Mornings With Marie: December 2023
Event and Writing Updates, Favorite Reads of 2023, and Planned 2024 Projects
Hi friends, ‘tis finally the season! 🎄✨ How are you all?
I had several firsts over the past weeks, starting off with my first Christmas market as an author! It was kind of nerve-wracking at the beginning — I was worried I wouldn’t make a single sale, or that nobody would stop to talk to me, but everyone was just lovely. I really had a fun time, and it was a great learning experience too 🥰
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I still have the following in-person events coming up:
8-10 December - Crafts and Gifts for Christmas at the St Mary Le Wigford Church
17 December - Gift and Craft Fair at the County Assembly Rooms Lincoln
While yesterday I hosted a Christmas party at the Inspirational Reads and Authors group on Facebook! To give you a taste of the fun we had, why don’t you try solving this Ada jigsaw puzzle? 😽
Writing Updates
The audiobook of Monster Ridge is now available on Audible! This time we have Jennifer Pratt narrating. She’ll be doing book 3 as well, which will hopefully be ready by January.
The Prophecies of Ragnarok trilogy is now stocked at The Book Dragon indie bookshop on Stockton-on-Tees! I will have to arrange a trip up north sometime soon to see our books on those shelves 😉
My short story Huni, a dystopian retelling of Ibong Adarna set in the Visayas, has been published in 8Letters’ Circles Magazine Issue No. 4 Vol. 1. Circles is a quarterly literary magazine that showcases the best, contemporary Filipino writing talent, so I’m very honored to be a part of it!
Favorite Reads of 2023
It’s probably a little too early since I still have some of December left to read, but here are some of my favorite reads of the year thus far!
A Shade of Madness (The Ashes of Avarin Book 2) by Thiago Abdalla
The Phoenix King (The Ravence Trilogy Book 1) by Aparna Verma
Whisperwood by Alex Woodroe
Winter's Wishfall by Ceri Houlbrook
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by David M. Barnett
Black Fox One by Elyse Hoffman
Norah's Ark by Victoria Williamson
The Whistlers in the Dark by Victoria Williamson
Pax and the Missing Head by David Barker
I have surprisingly way more romance reads for someone who doesn’t really read romance on the regular 😂 (Is this a sign I should write romance? 👀)
Planned 2024 Projects
It’s probably a little too early for this too, and it’s not because we’ve already completed The Prophecies of Ragnarok. If it were up to me, I would love to just keep writing in that universe. But the series has not taken off quite as well, so that’s something I feel we have to remedy first before releasing anything new. Especially since I’m trying to take a business approach to this authoring thing as it would be nice if I can just live the creative life — but to get there, my books will have to do well enough first so I can finally start profiting from royalties. 😅
I will continue to work on Overseas Filipino Wizard, however, as it’s a goal of mine next year to finish the manuscript and query it. Trad pub is its own beast, though, so we’ll see how well I fare. But first and most importantly, I need to finish writing, and you all know how well I do with writing novels by myself 🤪 Wish me luck!
My other goals are not so well-defined yet. I had some positive feedback yesterday on a reading I did for the 12 Days of Christmas reader group party, which has once more gotten me thinking about pursuing audiobook narration. The Christmas fairs have also given me insights on what genres are in demand here in my local community, and I don’t have books in those genres at the moment, though I have dabbled in them through flash fiction and short stories. Should I take the plunge and give in to the market demand? I’ll have to think about that too…
One thing’s for sure, I won’t stop writing. So if there’s anything you’d like to read from me next year, I would like and appreciate it very much if you let me know! 🥰
That’s it for now, thanks for reading! I will be back one more time before the year ends, so until then, take care 😘
Marie xx