In November of 2025, I made the decision to step back from social media and work towards building an author business behind the scenes. What this meant was I would delete all of my social media accounts (which I did), and focus on both my grad work (I'm getting my Master's in Teaching and a K-6 license), and writing books.
When I published Chasing Time in February of 2025, it was an exciting time in my life. My husband had retired from the military, my kids and I were establishing ourselves in the school district here, and we'd made it through our first MN winter. Despite how great life was, I felt like things were stalling in my writing business. I knew I wanted to write a memoir about my time as a military spouse (which I did...it's in final edits now), and start a new book (which I did...it's in first draft mode), but I found myself highly distracted.
It's no secret that our world is on fire and everything around it is affected. Social media, in my opinion, is like the starter that gets the fire going. I noticed that I had an addiction. Not for likes and shares anymore (I've grown), but when looking at my sales dashboard and constantly seeing 0's, despite boosting ads, joining Fussy Librarian, and joining the Women's Fiction Writer's Association...nothing was working. I was putting in so much energy into those things that I wasn't writing. And a wise person once told me, "in order to find readers, you got to keep writing."
With that in mind, I knew I needed to take a break. I've now been off all social media platforms, including my personal Facebook page for over 6 months now. There are times that I don't even notice it. Others, it's like a drug that I can't get a fix for. This tells me that until I stop feeling like that, I have no business on social media.
I am coming on the tail end of my grad program and will be in the classroom student teaching this Fall. As of December 12th, 2026, I'll be a graduate and applying for my license. This gives me a foundation to build my author platform on. I've often worried that AI and the overwhelming saturation of books via Amazon these days will make it even harder to be successful as an author. I love to write though, and when I don't get to do that, it hurts like a wound. I'm going to keep writing and will continue to do in person events. I am researching what platform will be best for what I need to grow, and that doesn't mean being everywhere.
I do have a newsletter...it's a free basic service, until things start growing. Starting in the new year (2027) I'll be sending out a monthly newsletter to my subscribers. If you're interested in subscribing to the newsletter, then please visit my website JOIN THE NEWSLETTER and sign up! I will be updating the freebie in the coming months, which all subscribers will get in their inboxes once I update it. I'm thinking the first three pages of my new novel.
Writing Projects
Speaking of the new novel, The Marriage Bucket List is over 6100 words complete. It's been slow at writing, but I've been intentional this go around. I am in love with this story. The setting is in a new area (not in Vermont like Chasing Time and Shattered Yesterdays), and the characters are a couple. I wouldn't call it a romance novel, but no one dies in this novel, which I think my readers will appreciate. I'm hoping to publish this novel in 2027.
Shattered Yesterdays is still a thorn in my side. It'll always be a part of my backlist, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist and don't want a thorn in my backlist. So, over the next six months, I'll be tweaking that novella so it's worth my readers time. If it were a crap story, I'd ignore it. But, it's time to give it some attention again, once and for all.
My military memoir is especially for military spouses navigating the lifestyle, but it has personal stories so perfect for readers who wish to get to know the author. This book will also be available in 2027. I'm awaiting the Forward (being written by a family friend), and then I'll get the proof copy so I can do the final edit.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, I've not been idle. In fact, in addition to maintaining an A average (All A's in every class thus far) in my grad program, writing a whole memoir, starting a new novel, updating my entire website, creating a newsletter, and holding one event this year...it's been pretty busy around here.
This version of building an author presence isn't all in your faces as I don't feel that's good for my readers. Instead it feels honest, valuable, and right. If you've been here from the start, thank you for staying around. If you've joined me recently, I'm so glad you're here.
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