The Cure for Social Isolation

This post was written in 2018

I've had a rough couple weeks. Pretty common, for a depressed person. The difference this time was that I was started to feel socially isolated. I can't remember another time when I would have plastered that label all over myself, but it got so bad I started reaching out to actual humans. And I never do that.

I got in touch with my oldest friend. We have a close bond. I know stuff about her that she doesn't tell most people. I knew her when she was going through some tough PTSD shit. She knew me when I was young and foolish.

Now we live in different cities and we rarely see one another. We rarely even talk, but somehow that doesn't matter. The bond between us is so strong we don't need to be in constant contact to feel connected.

But sometimes I need support, and sometimes she does, and that's usually when we reach out to each other.

It was me reaching out, this time. We made plans to see each other. Unfortunately, the father of a friend of hers died, and she had to drive clear across the province for the funeral. We formulated new plans for when she'd be passing through Toronto on her way home, but the thing about my friend is that she has a very serious health condition and her depressed immune system meant she became quite ill and stuck in the small town where her friend lives.

So none of our plans panned out. I don't blame her, obviously. But that doesn't stop me from being sad that we didn't get to see each other.

Depression and social isolation mingle in this weird way where the isolation is crying out, "I want to see someone," and the depression is whispering, "No you don't.  You just stay right here by me."  It's so seductive, the way it holds you close and runs its fingers through your hair. Depression has such a good grip on a person like me. It knows how to keep me from seeking out solace in the social sphere.

Through all this, my girlfriend's been working her ass off getting ready for a charity event she helps to run. She called me one night when she'd planned on coming over and said she was just too tired.  She'd been doing hard physical labour for 12 hours. I understood.  But I was so sad about not being able to connect with anyone, not even my own girlfriend, that when she called I was just silent on the phone.  I couldn't speak. I was too sad, but I couldn't explain why. I literally couldn't produce words.

It led to a very unfortunate misunderstanding, which I couldn't clear up because... Depression. Sweet was upset with me.  She didn't know everything that had happened with my friend getting sick and all that.  She just thought I was being a selfish brat.

When I woke up Saturday morning (okay, afternoon), life wasn't looking good.  The only thing I had to look forward was picking up a hold at the library.  And, to be honest, sometimes I get really jazzed about that.  But not when Depression's got me in her grip.

Thank goodness for radio. It's gotten me through some really rough times. And not just the music, but the hosts too.

I was listening to an indie rock station, and the host was talking about how she'd been feeling really irritated because she knew the streetcar she took to work would be diverted. The route change had to do with King Street being turned into a pedestrian walkway during the Toronto International Film Festival.

The radio host said that, after feeling disgruntled about the change in her commute, she decided to simply leave the house early, get off the streetcar where the road closure started, and walk through the pedestrian section of the street. And doing so took her from being irritated that her route was interrupted to feeling elated by the buoyant energy of all these people trying to get a glimpse of movie stars.

So I thought... you know what?  I'm going to King Street.

I'll tell you something about me: I don't even like movies. I have the attention span of a fruit fly. I cannot sit through a movie.  Just ask my girlfriend. She's a movie buff.  But she has a movie friend who goes to the movies with her, because I just can't.

I didn't go to the film festival for the movies.  I went for the people.

And you know what?

It worked.

As soon as I got to King Street, where it was blocked off for pedestrian use, the energy all around was just electric. There were people of all ages snapping photos, laughing and talking, lining up to try samples of products.  Restaurants had spilled out onto the street. Roads became patios.

But it was the people that helped me shake this bout of depression. Their excitement was frenetic.  There were big screens set up, I guess to broadcast celebrities getting out of limos?  I don't know. I'm really not up on pop culture.  But just that sound of teens squealing, the general frenzy, the joy and anticipation--it lifted me out of the pit I'd been living in for weeks.

My girlfriend's volunteer event was only a few blocks away, so I walked up to meet her.  She'd been on her feet for ten hours by that point, but she wasn't too busy to talk.  I was finally able to tell her everything that had been going on, and she said that if she'd realized all that she'd have cut me some slack instead of arguing.  We spent the rest of the evening together and it was great.  And a big part of the greatness was being out in the city, in these big crowds of people.

So the cure for social isolation is... people?  That seems a little too simplistic.

I've been thinking about those who are depressed and living in smaller communities. If they go out to a community gathering, they're probably going to see people they know.  The key, for me, was in being able to go out and be around people I didn't know. For me, that first step toward integrating myself more fully into the world is being anonymous in the world. Being around people, but being a nobody.  Enjoying the energy and excitement of an event without really being part of it.  I don't drive. If I lived in a tiny community, I'm not sure what I'd do.

But for those of us who live in active, vibrant cities, the cure for social isolation might simply be to find a crowd that's excited about something fun.  Steal that collective energy before it dissipates.  If you're anything like me, you need it.

