I’m working on my third book and have been, off & on for the last couple of years. I’ve changed the idea of it more than once and know that I’m going to be writing about some difficult and far ranging stuff – not just life post transition, life with a wife, but the rest, too: our ongoing libido mismatch, trans feminism, teaching, kink, masculinity. It is going to be the kind of book that I’m not going to get my head around until I’ve written a huge chunk of it, and that’s going to take some serious focus.
That said, the day has finally come. It’s a thing you feel, and I feel way overdue.
This is where you come in, readers.
Neither writing nor teaching pay particularly well, so most summers I’m looking for paid work – which is a huge distraction from the writing itself – and it’s making me impatient. I need some funds to get by so I can write all summer instead of finding work.
I’ve thought about doing a Patreon campaign or Kickstarter or the like, but after looking into those a little, I’m not sure I want to put on a whole sideshow when really I just need some funds to get through a summer.
What I want, most, is a little funding, and with it a shot in the arm from my lovely readers.
So here is my toe, in this water of patronage, to see if some of you might help me pay the bills so that I can write fulltime this summer. As some of you know, I wrote all of My Husband Betty in three months, and SNTMIM in six, so I’m optimistic about how much I can put together in a summer.
If you like what I do, what I write, and want to see what I will write, please let me know by donating something toward this summer fund. If it turns out to be a good idea, maybe I’ll do the official Kickstarter thing but in the meantime, if you can donate, do, and do let me know in the comments what kinds of things you might be willing to donate for – all of the official funding sites want me to promise people things, but outside of signed copies, I can’t imagine what I’d offer.
So here, for now, is a link to my PayPal account. It would cheer me endlessly to have your support.
Thank you. It means the world to me.
Hi Helen,
I’ve never read any of your books and I don’t have much money to give. However, I think what you do for our community is very important. Also your blog and message boards have helped me better understand my partner’s struggle. For that I cannot thank you enough. Good news and bad news time. The good news is that I feel I should help with what little I can. Bad news is I’m super paranoid about feeding the inter-webs my credit card info or really any identifying information. Do you have a PO Box or third party address I could send a check to?
Good luck,
Sariel
I donated just because I want to read more of your long form writing.
The kinds of bonuses I enjoy from creative projects are usually things that get cut from final projects. Outtakes that don’t work for one reason or other. Preliminary sketches.
I’d enjoy seeing videos of you reading sections as they’re completed or in progress.