2024 In Review

Time for my annual "This is what I achieved this year and what I will strive for next year" post.

I wrote an extremely long post about all the ways I've failed, about how I've accepted this will never be my career, and how I have no hopes and no dreams for anything anymore... and I deleted it because no one wants to hear that.

I wrote 4 books in 2024 and I published them. That's all I'm going to say about 2024. Because 2024 sucked.

I will write books in 2025 and publish them. I don't know how many and I'm not going to attempt to set a goal. I'm just going to spend every day reminding myself why I love writing and I'm going to write. I will publish each book as I finish (and edit, of course), but I am not stressing myself out with preorders or deadlines. Honestly, the pressure of those slow me down anyway, and pushing so hard to make my dream of becoming a fulltime author come true is killing me. It's turning the thing I've always loved into a tool of torment and I'm just tired of dreaming so I'm not going to anymore. I'm just going to tell stories and accept the fact that the universe wants me to go to the day job every day. It is what it is.

Because I am asked "Will you be finishing the TWICE BITTEN series?" 456312459787253544795114366 times a week, I'll answer yet again that YES the Twice Bitten series will be finished. I seriously do not understand why people keep asking this like I'm just going to stop writing a series before its conclusion. Especially when the most recent book isn't even a year old and right at the end it tells you "DANNI WILL RETURN." But no, I'm not setting up a preorder. I haven't had one pain-free day in over two years, I have a fulltime job I have to have to actually pay bills (some people really think authors are loaded but I hate to break it to you, I don't even make what could be considered a minimum wage from my royalties, plus I spend money on everything involved to publish them so I have to write AROUND the hours spent at the job that actually pays for my necessities, and when I'm not in too much pain to write at all. Maybe if people quit illegally downloading my books for free and telling my other readers how to on my ads, that would be different).

I am just one person writing as often as she can when she can. And I am a person who is just DRAINED so please be patient. For those who've shown nothing but encouragement and respect, THANK YOU. For years, I've tried to keep communication open but there has been a growing shift in reader behavior with more and more readers thinking it's ok to contact authors directly to tell them every criticism they have so I've been forced to turn off direct messages, remove contact forms, and have also decided to take a step back from social media.

The best way of staying in the loop on new releases is to sign up for my newsletter. Until my next release... Happy Reading! And if you don't hear from me online, just know a new book is always on the way.