It's funny--I was on the subway the other day and a man got on with his leg in a cast.  He was having trouble negotiating the crowd and I asked him if he needed a hand.  He thanked me, but said he was doing okay. He told me: "My motto is I'd rather have pain like this, that's visible on the outside, than pain on the inside that no one else can see."

I swear that man was reading my soul.

Join Giselle for a Rainbow Jigsaw Puzzle Video

Hiya.

I was feeling mighty lonesome, so I made this video to spend a little time with you. Actually, it's 23 minutes long, so that's a fair amount of time. Good visit.

Join me while I sort puzzle pieces and chat.

https://youtu.be/ONXvQS3MIJg?si=DYh6Hmj6_P62T12c

Positive Changes in the Personal Sphere #MondayBlogs #Mindfulness #Meditation

 It's four in the morning and I can't sleep, so I'm reflecting on some of the positive things I've accomplished over the past year.  I'm weaning myself off my habit of ruminating on everything I'm not satisfied with, in my life.  There's a positive, right there.

I wrote some books.  That's something.  It's something I don't customarily acknowledge as an accomplishment, now that I've been writing books for 15 years. I need to work at celebrating each new book I write.  I'm a work in progress, in that regard.

For well over a year now, I've been posting daily to my music blog. That's something I'm proud of.  Doing anything daily is hard work, and there have been many times I've considered throwing in the towel. I kept at it, though, and I'm pleased to share music and memories with the reading public every day of the year.

The things I'm most proud of are personal.

But not too personal that I won't share them with you.

Since the start of this pandemic, I've enrolled in three free online courses that focused on personal growth. I completed the ones on happiness and relationships, and I'm currently working on a course in mindfulness.

One thing that came out of the happiness course was a commitment to meditation practice. I try to do this daily, but it doesn't always happen. Every time I meditate, I feel like I've done it wrong. I don't think I'm getting results or seeing effects.  But I keep hearing about all these studies showing the positives that come out of meditation, so I keep at it, and I see those positives manifest in my life. 

Even if I don't feel like I'm doing meditation right, I'm still seeing benefits.

The most significant course I took this year was a course of therapy.  This is something I've needed for decades, but I've never had the resources. The pandemic changed that, for me, because the province I live in made free therapy available to everyone.  

I went through an extremely intensive twelve weeks of CBT combined with the support of an excellent therapist, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it changed my life.

Honestly, the reason I sought out therapy was that I looked at my behaviour, my mood swings, my midlife crisis, my perimenopausal rage, and I saw that I was being very unfair to my partner. Unpredictable. Irrational.  Out of control.  I was so afraid of losing him. Our time together has been the best time of my life.

I wish I could have sought out therapy for ME instead of doing it for my partner, but I guess I never valued myself highly enough. I never thought I was worth it. 

Looking back, I realize therapy would have been worth any money--even money I didn't have. But I can't change the past, so I won't bother saying I wish I'd done this decades ago. Because I did give therapy a shot decades ago, the last time I had access to free therapy sessions. Unfortunately, there therapist I was paired with wasn't a good fit for me.  The three sessions I had were not terrible helpful.  Certainly not life changing. 

These ones were.  

The work we did led me to insights about my personality that were truly mind-blowing. And they were the kinds of things where you're like... how did I never notice that about myself? Why did I never connect those dots? They're the sorts of things you see in someone else and go, "Oh, well, she behaves this way because of that thing that happened to her." 

Easy to see in someone else, much more difficult to see in oneself.

When I did that happiness course, I found out that my overriding positive personality trait is gratitude. 

But I could have told you that.  

I am deeply grateful for this career I get to keep because of readers like you. I'm grateful that book sales provide a roof over my head and put food on the table. I am grateful to have a loving and supportive partner who welcomes personal growth rather than being intimidated by it. And I'm grateful for all the resources I've been able to access that cost only my time and effort.

The other day, I said to my partner, "This time last year, I thought I was going to lose you. With all my hormonal changes and mood swings, I didn't think you'd stay with me--and I couldn't have blamed you, if you'd left. But with all the therapy and meditation, I feel so much calmer. Is it just me, or have I changed?"

He assured me that the change has been tremendous. I guess I didn't need him to tell me that, but it's always nice to get positive feedback from someone you hold in high esteem.

Now I just need to work on being one of those people I hold in high esteem.

The work is never done. 

The Mind That Cried Storm

Thunder and lightning woke me at five, this morning. Fireballs in the sky, crashes of sound and energy that reverberated through my bed. Storms are phenomenal, when they're happening outside your own mind.

Inside? That's another story.

I had a few bad months, mentally and emotionally. Well, more than a few bad months. But I had a few REALLY bad months. Depression and anxiety teamed up to poison my mind with all kinds of inaccurate thoughts. I kept imagining scenarios where everything went wrong, and reacting to them as though they were real. They weren't real. My mind created them out of nothing. My thoughts were not reality-based, and yet I responded to them as though they were.

