Hey word nerds! Long time no talk.

I’ve been posting a few brief updates here and there on my socials, but I had an epiphany recently, so I figured I should finally get around to posting a proper update on my writing endeavours—epiphany included.

So, to be quite frank, I’ve not written for over two years. My motivation to get behind the screen and tip tappy away on the keyboard has been, essentially, non-existent.

Why?

I honestly have no clue. I had many theories over the months and took steps to mitigate what I thought were the problems. However, my motivation continued to be stagnate.

Now?

I’m saying fuck it and getting back behind the keyboard. When motivation steps out, discipline has to step in or nothing will change.

I’ve started with going through the last book—Desolation—with that proofreading tool I found back in the day. And that’s where the epiphany comes in.

I want to make a second edition of Desolation.

There are three reasons for this.

1) The writing. As I was going through Desolation with that tool, I was thinking of how the writing feels amateurish compared to my newer books, and it frustrated me. As I went through it looking for little errors, I could fluff up the descriptions here and there, strengthen the characters’ actions a bit, etc., but I couldn’t do much more to properly bring the book up to par with my other ones—too many changes would require a new ISBN, and therefore, a new edition. At first, I was against the idea of a new edition, and that’s why I was frustrated.

2) The cover. To be quite frank, I haven’t been pleased with the cover for years. Dare I say since I received it from the illustrator (NOT my current illustrator). The werecat and the claw marks on the stone didn’t turn out how I was hoping.

3) The ending. I don’t want to write out my full thoughts on this matter due to spoilers for those who haven’t read it yet, but basically, I feel like the ending doesn’t make sense in terms of the sheer scope of power the mentioned antagonist has. Desolation has always basically been the black sheep of my books, because it was the only book I had no idea what to do with. The others? I know where their plots are going and how they’re going to be resolved. Desolation, on the other hand, I had no idea because how could a pride of werecats possibly even hope to take down an enemy of that calibre? I think it makes a heck of a lot more sense to remove that antagonist completely, let another series deal with them (if you know, you know), and rewrite the last quarter of the book.

Were I to make a new edition of Desolation, it would allow me to fix all three issues.

All that being said, I still haven’t fully decided to actually get ‘er done. My plan at the moment is to halt work on proofreading Desolation (since it would be pointless to do it if I do end up deciding to make a new edition) and rewrite the entire book. Once that’s done, I will enlist the help of some people and we will make comparisons between the current version and the revamped version to see if it’s improved enough to go through with making a new edition.

My hope is that if a new edition is a go, I can publish it sometime next year. My current goal and priority to get book #8 published. I was hoping to publish it this year, but again, lack of motivation/discipline. So I’m currently aiming for an early-to-mid 2026 release for book #8. The potential new edition of Desolation would come after that, likely late 2026. It honestly really just hinges on whether I have the money to do two books’ worth of covers in one year. As of right now, I think I will, but it depends on other authorly things I want to do in 2026, which brings me to my next topic.

Early this year, I was invited to my first-ever author fair, which I was stoked about. But, shortly after the invite, my kitto needed to go to the vet for some dental work. As you pet parents know, dental work isn’t cheap. My kitto is my priority, so that’s where my extra money at the time went and I wasn’t able to guarantee I would be able to save up enough later for the fair. Although the fair was in late 2025, registration was early in the year, so I wouldn’t have been able to secure funds throughout the year and then register.

It’s my hope that I will be able to join in 2026’s fair—of course assuming they host another—which will require a smorgasbord of stuff. Multiple copies of each book (fifteen to twenty copies of eight books… oof my wallet), merch, stuff to decorate the table, and book stands. I haven’t officially crunched numbers, but I know the book copies alone would be a few hundred dollars. I’d probably estimate the total cost to be something like what a new cover is.

In a similar vein, there is a local festival that happens here that has a lot of vendors selling stuff, and I’ve always thought it would be cool to be one of those vendors. This one would differ than the author fair because it’s outdoors, which means I would need my own tent/canopy—another cost to factor in.

I also want to fill out my bookmark stock. Right now, I just have bookmarks for Vigil, Emergent, and Insurgent. I’ve recently been working on designs for Trial and both Dragons’ Myth books. Desolation is, once again, the black sheep, but its bookmark will come either after the new edition comes out or if I decide against a new edition.

I’ve also been getting back into social media and marketing. It sucks because although I don’t mind scrolling, I don’t like interacting. Making posts, commenting, etc. I find it draining, especially when the algorithm throttles your posts, making it not other people you’re talking to, but the void itself.

*cough* Threads *cough*

Related, I’ve been working on making more marketing pictures so I have fancy, eye-catching photos that I can post regularly throughout each week. So far, I have nine. My goal is a minimum of fourteen, so I have two weeks’ worth of marketing pics I can cycle through if I felt inclined to post one every day.

Lastly, I have added a pittance for paid ads to my monthly budget. It only gives me a few days’ worth per month, but with all this work of getting back into writing, I have once again come to the realization that “something is better than nothing”.

Even if I don’t have the mental energy to post on social media every day, a couple of times per week is still better than not at all. Even if I don’t have the funds to afford regular ads and can only do three days per month, that’s still three days per month that my book is getting shown to people who would otherwise likely not see or know of it.

And so on and so forth.

Anyway, that’s enough jibber-jabber for now. I of course won’t be unpublishing Desolation until I’m 100% sure about making a new edition, and when I have the new bookmarks in stock, I’ll make a post and update my BMAC page’s shop.

Until then, I will be continuing to blab on my socials, and I plan to be a bit more active with blog posts as well (it was a bit over a year since my last one, oops).

So, until next time!

Ciao for now.