vampires, spaceships, and fantastical worlds—the tales of L.E. Teetzel

Welcome!

Clearly I am not on the ball, since I’m writing this on July 4 and am not even sure if I’m going to get it done in one sitting. I probably will since there’s not a lot to share. I hate summer and as soon as the heat comes, I slow right down and all I want to do is sleep and/or hide somewhere dark and cool.

Anyway, let’s get to it!

June in the Rearview

I had hoped to get Gravity Well drafted by the end of June and get the sequel to An Errant Ray of Sunlight started as well, but that didn’t happen. I’m still figuring out how best to fit writing into a schedule that works for me while I also do my day job and any freelance work I get while still enjoying my hobbies and doing the adult stuff like taking care of myself and my cat. Still hoping to have both Gravity Well and the next Ridge City books out this year so we’ll see what I can manage. I’ve also been working on a way to handle marketing my books. I may have mentioned before but marketing is so far outside my comfort zone that I’m not really sure how to even start approaching on it. I have some ideas and I’m hoping I can start attacking that angle of self-publishing more vigorously soon.

With all the shit going on in the world and my own mental health struggles, it can be hard to focus on creative stuff and things that bring me joy, but I also think it’s important to focus on things like that so we don’t lose sight of good things. I’ve had to remind myself a lot lately that no deadline is worth sacrificing my mental, physical, or emotional health, and while I do have to treat my writing as a job if I ever want to gain an audience, I am also self-publishing meaning I set my deadlines. Reminding myself that it’s okay, I still have time, and I am not failing has been very important lately, along with reminding myself that I always struggle in the summer. Maybe one day I’ll be able to structure my life so I do nothing most of the summer, and then write like the wind throughout the rest of the year.

A dream.

I took the first week of July off with the intention of writing a lot, but it turned out my body and brain needed to rest and I wasn’t able to get many words on the page at all. I did, however, get some planning and world-building done, and a few things outside of writing, but I also did just play a lot of Disney Dreamlight Valley, listen to a lot of My Favorite Murder, and just relax. Which is what my brain needed, apparently. I only wish I’d been able to sleep better, but we’re in that lovely time of year where it’s too hot at night to have the window open but not hot enough for the air conditioner to run frequently. And fans, though I do sleep with one on, drive me nuts because of the noise and the fact that they kick up allergens and dry my eyes, nose, and mouth out like nobody’s business. Anyway, the writing didn’t get gone, but I did enjoy the time off.

Like many, I’m still struggling to find a balance between keeping myself informed about what’s going on in the world without driving myself into a pit of despair. We’re living through rough times and we have to take care of ourselves but we need to take care of each other too. But overall I’ve been spending less time on social media and I’m hoping that I can use the time to write things that make me happy and hopefully, one day, bring others joy.

I did finally use my sewing machine that I got two Christmases ago to make myself a footstool though, which brought me a great deal of joy. It’s made of old t-shirt, a thrifted table cloth, and a zipper salvaged from an old storage bag that was ripped. it’s stuffed with yarn and fabric scraps and some failed crochet projects filled with polyfil. It’s ugly and wonky and I don’t think a single seam is straight, but I managed to make the cover reversible and I’m honestly really proud of it.

I also got other things done like tackling the jungle of weeds in my veggie garden and finally start getting stuff more cleaned up and organized but mostly this month has just kinda rolled by in a blur of me wishing it was cooler and the sun would go away.

I went up to Toronto for my friend’s birthday. We had dinner at Stormcrow Manor, an awesome nerdy restaurant, and then did karaoke. It was my first time ever doing karaoke, but it was just friends so it wasn’t so bad. It was also at a place that had songs by TWRP, The Midnight, and Ninja Sex Party, so that was fun. My favourite part of the weekend though was watching the finale of season two of Twin Peaks with my friends, who have never seen it before, and watching them freak out.

It hasn’t been a terribly interesting month, I’m afraid, but I’m planning to have more to share at the end of July.

From the Story Files

Like I sad, not much writing done this month, but I did make progress on Gravity Well and get most of the next Ridge City novel planned. I’m hoping to finish up that outline today so I can jump right in once Gravity Well is drafted and with some beta readers. I’m really excited to explore Ridge City more and to start working on the massive list of books I have that I want to write.