One day I cried for 8 hours straight. I kind of reached my breaking point.

A friend of mine, who happens to be a doctor, recommended a workbook called Mind Over Mood to help me implement cognitive behavioural therapy techniques. It was exactly what I needed, because it teaches you to look at those thoughts, to examine them for accuracy, to determine whether real-life evidence supports them.

In most cases, for me, the anxiety thoughts had almost zero basis in reality.

While I was doing my worksheets, I didn't feel like they were helping me. I still felt anxious, I still felt insecure and unsettled. But the act of observing obviously changed me, over time, because these past few weeks should have been killer, and I've gotten through them with considerably more ease than anticipated.

I have my mother to thank, in large part. She doesn't know the meaning of the word "anxiety." Her philosophy is that she'll deal with stuff as it happens. No sense worrying about things that may never come to pass.

My mother's had a series of medical appointments throughout the spring and summer, culminating in a biopsy for which my siblings and I nervously awaited results. My mom wasn't nervous, though. "What's the point in being nervous? I'll just waste all this time when I could be doing other things. When I find out what's going on, then the doctors will tell us what to do."

We got the results last week. My mom has cancer. It always takes a while for these things to sink in, for me. I don't know whether I'm still in that numb stage, or whether Mind Over Mood truly did prepare me for this. Or maybe my mother prepared me by setting an example of not worrying. It isn't put on, with her. She is a truly happy-go-lucky person. She trusts her doctor. She trusts that the chemo and other therapies will do their job, and she'll be just fine by this time next year.

I hope she's right, but, more than that, I trust that she's right. Part of this is intuition. I woke up the morning of her appointment thinking, "It'll be cancer, but it'll be fine." It's just hard to trust intuition when its cousin, anxiety, has so often led me astray.

If you want more from me, consider following my music and anecdote site, A Friendly Musical Visit Every Day. I really do post there every day, and it pleases me so much to get visitors.

What Good is #Writing?

I used to tell people writing meant nothing to me. Family, friends, writers, readers... I told everyone that writing was something I only did to make money. Writing wasn't like breathing, for me. I didn't feel like I had to do it or I'd die.

I'd heard from a lot of other authors that they'd write even if nobody paid them for it.  Even if nobody bought their books.

Not me. I was only in it for the cold hard cash.

That was then.

It took me quite a number of years before I started to realize the place of meaning and resolution writing held in my life.  When I first started writing, I was selling erotica shorts to anthologies and periodicals. I was signing contracts with niche publishers.

I think it was the market for periodicals that dried up first. Anthologies followed a few years later.  Around that time, the small publishers I was signing with started toppling like dominoes.

So I started self-publishing. Why not?  The stigma was lifting.  It was suddenly easy to publish independently. And I had quite a number of works at my disposal, including those that had come back to me from publishers that had folded.

Things went pretty okay.  I was hardly a Kindle Millionaire, but I understood the process.  Publishing seemed pretty straightforward. I uploaded my books to various retailers through various distributors and in various formats. They sold copies. Again, not a million copies, but enough that I could pay my rent and put food on the table (and in my cats' bowls).

And now?

Looking at my life holistically, I'd have to say, at the moment, it's a mess. My career is a huge part of that mess. I've experienced an enormous amount of grief and loss this year--in terms of loved ones dying and so forth--but also in terms of loss of income, dwindling sales.

The last book I wrote that was meaningful to me sold two copies.

Although my career is writing, writing is not merely a career.  Not anymore.

Writing has become much more than a career.

Much, much more.

After my cousin's death this summer, I started writing about grief.  About my grief.  Non-fiction. I started out telling myself it was publishable, that I was writing for monetary gain. But I realized very quickly that allowing anyone on the planet to read the most intimate details of my family's pain would be a betrayal to those who were hurting the most. There could be a time in the future when that changes, but that's kind of not the point.

The point is that, even after I realized I was writing stuff I couldn't possibly publish... I kept doing it.

I kept writing because the act of writing helped me. That's when I realized I was actually journaling. Didn't feel like it, because I'd never typed a journal before. I'd run out of people to talk to (or, I convinced myself I had, convinced myself nobody wanted to hear me repeat the same thoughts over and over again), but I could always write.

It helped me so much. I could never have imagined how much, honestly.  If you're going through some shit and it's never occurred to you to write it all down, I highly recommend it. Most people have probably figured this out by the age of eight.  Guess it took me a little longer than that.

There's something freeing about getting to a low point in your career.  You can stop thinking about what others want from you, because clearly they don't want anything--if they did, they'd be buying your books.  It's a time when you can turn to yourself and ask, "All things being equal, what would you really like to work on?"

And then you can write a book like this:

Or a book like this:

Or a book nobody's ever going to see, because it isn't a book at all.

Are you lonely? Do you like music? Then, do I have a treat for you!

