Happy Belated Chanukah and Merry Belated Winter Solstice to those who celebrate! Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Year! I wish happiness to everyone this season and many blessings on whichever holiday you celebrate.
For my family, we celebrate Chanukah and Yule/the Winter Solstice. Similar to how I grew up, our family is a mixed home.
It’s been a really busy year. At the start of 2022, my first ever audiobook was released. I went in totally green and bumbled it a bit, but the narrator did an incredible job and the book came out amazing. The Demon’s Tears audiobook has received great reviews and I am looking forward to working on the second audiobook in 2023–finances permitting! I’d really love to work with Rob Brinkmann again on the second audiobook, so here’s hoping he’s available in 2023 to bring the Detective and team back to life!
After the audiobook was published, I opted-in to publishing an anthology of stories with my online writing group. The anthology is a collection of fantasy stories with happy endings. We titled it Happily Ever After. After the events of the last couple of years, my writing group and I just wanted to bring some happiness into the world. I was very excited about the idea and got working on it right away. However, the project was a lot more work and way bigger than I had anticipated, and ended up taking over the majority of my year.
I started the year out with big plans, BIG, but they trickled to the wayside as the anthology consumed all of my time. From chasing writers down to finish and submit their stories, to herding them to Google Docs to finish their edits, and then going back into the stories to continue editing, wanting to push them to be their best with my co-editor Kit Daven. The authors were great sports about me hounding them in dms, e-mails, and calls. Honestly, I probably triggered a lot of social anxiety–my bad guys! It was a lot of work, beyond anything I had anticipated, but we did it. We all did it.
There were some tears every time I thought of my own books and projects waiting for me, especially when I realized the year was almost over, but working with the authors and my co-editor, Kit, and bringing this unique collection of stories to life, I knew I would be beaming with pride once I held a copy of our book in my hands. It’s been an incredible experience and I can’t wait for our stories to get out there and inspire readers.
Speaking of things shaping me into a better writer–I started reading again. For the first time in years, I burned through a book series, then another, and then another, and this was all thanks to TikTok–I know, I feel crazy just typing that. Before I joined the app, I probably said I hated Tiktok and would never make an account at least twice a day. However, after I got into a social media slump, my friend and co-author from the Happily Ever After anthology, Ryan Toxopeus, had a long talk with me about Tiktok and why I should join.
After much internal debate, I decided to check the platform out. I quickly got away from the FYP (For You Page) when I opened the app (not caring for the chaotic content it suggested at first) and immediately searched for #booktok and #authortok…and I fell in love. Once the algorithm adjusted to my interests, I saw this whole new world of book lovers and writers, sharing, connecting, and creating content that made me laugh and filled me with the desire to read again.
I have admittedly become addicted and discovered a whole new way of creative expression. I do some of the trending sounds and memes, but what I love is making silent vlogs. Vlogs that showcase short clips of what I am working on, be that writing, drawing, or editing etc. and snippets of my day, like making coffee or snow falling in my garden ^_^ I either go hard on memes or go creative and inspirational with silent vlogs. I don’t seem to have an in-between lol, but either way, I am really enjoying creating and connecting through videos, something I never thought I would say.
So, overall a busy year, with lots of learning and some bumps along the way, but a new year is just around the corner. I’m looking forward to my next blog post, discussing what’s coming up in 2023 for Raven’s Hollow, there are a lot of exciting things I’m looking forward to announcing, and I will definitely be finishing Soul Prison and doing everything in my power to get that baby published. I know some of you are ready and waiting for it. I apologize for the delay.
What about your 2022? Did you work on anything? Read any good books? Hop onto a new social media platform or dust off an old profile? I’d love to hear about 🙂
Till next post–
WaterRaven
Ravens Hollow 
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