Today the CEO of TikTok testified before Congress only for our beloved US government to flash its ass in true plutocracy fashion. Make no mistake, this whole farce of a trial is so that Facebook / Meta can shut down its competition while continuing to sell private user data, allow foreign enemies to spread misinformation, and do all the things it's accusing its competitor of doing without evidence because "China" as the excuse. What the willfully ignorant don't realize is that TikTok is already banned in China because the app provides a tool for grassroots activism to rise up against autocratic / fascist leaders. Something that our current country is spiraling towards at a breakneck pace. 

Congress is not actually interested in understanding the intricacies of the platform and the impact it has for millions of small business owners, churches, creatives, and other users across the country. They're being paid by Meta to eliminate the competition. It's as simple as that. Follow the money.

Social media is becoming an exhausting aspect of my endeavors. In the past 2 years I joined YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Mastodon...and it seems like every one of them is crashing and burning for various reasons, or just doesn't suit my needs as a small creator. It's exhausting having to go to a new social media platform, learn its tools and tech requirements, figure out its algorithm (which changes constantly), build a community from scratch...only to have all of my effort hit a dead end unless I pay the platform an endless flow of funds so that my content is not suppressed. Social media is becoming nothing more than a pay-to-win endeavor, assuming Congress isn't being lobbied to meddle in the micro-transactions. 

Come April I will be handing off the manuscript of Obligation's Unity to my editor so that she can start working her magic. During that time I will be focusing primarily on the business and artistic aspects of the Carving Legacies series and all that entails. I will also be spending a considerable amount of time rethinking my relationship with social media as a viable marketing tool, in what capacity, and where to cultivate it. Given the state of our society, it might be best to go back to basics and do more local promotion by showing up to events, bookstores, and other avenues. Social media was just free (great for being an author on a budget), and reached outside of my immediate community. But if I keep having to rebuild from ground zero every year, that's honestly time better spent elsewhere in more tangible spaces. 

Whatever I decide, my website will always be the "home base" for any updates and changes. I plan on figuring out the storefront features so that I can start selling physical copies of my book directly to consumers rather than 3rd party distributors; and I really want to give this site a new look and feel since book 2 is getting released later this year. All new things to be excited about, for sure!

I look forward to providing more updates after next month!
​Stay tuned!

I had no idea it's been about 3-4 months since my last update. I'm really bad at keeping up on socials, both in real life and online, forgive me. 

Anyhoodle, I've been plugging away at preparing Obligation's Unity to hand off to my editor by the end of this month! I know people have been diligently waiting for a storefront to open up here on the website so that folks can purchase signed copies of Key of Arcandus. I promised a late-spring / early-summer timeframe for that, and it's looking like it will be more toward the latter. The month of April will finally be some "downtime" in the writing sense of things, and I'll be focused more on art and merch that month so that I can take a break from my computer (a little). 

Call-outs for alpha readers for the Sebastian x Niamh standalone fantasy romance novel, An Oath to the Winter Winds, will happen around summertime. I'm going to put off Book 3 alpha reading until after launch of Obligation's Unity since...that makes the most sense. But the SebNia standalone runs parallel to the main series just after Key of Arcandus, and ends after the events of Book 3. So, as long as you've read KoA, nothing will be spoiled (only teased) for you at the end of AOttWW for the main Carving Legacies series.

On a different topic entirely, I had to shut off access to making comments on this blog because I was receiving nothing but spam remarks. If you want to reach out to me, you can check out the Contact section of my website, or you can hit me up on my socials like TikTok and Instagram. Please remember that I don't respond to solicitations of products or services, but I always love hearing from readers!

Toodles!
Lauren