Cover Reveal!

Chasing that sweet, sweet dopamine

Greetings, fellow humans. I’m Caroline and I write fantasy and horror—my debut epic fantasy novel, The Obsidian Druid will be released in April 2024. I also have a mild obsession with Web 1.0-era websites. This is my newsletter.

Okay, you’ve seen the title, so this week I’m jumping straight to the…

Publishing News

If you’re wondering what on earth I’m talking about, and what it is I’m actually publishing, may I kindly direct you here: Investing in Myself—I’ve started my self-publishing journey, join my descent into madness

Remember that cover I talked about before? The one I loved so much I kept sneaking looks at just to get a sweet, sweet dopamine hit? Well… the day has finally come to reveal it!

Here she is, in all her glorious beauty. I’m unveiling it here in my newsletter before screaming about it on any socials because that’s how much I appreciate you guys.

Unfortunately, all the sneaky dopamine hits in the world haven’t prevented me from surfing the anxiety wave this week. I’ve been stressing myself out trying to finish all the publishing-related jobs I’d penciled into that planner I keep banging on about. Screw you, planner. I’m still on track (just) but some things took me longer to complete than I’d scheduled for, namely, creating graphics for my web and social pages. I am quite pleased with the results, though. Would you like to see some more exclusive world firsts?

I made this doodad:

And this, because it’s what all the cool kids are doing:

I also have this tasty banner:

Good grief, I love Canva. Now I just need to sort out the interior layout, figure out how pre-orders work, research Amazon keywords and categories, sign up for ARC websites… I think I need a lie-down.

The Obsidian Druid, Book One of The Age of Aikana, will be released in April 2024

Current Favourite Website

Nana’s Place - First Created ? - Last Updated ?

There’s a little caveat to be aware of with this website. When I viewed it in Chrome with no ad-blocker, it looked like a dystopian vision of capitalist hell and was virtually unviewable. When I viewed it in Brave however (which blocks ads automatically), it worked fine. So now you know.

In the long ago before times when people first made personal web pages, they were often nothing more than snapshots into that person’s life, interspersed with animated gifs and littered with guest books. Nana’s Place is a great example of that type of site, complete with family photos, favourite recipes, and movie recommendations.

Nana’s Place has an oddly fitting late-90’s-goth aesthetic, with bold red writing (Comic Sans, naturally) on a red and black background. I couldn’t find any dates but it’s a Tripod site (can you believe Tripod sites are still live? Angelfire, too) so I’m guessing it must have been made in the mid-late nineties. Most of it still works, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the disappointment of finding that the link to LUMPENSTEINS CHAMBER OF HORRORS (“Beware. Our cat Lumpy is coming for you! She's got her own scary movie site”) is broken. It led me instead to a modern Yahoo page which on the day I visited, provided me with the news that the Princess of Wales is laid up after surgery, and social media is controlling my life. Now I’ll never know what Lumpy thought of Demon Knight.

It feels a bit voyeuristic in 2024 to be made privy to the sort of information that’s now reserved for friends lists on walled gardens like Facebook. I know that Nana married “...a guy whose net nikname is Punchy”, she collects cow trinkets, and one of her hobbies is “...stitching together small childsize dolls and dressing them in actual kids clothing.”

I’m not creeped out, you are.

If you decide to drop by Nana’s Place, sadly you can’t mark your visit by signing the guestbook because clicking on it just takes you to the Lycos frontpage (yes, they still exist, too!) but you can grab a sweet recipe for barbecue chicken wings.

If you want to see the complete list of Web 1.0-era Websites of the Week, you can find it on my website.

Stalk me across the interwebs: Website - Dreamwidth - Bluesky - Read Stories Online

That’s it for now.