Mid Year Check-In

It’s mid-July, and the heat is ungodly. 2025 has proven itself an odd year. While it feels as if it is dripping through my fingers before I can grasp anything from it, each individual day has been moving at an exhausting crawl.

I don’t think I can deny anymore that I’m once again battling a long depression, it has simply changed its face to something more unfamiliar. Where once I’d cry and wallow, I now move through stunted and detached. Recently, I have also been dealing with general life changes and stressors, such as my child’s graduation and my own impending milestone aging in December.

I’ve also been visited by the specter of grief, once again. It has been three months since I learned of the passing of my dear friend Joanne Kwan, and it is an.. imperfect grief. Jo and I were acquainted primarily online, and there is an odd impotence when faced with an absent loss, one that you cannot necessarily quantify.

It reminded me of the passing of another dear friend, Grim, in 2015. It wasn’t long after his death that I was able to begin writing again, after having nearly given up. In my grief, in that suffocation of his loss, I turned back to writing. Because if he could no longer make something beautiful, then it was up to me.

I remember them, and I keep moving.

Another year, another pledge to work on my social media presence that has not come to pass. However, I feel as if I am in an… interesting place. Part of me has always been held back because I did not have a physical book to point to—and soon, I will.

I still have every intention of releasing Shadow’s Prey this year and, in fact, it is now moving at a clip. I have completed the content edits, and have moved on to copy and formatting. There is still quite a ways to go, especially if you are me and need to know everything about everything before taking a step, but I’m confident I can get this done this year.

But maybe don’t expect to see any kind of grand announcements or anything…

I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform correctly for social media, and it generally leaves me with anxiety when I feel like I am not doing things right. I want to start talking about my work more, and I intend to! But I am still learning how to do so in a wide conversation. I am honestly a bit embarrassed when I look back at the few posts I have made, and the goals I set that I have since failed to complete. I think I was doing something… wrong. Something that wasn’t me. Hopefully, you may see me around more soon, but just know that I am slowly finding my own way through the mire.

Now, on to some more fun things! As I stated above, Shadow’s Prey is finally moving into its end stage of publication. Which means I will then be able to turn to other projects.

Tinder Saint will be my next publishing project. This is the SP prequel novella that centers around Vahn, the best friend of Kanna (Shadow Prey’s main character) and the Saint of Fire. This novella is written, and has been written, but will also need to hit the editing block pretty hard. Still, it makes me cry and have a lot of feelings. Like, a lot. I can only hope that when I get it out (early quarter of ‘26, maybe? We’ll see once SP is out) it does the same to others.

Which leaves the other hand: I have three WIPs that are in various stages of ideas and outlining that will be up for drafting. They all have vague outlines, but some have a bit more bulk than others. Honestly? It really depends which one I end up working on. On what? Couldn’t tell you right now.

Mortal Teeth is one I’ve been speaking about for a while—this is one outside of the same cycle as Shadow’s Prey, though it is in the same world (just… couple thousand years prior). At this point, it is actually my most outlined and realized WIP, primarily because I very often fall back to it as a kind of comfort. This one I think I will actually try to query for traditional publishing before trying to self-pub, though, so it is what I usually refer to as a bit of a “back burner” project (even if it won’t ever leave me alone.)

Act Zero (working title) is probably the next one that is closest to a full drafting stage. This is a prequel novella that focuses on how Kanna became the Legatus, and it fits in the same timeline as Tinder Saint (some events overlap between the two) while also going much further.

Last but not least is the recently titled Shadow’s Path, which is the second half of Shadow’s Prey. Yep, it’s a duology, not a trilogy. I grumble and affectionately refer to this one as Shadow’s Clown Car, the vehicle to get these clowns to the end of this plot. This one has been backed almost to the drawing board from it’s original concept, due to the nature of the story changing (from webserial to novel) as well as… well, my writing style changing. Which seems… real odd to say that the least developed book I have on deck is the one that doesn’t follow the one that is being published, and is also the one that has been on deck the longest.

Whatever, I’m not perfect.

Thank you for taking the time to read this… vague, general, and very first newsletter.

I am excited to be attending Worldcon in Seattle next month, which is the big thing I have coming up! Despite the drama and messiness of it, I have been planning and saving for two years to attend. I’m not gonna let the sticky badness on the con itself to bring me down: I cannot wait to meet up with two of my three closest writing friends, the ones who put up with me through my late night ramblings, my spirals into self-sabotage and imposter syndrome, who shared grief with me, and who’ve stuck around either despite or in spite of all that.

Aca, Alex, and Brils, this one is for ya’ll… look at me, I did the thing!