“Around Your Finger”, Vacation, and Some Other Stuff

It’s been a heck of a first month of 2024, hasn’t it?

I’ve been cat sitting for most of the last month, which means I’ve also had time to– finally– get around to finishing Around Your Finger (the sequel to Your Hand In Mine). You’d think I would have, with all that free time, but alas! Turns out marketing and doing my secondary jobs of Not Writing also take up a lot of time! Who’d have thought 😂

SO! For those of you who are interested, there’s a Facebook Page for my books (Steph Surma Books), where I post a collection of my other media (including BookToks, screenshots of funny texts between my beta readers and myself, incorrect quotes based on my stories or my pen names, etc). I’ve been posting to my TikTok more, fun little snippets from all of my stories with whatever music UMG hasn’t ripped away from the app (salty? Who’s salty? Certainly not everyone!) I also have a very barren Book Twitter (X? Are we calling it X now?) where you can find my incorrect quotes and the occasional unhinged rant.

Meanwhile! Around Your Finger will be sent off to my darling Beta Reader, Calvin, in a few days here, which means it’ll be getting revamped in March and (Hopefully!) published this summer, in June or July, depending on the length of the rewriting and editing process. I won’t make any hard commitments, because, you know… ADHD. (If I’d stayed on my original timeline, I’d already have two finished book series by now. ALAS.)

Deadmouth Quarry is now posting right here on my site on Fridays! Feel free to have a look on the Deadmouth Quarry landing page to find the chapters in order 🙂

I’ve gotten really into bookbinding TikToks recently, and, listen– I’m not making actual promises, because I haven’t tried my hand at it yet (doubtlessly with a fanfic so I don’t ruin one of my own novels and have a meltdown about it)– but I’m thinking Patreon might be seeing some exclusive opportunities to get their hands on hardback, unique covers of my books. I’ve thought about giveaways, too, and anniversary editions– just throwing it into the abyss of the internet to see if anybody’s interested, or maybe to hold myself accountable? Whatever works, man.

Also, anyone interested in a podcast? I stumbled across one called Anything Goes by this girl named Emma, and she just!!! Talks!!! About stuff!!! I never shut up (as is evident by this blog post) so like. I think it’d at least be cathartic, if not popular. Who knows? Not me!

Personal updates, I’m writing this with a ten year old desperately begging for my undivided attention (she has just had it for over two hours. This is not my child, btw), and three cats with separation anxiety following everyone they see around, and a mountain of work for my other jobs that I keep Not Getting To, so! It’s been a bit of a day (TM). I’ve read a horrifying amount of fanfic for a fandom I am Not Actually In, and I’ve started spiraling into the vast abyss of insanity, but it’s good for my storytelling. I guess.

At any rate, I’ll have more updates for you next week. Hopefully with more story-related stuff!