I won't lie to you: it's been a while since I've felt enthused about work. I'm having a midlife crisis, and everything is in flux. But I'm still here! I'm still scrawling away in the background, producing BRAND NEW EROTIC FICTION for you to enjoy at a later date.

But why am I even talking about writing? That's not what I'm here to tell you about. I'm here to tell you about a BRAND NEW PROJECT I've dreamed up that'll hopefully help those of us who are socially isolated feel not so alone.

Yes, you heard that right: I'm socially isolated. I don't think it was even a gradual thing, for me. I think that, once I started writing full-time, my world instantly grew smaller. In the beginning, I'd take on part-time jobs because I needed the money.  I never realized how helpful it was for my mental health to interact with people out there in the world.

This summer, as I was dealing with the death of a family member who was also isolated and depressed, I realized I needed to change my life. I started doing volunteer work again, and that has helped tremendously (I highly recommend it!), but it wasn't a cure-all. My career as a writer is still very solitary, and I have trouble making friends and all that.

Months ago, I started thinking about how all the resources I've ever heard of that helped people who were socially isolated were for seniors. But the truth is that a lot of younger people feel isolated, too, these days. I wanted to create something online that would help us feel some connection, give us something to look forward to every day, but I didn't know what I could possibly do on a daily basis that wouldn't leave me disastrously overwhelmed.

Well, this week it hit me! I knew I wanted to do some kind of "friendly visitor" thing, but the other day I realized that I'm often posting whatever song is stuck in my head to Twitter.  I LOVE music. Like, music is magic. Music saves me. So I thought... that's what I can do: create a home for us to gather in day by day, where we come together around a song!

Whether you feel socially isolated or you just love music, I hope you'll read about my new project, which I guess is called A FRIENDLY MUSICAL VISIT EVERY DAY and is located at https://friendlymusicvisitor.blogspot.com

I wrote up a whole thing last night, to introduce you to my new project and hopefully get you interested in returning each and ever day. You can read it right here: https://friendlymusicvisitor.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-is-this-where-am-i-whats-it-all.html

Wish me luck with this!  There's nothing worse than starting something new only to find that no one cares. But, of course, that's not going to happen here! This is a great idea, and lots of people are going to love it! (I need to keep telling myself these things...)

Tell your friends!
Giselle

Congratulations! You've Discovered the Mother's Day Depression Post!

The more I write about grief and depression, the more followers I lose. So why do I do it? Why do something that seems, on the surface, pretty bad for my writing career? Because I'm finally realizing there's truth to that old saying I never used to believe: if your work helps just one person, it's worth doing. Even if fair-weather fans bail, I'm here for YOU, you dear, darling ONE person who needs this post.

Yes, it might be a bummer! Read it if you want, don't if you don't. I'm not forcing anyone. Do what's right for you.

I want to talk about Mother's Day, because it's tomorrow, and it's on my mind.

As you probably know, my grandmother died six months ago. My cousin died just a couple months before her. I think that's all the background you need.

This'll be the first Mother's Day since my grandma's death, and it's hitting me hard. Not just my grandmother's absence (and I do miss her hugely), but the feeling that my family is disintegrating without her. She was the glue. She was the matriarch. Without her, how do we hold together?

For the past ten or twenty years, the whole family's been assembling at my grandmother's house on Mother's Day. It was never a planned event, like Christmas and Grandma's birthday, which were the other two occasions on which you could be sure to see all the aunts, uncles, cousins, babies. Everybody just sort of showed up at Grandma's house because she was the mother of the family. Where else would we spend Mother's Day?

My grandmother never wanted a "final resting place." She didn't believe in that sort of thing. So she doesn't have one. I really wish she did, because I want to visit her, especially on a day like Mother's Day. Although, that's the whole reason she didn't want a gravesite: she wouldn't be there, so why would we waste our time going there to see her?

Why? Because there's nowhere else to go...

I watched this TV show called Seatbelt Psychic, where a ride share driver who is also a medium does readings while he's driving people places. One thing he said was that our dead loved ones are always around us. It really upset me to hear that, because all I could think was: if they're around me, why can't I feel them?

I can never feel them. All I feel is alone.

Perhaps I shouldn't feel alone. I do have family. I have my mother and my siblings. That's who I'll be spending Mother's Day with. And I do feel fortunate, especially as a queer person, to have a solid relationship with my family. I know I'm lucky to have more siblings than a lot of people do, these days. A big family is nice. That's why I want to spend special occasions with my many, many aunts and uncles and cousins and their children.

After the death of my cousin this summer, I found out that he looked forward to our family gatherings as much as I did. They were a high point on his calendar. You make so many assumptions about other people's lives, you know? You assume they've got all this cool stuff going on. I'm sure people think that about me, too, that I've got this cool queer life doing cool queer stuff. The truth is that I look forward to returning library materials. I look forward to chatting with friendly cashiers. I don't have much going on, and depression steals your will to seek out new things to do.

