’s your copy, and as promised, this will be exclusive to subscribers until the end of March. Hope you like it!
Special Offer of the Month
As an accountant, and from a third-world country to boot, I can definitely relate to authors fretting over their costs. Who doesn’t want a killer cover, after all? The question is if one can afford it, and the risk of not recovering that spend is amplified by being a nobody in an endless sea of authors and their books.
When I started my indie publishing journey, I found help and support in unsuspecting places. Literal strangers reached out to offer assistance, and are still standing by me to this day. I have since then made it a point to pay it forward. 💕 Have I made it big? Oh no, not by any means. I’m still a nobody. I only have one book to my name and it’s not even selling well. I’m far from breaking even, let alone from living off my royalties. But that’s not the point. Becoming successful is not my prerequisite to helping others.
That said, I’ve teamed up with my brother Michael for a special, limited-time offer to create affordable custom book covers for authors and upcoming authors! 🥳 And by affordable we mean affordable, because all we’ll ask for is a donation, which could be as little as $1. We won’t even force you to accept the finished product and make a donation if you don’t like the output, but we’ll offer it to everyone else for the same price (a.k.a. a donation) later on. But friends always get first dibs 😉
Why is this the pricing scheme, you ask? Well, aside from the fact that we love authors and we really want to help, we just have faith that authors, as creatives themselves, will want and know how to compensate artists for what they’re worth. 💖
Interested? Just fill out this form to be considered! 🥰 We’ll open signups for the remainder of the month, and we’ll cater to at least 3 requests.
You’re free to tell your friends all about this offer, but while the form isn’t restricted, we’ll only consider those are subscribed to this newsletter, to be fair to everyone. 😊 (And if they aren’t yet, they only have to sign up here!)
That’s it for now, friendos! I would love to hear about how you celebrated Valentine’s Day, or if you enjoyed my story and if you have any suggestions for next month’s. 🌹 Talk to you all in a few weeks! 😘
xoxo, Marie