I did however finally get the Icarus playlist down to something sharable and more connected to the story itself. You can listen to it here!

I’m working on An Errant Ray of Sunlight‘s playlist now, and I already have Gravity Well‘s good to go once I’m ready to start talking about that novella.

Sorry there’s not more to share this month!

In My Eyeballs and Earholes

Books

I may not have written a lot in June, but I did read a bunch.

Top of the pile is Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. She’s one of my favourite authors and when she first announced she was working on a vampire book, I about lost my shit. I love vampires (as you well know), so this was like a dream come true. And she did not disappoint. Like, holy hell is this book a gut punch of emotion. Toxic Lesbian Vampires is RIGHT. I don’t want to spoil anything and you should read the book for yourself if you haven’t yet but it’s stunning. Up there with Bones was Gideon The Ninth, which I’m so so happy I’ve finally read and so so mad it took me this long to get to. The sequels are on my list to hopefully tackle this month.

I also read the first two of the Chaotic Orbits novellas by Beth Revis, Full Speed to a Crash Landing and How to Steal a Galaxy and they are so fun. Funny and twisty and a little sexy. I can’t wait to read the third one, but it’s been on hold at the library foreverrrrrr. (I know I’m supposed to be reading the books I own but haven’t read yet but SUSH.) Another surprise fun read was Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies. A great who dunnit romp set against the backdrop of Italy. It made me want to go back to Italy even more than I already do. Just not in July.

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston and The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez were the only straight-up romances I read this month, and A Novel Love Story was so much fun and was so sweet and man, I love how Poston writes romance with a touch of the speculative (which I’m pretty sure I’ve said before). The Friend Zone was… fine. The main female character drove me bonkers and I was a little bummed I didn’t like the book as much as Yours Truly by Jimenez. Oh well—can’t love ’em all.

The last two books I read in June were The Hazel Wood and The Night Country by Melissa Albert. Both were good and I loved the creepy fairy tale vibes, but something failed to keep me wholly engaged. I’m inclined to blame myself for that though, and not the books.

Movies

I rewatched the Bob’s Burgers Movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Ready or Not this month—the last two for the Three Thoughts Retrospective post that also went up today and the first of which was just because I needed some background noise and I really like the songs in that movie.

I also finally got to have another movie say in the theatre! I saw The Life of Chuck, 28 Years Later, and Materialists. All of which were wonderful and all of which, surprisingly, made my cry. The Life of Chuck was a wonderful look at life and growing up and our important our internal worlds are, how important love is. 28 Years Later was one where I didn’t know what to expect, but I enjoyed the first two movies and I’ll watch Aaron Taylor-Johnson in almost anything just because I like looking at him. But it turned out to be a neat look at how a zombie apocalypse might evolve over time and how people abandoned by the rest of the world might cope. There was no way I was passing up Materialists, since it featured two of my favourite actors—Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal; I could stare at them forever—and a friend of mine raved about the director. The movie was an unflinching look at relationships and the premium a lot of people place on looks and how selfish a lot of us can be and UGH. I’m still thinking about certain scenes from that movie and marvelling at the fact that as soon as there are tears in Chris Evans’s eyes and voice, I’m done for.

I also started watching Murderbot and oh my god, I’m obsessed. Gotta finish reading that series too.

Video Games

Just Dreamlight Valley this month. What can I say? I’m a simple girl who just likes puttering around doing little tasks while listening to my murder podcast.

Music

I mostly listened to the Gravity Well playlist as well as the Icarus and An Errant Ray of Sunlight playlists this month while I was writing and working on those lists. Nothing noteworthy to report other than I’m obsessed with Sleep Token’s newest and second-newest albums, and I’m obsessed with the Gravity Well playlist that I can’t wait to share. (Although it’s not marked private so I’m sure you could go find it if you want to. 😂)

Parting Thoughts

I hope everyone’s getting through the summer okay and will stick around until I have more exciting things to report!

That’s it for this month! Take it easy, hot dogs! 💙