My cousin was depressed. That's something else I didn't know about him. I didn't know that until after he died.

Sweet asked why I don't organize a big family event for Mother's Day, if I want one so badly. It's a nice idea, but it would have required more energy than I currently have available. Took me two weeks just to pin down my siblings. Maybe next year I'll be more emotionally stable. Maybe then I'll be able to take initiative. Then again, part of me just wants to be a kid (a 40-year-old kid...) who shows up at the party and doesn't have to do any of the organizing.

I love my family. I don't want us to fall apart. But, my mental health being what it is, I don't know how to keep us together.

When the Student is Ready...

The other day I was listening to a tarot podcast, when the podcaster mentioned she's the type of person who is often accused of reading too much into things. She said she analyzes everyday events as though they were meaningful, because, in her mind, they are meaningful.

I tend to do the same thing. If you were writing a paper about some literary novel, you would read significant insights into the most mundane details. You'd assume the author inserted those details intentionally, to represent a character's state of mind, or to foreshadow upcoming events, or something.

(As an author--at least, as the kind of author I am--I can attest that a huge amount of symbolism makes its way into the text via the subconscious. I'm not generally thinking about what every little thing represents when I'm working on a first draft. In fact, I make an effort not to think too much about what it means while I'm creating.)

The aforementioned podcaster went on to mention that when we hear a saying like "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear," we assume that "teacher" is going to be an actual human being, someone who will flutter into our lives and take on a guru role.

More likely, the teacher will appear in many forms simultaneously. It won't be a person. It'll be many people. It'll be a situation and a book and a TV show. It'll be an interaction with a cashier, with a co-worker, with someone you meet by chance. You don't have to wait for the Wise Woman to show up and guide you.  You are constantly being guided.  You just have to pay attention.

Last night I attended an event where a young man read a short piece of writing composed by his late grandfather.  This piece was beautifully written. I couldn't possibly do it justice here, but I want you to know we're talking about some fine-ass prose.

He wrote about a train journey. When it begins, you're entertained enough by the views, by the people around you, by the simple fact of being on a train. After a time, you start pacing the aisles, wondering how far you are from the station. When you get to the station, that's when the good times really begin. That's when you'll have arrived.

The truth, he writes, is that there is no station. It is an illusion.

This message has been coming at me, lately, from multiple sources. It just so happens that I LOVE trains (my maternal grandfather worked on the railroad), so this incarnation of the message struck me hardest.

I've been living a life without goals for a long time, now, and it's felt very empty. Now that I finally have a goal in sight--and a big one, at that--I'm super-focused on achieving that one thing that'll bring me happiness at long last. Meanwhile, as I wait for that goal, I find myself feeling antsy, wanting to get there faster, wanting to be there NOW.

One thing I've learned is that I need the goal in sight. I know what my life looked like when I had nothing to look forward to: empty, desolate, almost uninhabitable.

But the more I get lost in dreams of what life will be like when I reach the station, the less attention I pay to the little wonders along the way.

Without my goal, I'd be lost. Even if it is an illusion, it's a necessary illusion.  Now I need to learn to enjoy the journey. There's no sense feeling miserable along the way.

New #Bisexual Fiction: Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man

Feels like I haven't written a book in forever, even though I have. Tragic Coolness was released not too long ago. But that was an adaptation (of an opera) and it also wasn't erotica.

My new erotic novella Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man feels... I don't know... bouncy and fresh?  Which is weird, because it describes a lot of death and cheating and loss.  Just in a fresh and bouncy way.

I also feel like I've gone back to my roots with this one. I just wrote it the way it came to me. I wasn't concerned about what anyone might think--of the characters, of their adultery, of a wife seducing a man she barely knows while her spouse is asleep in the next room.

I didn't care what anyone might think of me for writing this.

I was grieving very deeply when I wrote this book, and I didn't care about anything except listening to what my brain was telling me to write and getting it all down before the sweet essence of the book could slip away.

And there is a special sweetness at the core of PIE GIRLS. I can't call it a romance, since it involves so damn much adultery, but I will tell you that I find it romantic, especially when you consider that everyone ends up happy by the close of the book.

If you like my classic repertoire, I know you'll like PIE GIRLS.  This one takes me back to my early days of writing, when I had no awareness of "the market", when I was just writing what I wanted to write.

PIE GIRLS AND THE VERY LONELY MAN is bisexual fiction. It's erotica. It's a depressed-people comedy with a satisfying HEA for two girls and a guy. Who should read it? Anyone looking for a bit of a pick-me-up. It's fun (in my opinion), and it's got heart.

Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man
Adult Fiction by Giselle Renarde

When Butler meets a retro rockabilly pie shop owner, the last thing he expects is that she’ll try to seduce him. No, scratch that. The last thing he expects is for the pie girl’s wife to walk in on them! When the pie girls invite him to stay at their house, a visit to a lonely small town grows into the kind of adventure Butler wouldn’t have dreamed up in his wildest fantasies. Can a lonely man live in a dream?

