Fangirl Has No Name

I’ve mentioned a few times that I started writing original work. It’s all romance, smutty romance, because that’s where my head and heart are. For a long time now… a very long time… like…. 2019… I’ve been working with writing friends to turn my ideas in The Songbirds Eagle into a reality. I’ve chatted with friends in the fandom to separate if completely from Zelda related things, coming up with a newer setting, different beasts and creatures, and an entirely premise and tropes while still keeping the same overall plot idea that there’s an impending apocalypse of some sort and someone/someones have to stop it.

I’m now at a point where I have a good team around me of alpha and beta readers. Most of them are writers themselves I’ve been lucky to meet through publishing other works. I have three other projects I need to complete (a final book in a series and a trilogy I started), but then I’m going to start moving my original manuscript for SBE toward the publishing stages.

I’m not going to query. The idea of that stresses me out so much, and I’ve had friends who’ve gone through it and it’s rough. I’m just going to bank money from some of my other books, maybe post it to Kindle Vella as I write, and self-publish it. I have no idea the exact timeframe for this but I’m putting it out into the universe that it will happen. I’m willing it into existence. I’m ✨✨manifesting ✨✨. I’m hoping to God I can keep my anxiety in check long enough to do it.

That being said, WWDB and TSTC will be changing. I’m going to edit names. NOTHING ABOUT THE STORY ITSELF WILL CHANGE. But I’m going to pull all my original characters out to prevent any conflicts of interest or accusations of plagiarism or anything. There’s also the fact that I need to separate it entirely from anything Zelda related for obvious reasons. But I wanted to give a heads up that it’ll be happening hopefully in the next few months.

I don’t know how it’s going to happen. It might be that I have to pull it completely, edit, and repost. I’d rather not do that. Hopefully I’ll just be able to edit and do a search/find to replace the names.

I DID private and pull down Songbird’s eagle and Fierce Affair completely for very specific reasons. It killed me to do it, it really did. But it was necessary if I want to take this seriously and it’s been a long time coming. I happen to be on a “writing break” so I had time.

WWDB and TSTC will stay up, or be reposted if I have to pull them down (I REALLY hope that’s not the case 😱😱😭) but a lot of names will change. It won’t affect the story at all for new readers but I wanted to offer an explanation for anyone who stumbles upon them and subsequently finds this blog that I’ve changed the name of a thousand times.

As a side note, publishing is the scariest thing I’ve ever done. The pressure of success, the absolute nightmare that is self-marketing for someone with extreme social anxiety. Its terrifying. And I’ve given birth four times, and am raising two teenagers in THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN 😱.

But it’s also the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.

From the first moment I shared WWDB in its early infancy, those comments were my lifeblood. Those comments kept me going , and reviews I’ve gotten on my books have made me so happy. Even the negative ones! They’re all valid and they mean so much. I have close writing friends who’ve published for years and when I made friends with the authors of two of my favorite books I literally started crying after our first zoom call. I have simultaneously never felt so much elation and anxiety at the same time and it’s wonderful.

And it all started here. It all started because I took a chance and I got lucky. It all started because people messaged me and loved the words that came out of my head. I’ve met some of my dearest mutuals on this site (the flock, you know who you are…), but every single anonymous message has meant so much. SO MUCH. I should respond to them all just to say thank you, and I guess that’s what this message is. Thank you. Thank you. I know I don’t interact here much or post content anymore but thank you.

So if you have an author you love, leave them reviews. Buy their books (see if they sell them directly! Put more $ in their pocket than in… that website that sells books). Interact with them. Join Facebook groups or discords. Share their work. It means the world because the only way we get our words out there is by sharing them. Especially if they’re self published/indie published. It’s hard out there.

I said I was gonna be long 😂 but if you’ve stuck around this far, I appreciate it more than anything. Once I get brave enough to share pen names and start building hype, I’ll post it here.