Welcome to 2025!
I cut my social media usage way down last year. I still occasionally check Instagram, X, or Facebook (okay it's REALLY occasional with Facebook) but I keep it to a minimum. I just couldn't handle all the division and negativity last year, especially given that I am friends with all sorts of people with all sorts of beliefs.
I haven't been writing my own updates very often and so one of my goals is to be more consistent about updating this blog. I also haven't had as much to say about my author journey as I've been working on the same novel for three to four years. I need one more round of micro-revisions to polish it up before I start querying literary agents so I'll be sure to post updates about that. Although all of my books are currently published independently, I want to pursue the traditional publishing route with this one first as it's general fiction as opposed to genre fiction (like fantasy or science fiction) and that tends to be a better path for those books.
I was recently updating some of my ebooks, and I was reading through my book of poems from 2021 called Slip Away. It's a book of poems about loss and the process of grief. I know that sounds like a bummer but by the end, I discovered loss is an illusion. It's real on the human level, but on a deeper, spiritual level, we can never lose anyone as we are all one. It was a good time for me to revisit this collection.
So as a gift for the new year, my box set ebook with three collections of poems--Coiled and Swallowed, Driving Downtown to the Show, and Slip Away--will be free from Monday, January 6th through Friday, January 10th. And you can read all three books for free indefinitely on Kindle Unlimited.
Coiled and Swallowed is a collection of personal poems that weave together a collage of moments--from an ode to carpet to a fantastical friendship with a vampire to chronicles of a first love now broken. And Driving Downtown to the Show is an eclectic collection of poems that captures the essence of a young musician's life--from a pantoum about an overdose to odes to mix CDs to moments spent daydreaming at the coffee shop. Every poem in this collection features the name of a band that played in Atlanta venues in 2011, and a profound love of music is captured throughout.
Check out the free box set ebook here.
I also miss seeing the positive updates from everyone--whether it's friends from college or grad school, people who go to my Unity church, or even people I only met once or twice at a writing or music event. I miss seeing your wins, your successes. I miss seeing pictures of your pets or hearing about awards your kids have won.
I don't really do New Year resolutions, but I would say I have “intentions” for the year (which are maybe just a different word for resolutions?). One intention that I have is to connect with more people beyond the comments and likes. So really if you want to reach out to me via email or DM on Facebook, Instagram, or X (I even made a Bluesky when that was trending a while ago though I'm already having to remind myself to update it!) and just send me a picture of your dog or share a random piece of news or just share your thoughts about that new album you love, I would honestly love that. Sometimes it might take me a minute to respond, but I always will eventually!
So Happy New Year! Enjoy some poetry! (And I mean that for everyone, no matter who you voted for.)