Buy the book from the retailer of your choosing, including...
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/920415?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=l3-FDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N7BJ8PL?tag=dondes-20
BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pie-girls-and-the-very-lonely-man-giselle-renarde/1130417118
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/pie-girls-and-the-very-lonely-man
...and many other ebook stores!

As Seen Through Windows #Voyeurism #Erotica #Audiobook

As Seen Through Windows
Voyeurism Erotica Audiobook
Written and Read by Giselle Renarde

Who are Dirk and Shola? Nobody knows. But when a lonely woman spends her days and nights watching them from the building across the way, she invents her own story about their relationship. Who's to say if she's right or wrong when curiosity becomes obsession?

Buy the audiobook today from...
Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/237349/as-seen-through-windows
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_As_Seen_Through_Windows?id=AQAAAECMgRXBiM
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/as-seen-through-windows-3
Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/as-seen-through-windows-voyeurism-erotica/345859
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/383549314/As-Seen-Through-Windows-Voyeurism-Erotica
...and many other retailers, subscription and library services!

If you can't get enough audio erotica, become my patron for erotic stories every Friday, written and narrated by me!

Bobbing for Peaches #Lesbian #Erotica #Audiobook

I've been really bad at keeping you updated lately.

Sorry about that.

Like, one of my main focuses has been turning all these short stories I've written over the past 12 years into audiobooks.

If you're a patron of mine on Patreon, you get to listen to a different story every week--lucky you!

But if you're not my patron and you enjoy audio erotica, you can purchase these shorts as audiobooks or see if they're available from your local library. At the moment I'm working on recording another novel, but meanwhile I'm getting shorts out there. A lot of these ones come in anywhere between 22 and 45 minutes, often hovering around the half hour mark, just like watching a TV show.

One recent addition to the audio erotica roster is my lesbian short story Bobbing for Peaches, which involves warm milk and a hot shower.

Someone's getting busy in the kitchen!

When Jocelyn arrives home from work, she finds her girlfriend Melanie preparing a sweet treat: a warm concoction of milk and peaches, with a dash of cinnamon and a hint of pricey Tahitian vanilla.

Good thing Jocelyn's in the mood to play with her food, because it's time to get naked - and get messy!

There are so many places to find my audiobooks, far more than the usual suspects. As I say, if you don't have money to spend on audiobooks, check out whatever system your library uses for digital downloads or streaming of audio content. Search Giselle Renarde. See what comes up. You might be surprised.

And if you have a few bucks to throw at audiobooks, here are some links where you can buy Bobbing for Peaches:

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Erotica-Sexuality/Bobbing-for-Peaches-Audiobook/B07DJZ3BSR

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/bobbing-for-peaches-2

Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/232803/bobbing-for-peaches

Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/380716068/Bobbing-for-Peaches-Lesbian-Erotica

Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/bobbing-for-peaches-lesbian-erotica/337494

eStories: https://www.estories.com/audiobook/224157/Giselle-Renarde/Bobbing-for-Peaches

Downpour: https://www.downpour.com/bobbing-for-peaches?sp=265447

If you can't get enough audio erotica, become my patron for erotic stories every Friday, written and narrated by me!

Listen to ANGRY, the new album from Too Attached

I'm having the kind of day where I can barely cope with life.

I've told you before that comedy saves me when I'm depressed, but when I'm in this state?  This beyond-depression "can't cope" state?  This is when I turn to music.

If it wasn't for music, I don't know where I'd be right now.

Because I'm having such a shitty day, I was particularly elated when I saw that CBC is streaming Angry, the new album from Too Attached, this week.

This album is queer, concise, and fierce.

And you know what else? CBC lets you embed their streaming thingy right on your own site. Which means you can listen to Angry right here at Donuts and Desires. But it's only available to stream until February 2nd 2018, so listen now!



Andrea Warner's write-up at CBC is insightful and you can read that here: http://www.cbcmusic.ca/first-plays/663/first-play-too-attached-angry

Angry releases February 1st 2018, and you can purchase it here: https://tooattached.bandcamp.com/album/angry

How I Survived This Horrible Year

2017 has been terrible. Worst depression year I've had in almost 20 years. Anxiety on top of that.

I've got a lot to be grateful for. Aside from tax headaches, the horribleness of this year hasn't been personal. Nobody's died. I haven't been evicted. My girlfriend's still dear to my heart.

But sometimes things can be going right and you still can't cope. Mental illness is funny like that. This world is a hard place to live in.

So how do I cope?

Comedy.

Doesn't work for everybody, but it does work for me.  My girlfriend says that when she's having a bad depression day, comedy is the last thing she wants to consume. It feels too trivial to her.  But I want the trivial.  I don't want to think about all the bad stuff in the world, all the hatred and the fear.  I want to laugh. I just want to laugh.

