Guest Post: Reasons to be Cheerful By Cheyenne Blue |

I’m thrilled to welcome Ylva author Cheyenne Blue today. Cheyenne’s a sweetheart and I’m happy to help her spread the word about her new release Party Wall. One lucky winner will receive an e-book copy. More details about the giveaway are below.

Please welcome the wonderful Cheyenne Blue.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

I am naturally a cheerful person—annoyingly so, as a co-worker once said. Even when the world is bleak and black, there’s usually something small and delightful to make me smile: a favourite song on the radio, a flight of black cockatoos overhead, clean sheets on the bed. Most recently, it was a jar of Nutella forgotten at the back of a cupboard. Do you know how delicious it is spooned from the jar? Extremely so.

I’m a cheerful writer too. In any case, there’s normally so much going on that there’s no time to be down. Writing, editing, feedback on cover design, taglines, blog posts, social media, release day, marketing and so on. But equally, sometimes when you pause and take a breath and look around, there are many things that can drag a writer down. Writer’s block or characters who won’t do what you want them to. No time to write. Too much time to write but even more time to procrastinate. Missed deadlines. Oh, that’s a big one. Rewrites, additions and deletions on a story you thought, well, of course it wasn’t perfect, but you thought it was pretty damn okay. And it was, until your editor emailed and told you otherwise. And, of course, she was right. Editing. More editing. Content edits, copy edits, proofs, more proofs, proof corrections and even more damn proofs until you know the entire eighty-thousand word story upside down and backwards to Sunday.

But if you take your foot off the pedal in those crammed minutes you can find there’s plenty to be down about in a writer’s life. Rejections of course. Publication schedules gone awry, bad reviews—oh, how they can hurt. Poor sales figures—they hurt even more. Comparing yourself to other writers who have more sales, better reviews, or simply a surfeit of general love. Don’t even think of going there.

Even with the above writers’ woes, I still (mostly) manage to remain positive. After all, I’m doing what I love. If I let bad reviews or the realisation of exactly how much per hour I earn through my writing drag me down, I’d hang up my keyboard and finally have time to watch Game of Thrones. And read the books.

Over on Facebook, a couple of friends do a weekly Gratitude Post. It’s exactly as it sounds: a happy and positive affirmation of the good things in their life in that particular week. Recently, I jumped on their happy bandwagon because, what’s not to love about sharing the joy. My posts are called Reasons to Be Cheerful rather than gratitude posts, but that’s more of a love of Ian Dury and the Blockheads than a dislike of gratitude. Ian Dury’s song Reasons to be Cheerful celebrates the little things in life. He sings:

The juice of the carrot, the smile of the parrot

A little drop of claret – anything that rocks

Elvis and Scotty, days when I ain’t spotty,

Sitting on the potty – curing smallpox.

Party Wall is out from Ylva Publishing and available everywhere and that is my number one reason to be cheerful, not only this week, but possibly for the rest of the year.

If you want more reasons to be cheerful, I’d love for you to find me on Facebook or Instagram @CheyenneBlueAuthor. If you want more Lily and Freya, then I’d love for you to check out Party Wall.

PARTY WALL

From the moment Freya looks in the window of the brash, new sex shop in Grasstree Flat she knows it will be nothing but trouble. For a start, it will clash with her own New Age store right next door. And she’s right. Outgoing newcomer, Lily, begins to intrude on Freya’s well-ordered life. Freya’s friends, lifestyle, and even her cat are all affected by Lily’s magic touch. Even Freya’s yoga classes rub shoulders with Lily’s sexual-expression workshops. Lily stands for everything Freya has lost in life: playfulness, spontaneity, and delight in the physical. And sex. But does Lily have more in common with Freya than the wall that divides them?

A lesbian romance about crossing the lines that hold us back.

Ylva / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon CA / Amazon AUS

MEET THE AUTHOR

Cheyenne Blue has been hanging around the lesbian erotica world since 1999 writing short lesbian erotica which has appeared in over 90 anthologies. Her stories got longer and longer and more and more romantic, so she went with the flow and switched to writing romance novels. You’ll find her books published by Ylva Publishing and Ladylit —the latest being Party Wall. She loves writing big hearted romance, often set in rural Australia because that’s where she lives. She has a small house on a hill with a big deck and bigger view—perfect for morning coffee, evening wine, and anytime writing. Check her out at www.cheyenneblue.com on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.