Loren Greene

<div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_OloQAGxYjc/UD_KrP-jNVI/AAAAAAAABtk/am2br15WxLg/s1600/m-184.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;">Welcome! I'm Loren, from Newfoundland, Canada, and the author of the <a href="https://www.lorengreene.com/work/sakuramaple" target="_blank">Sakura+Maple</a> series for young adults, as well as Royal Road fantasy serial <em><a href="http://rr.lorengreene.com" target="_blank">Foreign Thorn</a></em>.<br><br>The first few months of 2020, for me, ended with the loss of a job I loved in the travel industry while living in one of the most expensive cities in this country.  Yikes.<br><br><div><div><div>Before I masked up and applied at the grocery store, I was forced to face a few hard truths. I'd aggravated an old injury recently at work, as well as developed a new one that mystified my physiotherapists and osteopath. I wasn't in any condition, physically or mentally, to face my unemployed pandemic reality. I decided it would be an opportunity to work on my health and creative projects that had gone untended to.<br><div><br><div>When I was young, my dream was to be a novelist. I went forward with an English degree, imagining a future writing creatively. It wasn't until I had to take full-time hours at a call centre during my degree that I realized, you can't write for a living unless you've already written something. You can't write something unless you have time to write. You can't have time when you're doing the kind of shift work where you finish at 1 AM and have to be back the next day at 9. So when I crossed the stage with my diploma in hand, I didn't have anything solid in my portfolio. I had to look for Plan B right away, unless I wanted Student Aid to come calling. And I stuck with Plan B until I secured a job that I enjoyed enough to keep doing forever.<br><br><div><div>(I guess &quot;forever&quot; wasn't planning on COVID. Bummer.)<br><br><div>It was a blow, since at long last I had found a <em>career,</em> and now the future was fraught with uncertainty. I could take a job to keep me afloat while I hope for a callback from my company in a year or two years. <br><br><em>But what,</em> I started to think, <em>if this is a blessing in disguise?</em><div><div><br><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DuMqzP69S8w/UuZ_UvAhRRI/AAAAAAAACdU/vHqdEPxCWqU/s1600/1930_53878982149_9810_n.jpg" style="float: left; width: 272px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;">I had written a novel in 2008 in my free time, as a National Novel Writing Month project. I was living in Japan, teaching, and would take my netbook to faraway places on the weekend and find myself new, inspiring places to write. It was a great time for me creatively, as I realized how much I loved writing about Japan. That first story, about a pair of teenage girls who meet online over their mutual love of Tokyo street fashion, was so much fun to write, but it was very obviously a <em>first novel</em>. Its original iteration wasn't something a publisher would want. Over the next decade, I came back to it again and again to polish it further.<br><br><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>By this time, I had a paid position at the non-profit I had supported as a volunteer for years. Scratching my itch to travel, working with students, speaking Japanese, and encouraging kids to study abroad and try cultural immersion. I was so happy and for the first time felt like I had &quot;made it,&quot; doing what I loved without having to worry about the Internet bill being paid. (Stop me if you've heard this one before, right?) Then, without warning just a few weeks before the world heard about COVID, my organization went bankrupt. <br><br>One day everything was normal, and the next, I was doing my job for free as I tried to prevent the awful turn of events from ruining the experience for the students. I gave them my all while I slowly sorted through the emotional baggage of supporting a small struggling non-profit as a volunteer, finally netting a real job there, seeing the organization grow to such satisfying and unexpected proportions, and then having it all blow up. <br><br>It was a lot to unpack, and suddenly that Internet bill wasn't getting paid anymore. I had to look for another job.<div><div> <br><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANTDcLDePeQ/UD73W9eGTgI/AAAAAAAABq8/vtEdDgWseJw/s400/jet.jpg" style="float: right; width: 297px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;"><div><div><div><div><div><div>A month later, thanks to COVID I was now double-unemployed, and spent the first six months trying to get my health problems under control (and playing quite a lot of Animal Crossing). Then I started sitting down at my computer for 8 hours or more, every day, with <em>Hachiko</em>. Editing. Polishing. Promoting. Marketing. Drawing. Researching. Querying. Posting on social media. Cover creation. Learning to use graphic design software. Formatting for print. Hiring a dev editor. Newsletter creation. Patreon. Landing pages. The whole nine yards.<br><br><div><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0855K1SCC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B0855K1SCC&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=tadaimatte0a-20&amp;linkId=20f32ce85ad9158a57824018282afc84" target="_blank"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t1aGd4_8A5M/X4Yq6BfbHXI/AAAAAAAANCQ/wLkWshVwDwgw8NviWDeowQvmf_KN1bY1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ebook%2Bcover.jpeg" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;"></a>Finally, on December 31, 2020—twelve years after I'd written it; and released on a significant day for the storyline—<a href="http://www.tadaimatte.com/2020/12/meet-you-by-hachiko.html" target="_blank">Meet You By Hachiko went live in paperback format worldwide.</a> <em>Edokko</em> followed shortly after, and soon many other projects were in the works. I wrote for fun all those years. Why not try writing to make a living?<br><div><br>In the meantime, though, that Internet bill has to get paid. That's why I'm here, to garner a little support while the words are still locked up inside. As an indie publisher, I'm forced to operate in the red while I create that back catalog I need. I want the end result to be as professional as a book published by one of the Big Four. I need to contract out the things I'm not capable of doing by myself.<br><br><div>I hate to have to hold my hand out, but I'm hoping Patreon will help me get a little closer to my dreams. If you're generous enough to support my quest, I'll repay you in the form of previews, original writing, behind-the-scenes looks at the real-life places featured in my work, autographed paperbacks and more.<br><div><br><div>Thank you for being part of my journey!<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>

Free

The "keep doing what you're doing!" tier. You'll have sneak peeks at new projects and drafts before they go live, as they come up. Sometimes there'll be lots to read, and sometimes there won't - but I appreciate the support all the same!<br>

1K Bath

You want to know my secrets, oh my! You'll be able to see drafts and in-progress works as well as behind-the-scenes photos and early media access for audiovisual projects, and in future, contribute to polls for things like character and place names.<br>

Neighbourhood Sento

The whole shebang! The contents of the earlier tiers, plus the physical extras. You'll receive advance eBook copies of upcoming releases, as well as signed HachiPress paperbacks as they come out, along with any physical promotional items created for book launches. Your name (or a pseudonym, if you prefer) will also be included in the backmatter of future books as a supporter.<br>

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