This post will come to you in four parts.

Part One – I Fell

People who know me well know I’m super clumsy. I can trip on air (and I have). I’m hasty by nature. Everything has to be done quickly, so it’s quickly this, quickly that, and scurrying in between. Ents would hate me. Point is, all the hurrying causes multiple injuries. Especially when there’s ice on the ground.

This time, though, I didn’t fall because of being hasty, but I’ve still got the bruises to show for it. Yay. My entire arse-end is black and purple, and my foot is healing from a cut. But we shall persevere.

Part Two – Bookish Updates

I missed last week’s blog but with good reason. Ready?

I. Am writing. Again.

Can I get a hell yeah? It’s been tough, folks. I missed writing so much my chest hurt, but being back in the world of Ehrdia is so fulfilling and wonderful, I can’t even. I’m about 10 chapters from the end, and hoping to finish A Curse of Venom & Scales somewhere in April.

A part of the reason my mojo returned is because of these reviews for A Trial of Sparks & Kindling.

Review 1: Horak has created a rich world filled with visceral descriptions of the stark realities of war and plague, and populated it with a vast cast of unique characters each looking for their place in that world. Watching them grow, change, and become closer… and in some cases farther apart by their choices, is a breathless journey that brings smiles and tears, and sparks an intense desire to learn more, to read more.

Review 2: It is rare that I rate a book five stars, let alone a sequel. Even if objectively I can’t see much wrong with a book of its genre, I leave five stars for ‘favourites’ where I enjoyed the book that extra bit more than an objectively great 4/5 book. S&K blew me away, and is a benchmark in my mind as an example of excellent storytelling. The twists caught me off guard and were amazing.

I mean, can you even? I sure as hell can’t.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting on some other bookish news, but you’ll just have to wait and see about that.

Part Three – Making Sense of Social

I’ve mentioned on my social media platforms that I’m struggling with the idea of being the brand. But instead of taking a step back and recalculating, I hurled myself into more accounts and platforms. You see, it’s expected. If you want to be successful, you have to follow steps one to ten. Do what the people want and you’re golden.

I now have 2 blogs, 2 Facebook pages, 2 Instagram accounts, 2 YouTube channels, and I’m seriously considering a podcast. I can barely manage half of those, but I created a separate online presence for my art because I thought that was what people wanted.

The truth is, it feels like I’m filtering myself. Half goes into this category, half into the other, and the end result is me fractured and pulling out hair because I don’t have enough content to post and keep everyone engaged. Because, you know, that’s the keyword.

I had a conversation with a fellow author who also happens to be a career illustrator. She also spilt her content into the expected categories, and ended up feeling equally exhausted by it. Until she reconnected her authoring and artist accounts, and now finds more valuable connections with her followers.

I’m seriously considering doing the same. Watch this space.

Part Four – Stickers

Since I’ve been creating so much art for my Patreon and Insta, I’m up to my eyeballs in drawings. A lot of this stuff is already for sale over on my Society 6 store, but I wanted to bring some of it home to the website and sell them as downloadable, print-it-yourself files. I honest to goodness didn’t even realise this was a thing until recently, but apparently people sell downloadables all over the interwebs. So, here we are.

At the moment, I have 6 different sticker sheets, but I’ll upload more during the course of April. I’m also working on downloadable bookmark pages, so look out for that! These are the ones I have so far:

Anyway, that’s it from me. Have a good one, folks!

Yolandie