The top three things that kept me going throughout this horrible, terrible year are:

1. Mystery Science Theater 3000

I have my girlfriend to thank for this discovery. MST3K was barely on my radar when she introduced me to it. But as soon as I started watching old episodes, I was hooked.

In case you're not familiar, it's a show from the 90s (recently revived by Netflix) set in the not-too-distant future. A guy and his robot pals make fun of the best of the worst B movies and sci-fi flicks. It's deliriously hilarious.

Bad movies, clever remarks and robot friends--what's not to love?

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is the funniest goddamn thing I've seen... possibly ever.

 

2. Four Finger Discount

My sister turned me on to this wonderful Simpsons podcast. Being a huge fan of Golden Era Simpsons, I've really enjoyed reliving old episodes with two funny Australian boys.  Most of the people I spend time with are considerably older than I am, so it's great to vampire off their 20-something energy.

In every episode, Dando and Mitch review a different Simpsons episode. It goes in chronological order. New episodes are posted once a week.  They started with Season 1 and they're up to Season 6. That's commitment!

Four Finger Discount is my new favourite thing to listen to while washing dishes.

3. Frasier

I love Frasier so much that when I had a particularly good sales quarter a couple years ago, I bought the entire series on DVD. Every night, I go to bed with Frasier. I put it on and let it lull me into sleep. It helps my brain power down.

I'm not sure how many times I've watched the series in its entirety, but I'm not tired of it yet.

So I want to send my gratitude out into the universe, or at least into the internet. Thank you to everyone helped to create the media that soothes my mentally ill mind. Maybe you didn't know it when you were making robots or recording podcasts in your living room, but you've helped someone this year.

You've really helped me.

NEW! The #Depression Workbook for #Writers

I've been meaning to upload The Depression Workbook for Writers for more than a year, and posting the audio version to YouTube has sparked me to get off my ass and do it.

The Depression Workbook for Writers is different from The Depression Handbook for Writers in just one (very useful) way: this new Workbook edition contains lined spaces following pretty much every chapter where you can take notes related to the topic of that particular segment.

If you're anything like me, you forget every thought you've ever had three seconds after thinking it. If I don't write down an idea, it's GONE. Depression doesn't make my brain any sharper, that's for sure.

This Workbook is actually really reasonably priced ($7.99 USD at Amazon), so I'm hoping that if you've got your eye on it, you'll be able to afford a copy.

Buy Now from Amazon

If you’re a writer living with depression, you might not know where to turn. There are days when depression devours your words and you find yourself incapable of working. People tell you you’re not alone. So why does it feel like you are?

As an author with chronic depression, Giselle Renarde created this book as a means of reaching out to other writers with hope in hand.

The Depression Handbook for Writers includes:
• specific activities to help you through the dark days,
• practical ideas to help you move forward with your writing business even when you find it impossible to write,
• interviews with other authors experiencing depression,
• all written in a personal, accessible, and heartfelt tone.

The Depression Handbook for Writers was written for you, with love, care, and encouragement.
New WORKBOOK edition includes thought-provoking questions and space to brainstorm your own ideas!
Purchase your copy today.

The Depression Handbook for Writers #FREE #Audiobook

A few years ago I wrote The Depression Handbook for Writers to help authors like me, authors living with depression. The ebook version is still free to download from numerous retailers, so when I started recording the audio version I thought: why not provide it free of charge too?

In order to give my depression book to listeners for free, I'm posting it chapter by chapter on YouTube. The direct link to the playlist is here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBo2GKvlzg5KJqjgoK1PFx3chg0XZKyi3 and each segment is only a couple minutes long. They won't take up too much of your time.

Hopefully the things that help me live and work with depression will help you too!

And be sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel while you're at it: https://www.youtube.com/user/gisellerenarde

Thanks! Love you!

How to Fail Miserably at #Writing

Why, you might ask, is Giselle giving away so much for free these days?

There's a very simple answer to that question: I'm now massively rich and I don't need your money. (HA!) That was a joke. I still need your money! I need it now more than ever! GOD, do I need your money!

But the fact remains that I've been giving a lot away. And there is a reason for it. The reason is that... the world sucks. It sucks a lot. It sucks in big and scary ways.

Sometimes, when the world sucks, you have strength to stand up and fight.

And sometimes you don't.

When it all gets to be too much, you might retreat into something that feels comfortable to you. For me, that's comedy. One day I'll tell you how Mystery Science Theater 3000 got me through one of my deepest depressive periods. If you've read my depression handbook (also free), you know one of my favourite feelings is laughing uncontrollably when I'm massively depressed.

But comedy doesn't work for everyone. I was talking to my girlfriend about this the other day. She said that when she's depressed, comedy makes her angry because it seems so trite. We're all different. Some people would rather escape into sex, and that's one of the big reasons I posted my erotic novel CHERRY at Wattpad last month. So you could read it for free if you needed that escape.

