Changes are Coming and honoring authenticity

There are changes coming with my writing. There are a lot of things which have shifted within me over the past year and in the past few months to the point that I can’t continue writing books the way I’ve been writing them. There is nothing “wrong” with the books I have written but if I continue to write those books the very same way I’m not honoring who I am RIGHT NOW and who I am becoming.

Writing is SELF expression. All art is. It comes from your own soul and spirit sharing what only you can share with the world in your particular way. There is a sense in which all of my heroines are me. This doesn’t mean I want to live their lives (definitely not for most of them). It doesn’t mean ALL their thoughts and attitudes are mine, certainly not… but just like a baby, I create them “out of me”. So there ARE things about them which “are me”, you just don’t know which things. And usually they aren’t what you think. Nor are they as literal as you think.

So when I keep telling stories the way my audience expects them out of fear that I will lose the audience I’ve built, I’m going to kill the magic anyway because if my heart isn’t in the thing, I can’t create the thing.

Now some of you aren’t even going to NOTICE these changes. Some of my stories may appear “the same” on the surface. But there are ways energetically in which they have shifted, because *I* have shifted. Some readers will drift away. New readers will come in. But this is always happening all the time. Because the ebb and flow of readership isn’t just about MY changes… it’s about yours. You may change in a way where my fiction no longer connects with you even if I never change or grow. Or allow myself to express it.

I think many authors are in denial about how a part of their characters are them… they disassociate this because there is a very real sense where if you say “I don’t like X character” you’re saying you don’t like ME. Authors all the time are saying “I am not my fiction”. But is that true? where the fuck does it come from if not from deep within you?

I think some people in this world take everything too literally and don’t understand fiction is FICTION, but there are things about you that go into your work and your characters. Very real very naked things.

So in order to avoid someone not liking YOU, you say you are not your characters. But here’s another way to handle that… just not giving a fuck if somebody doesn’t like you. If you don’t like my fiction, there is a real chance you wouldn’t like me. And not everybody likes everybody. That’s okay. This isn’t kindergarten. This also isn’t an ancient tribal culture where the tribe HAD to like you or they’d dump you off in the forest somewhere to die with the wolves.

We are all a divine spark. We all come from the gods (or god or the universe or however you frame it). And that doesn’t change if one god piece doesn’t “like” another god piece. I mean… for real who even gives a fuck?

So yeah… that’s where I am. I am shifting and my fiction has to shift. These shifts may be things you like even more. They may be changes you don’t even notice. Or you may hate them. Also note that this doesn’t mean I’m shifting to paranormal romance or whatever. There is SOME of that but there has always been some of that.

So that’s what I had to say. I have a lot of things to say in my work and I think most of you will be here for the ride. Those of you who leave me, thank you for sharing this journey with me and it has been a privilege to share my stories with you. For the rest of you, I’m excited to share what comes next.