It’s finally here!

My futuristic Red Riding Hood novella All the Wild Hearts is live on Amazon! I’m excited and nervous and overwhelmed…and proud of myself. 🙂

Anyone who puts in the work to release a book should be. But before this time, I didn’t think it was for me. I’d put limitations on myself. I was too distracted, too old, too busy, blah blah blah, to be an indie author. I had an author friend tell me I should be one, and I remember laughing and disagreeing with her. (That conversation was pre-Covid, so it took place at least several years ago.) I was content in my traditional publishing bubble and while I had fleeting thoughts of being a hybrid author, I had no intention of doing it anytime soon. (because–see the limitations above), When the rights to my portal fantasy series reverted to me, I was stunned. What did I do now? I grieved, I wondered, I prayed. I even spent some of that time feeling like a failure, because I felt like I was right back where I started. Eventually, I realized I needed to decide: indie or traditional?

It was a massive decision. I either needed to look for an agent or start looking for an editor. Each path to publication differs from the other (and it’s even more different within the indie author circle, with options like Kickstarter, Substack, Patreon, other serial publishing models like Wattpad). Through much prayer, God told me to go into indie publishing, but I didn’t do it immediately. (Yeah, don’t do that. Bad decision.) I had been traditional—I knew the pros and cons, but indie was scary! So, I spent a long time thinking, praying, arguing, and just trying to understand what being an indie author would look like. God gave me the time, but didn’t change His answer. To this day, I still don’t understand why He led me here (and maybe I won’t ever understand this side of heaven. It takes faith, and that’s okay because faith is a big part of my life).

Since I was still writing despite the wondering, praying, and thinking, I finished the novella All the Wild Hearts, book 2 (a Snow White retelling titled All the Poisoned Hearts), and part of book 3. Now that I’m on the other side of publishing the novella, I’m amazed at what I’ve learned to do. Reels, marketing, graphics, keywords, metadata, formatting—I’m not an expert and I’m still learning. I’m also still distracted, still old, still busy, but God has had His hand on this endeavor every step of the way. I don’t know where He’ll take this series. Maybe it will offer hope and enjoyment to readers—I pray it does, since hope is such a precious commodity these days. I also pray it will make readers think, because fairytales are so much more than silly little oral tales passed around a campfire. Deep truth or hard situations can be buried in the structure of fairytales.

I’m hoping to write a longer blog post someday soon on how fairytales have changed, but the day my novella releases is not that day. Instead, I’m going to celebrate my accomplishment, have some chocolate (a critical part of ANY celebration) and begin working on the next story.

Please go to Amazon and pick up a copy of All the Wild Hearts!