The next big thing is this series of ebooks I've assembled out of many years of blog posts at Oh Get a Grip. I believe there will be 8 in total, all on different topics. The first one is called How to Fail Miserably at Writing. They're all going to be "How to Fail Miserably" at something, not so much because they're giving you pointers on failing, but because I fail a lot and it was just a funny, self-deprecating title.

Because these ebooks are comprised of blog posts you can read for free at Oh Get A Grip (if you're willing to wade through 4 or 5 years' worth of posts to find them), I'm bringing each book out at zero dollars.

These collections will hit the skids market every two weeks, and they'll be free for the first two weeks of their existence. I actually uploaded the first one last week but a combination of laziness and perpetual failure has prevented me from blogging about it until now.

I could tell you more about what's inside, but I'm just going to post the book blurb because that pretty much covers it. Be sure to grab a copy while it's free!

How to Fail Miserably at Writing
Everything I’ve Done Wrong
by Giselle Renarde

Giselle’s done everything wrong so you don’t have to!

Giselle Renarde is an award-winning author who’s been failing at everything since 2006. Her erotica and queer fiction have appeared in nearly 200 short story anthologies and published by two of the Big Five publishing house, but don’t let that fool you. Giselle is a writer who knows how to fail—consistently and thoroughly!

In this collection of short musings from the erotic writers’ blog Oh Get a Grip, Giselle treats readers to a veritable smorgasbord of anecdotes about moving forward in the industry one fail at a time.

Have you ever had an editor tell you your entire manuscript needs to be rewritten? Three times? Giselle has. She’s experienced rejection letters, bad reviews, banned books, crappy sales, and painful missteps. If you’ve ever written a book that earned you neither money, fame nor respect, come sit by Giselle. If you have no idea what you’re doing in this business, neither does she!

Let’s all join hands and fail together!

Get your copy today from such ebookstores as:

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/745471
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/how-to-fail-miserably-at-writing
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=lXMzDwAAQBAJ

Happy Failing!

Erotic Older Women: The Complete Collection is Now Available!

Have I got a treat for you!

Remember my Erotic Older Women series of erotic anthologies? Well, they're now available in one collection. You can buy the paperback, you can buy the ebook--the choice is yours. More than twenty short stories in total: lesbian erotica, menage, BDSM, public sex, toys galore, kinky stuff, sexual fantasies. Lots of literary erotica starring older women. Senior sex with loving partners, age difference erotica with eager young lovers. This book's got it all!

Erotic Older Women
The Complete Collection
by Giselle Renarde

Erotic older women prove it’s never too late for new experiences! In this superbundle of three erotica anthologies, explore older women’s wild, lesbian and kinky desires. From group sex to spanking to sex at the office, we catch older women enjoying forbidden fantasies over the course of more than twenty sexy stories. Whether they’re getting amorous with long-term partners or younger lovers, the women in these stories delight in carnal encounters. Enter a world of enjoying aging bodies in Erotic Older Women: The Complete Collection!

There are oh-so-many places to purchase the Erotic Older Women collection. Here are just a few:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBWO4M3?tag=dondes-20
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/697728?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=1NzxDQAAQBAJ

BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/erotic-older-women-giselle-renarde/1125512833?ean=9781542663045
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/erotic-older-women-the-complete-collection
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1197165732

A1Ebooks: http://www.a1ebooks.com/book.htm?pr=11718
Excitica: http://www.excitica.com/index.php/erotic-older-women-the-complete-collection.html
Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/shop/giselle-renarde/erotic-older-women-the-complete-collection/ebook/product-23035438.html

#FREE #LESBIAN #EROTICA Bobbing for Peaches

Have I got a treat for you!

My erotic lesbian short story Bobbing for Peaches involves warm milk, sweet peaches, messy sex and depression. What more could you want?

Well, you might want it FREE.

Done.

I've made this story available as a free ebook at most vendors. Possibly this is a limited time only deal. Possibly I'll forget to raise the price. Hard to say. I've got a terrible memory--I'll tell you that much.

Not sold? Here's what it's all about:

Someone's getting busy in the kitchen! When Jocelyn arrives home from work, she finds her girlfriend Melanie preparing a sweet treat: a warm concoction of milk and peaches with a dash of cinnamon and a hint of pricey Tahitian vanilla. Good thing Jocelyn's in the mood to play with her food, because it's time to get naked—and get messy!

Here are some of the links to ebook retailers where Bobbing for Peaches is free:

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/671804
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bobbing-for-peaches-giselle-renarde/1124820553
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/ebook/bobbing-for-peaches-lesbian-erotica
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1164481444


Excitica: http://www.excitica.com/index.php/bobbing-for-peaches-lesbian-erotica.html

Enjoy!