If you’ll give me a moment to be more honest than I’m comfortable being, I think you’ll find it worth your while. Especially if you’re interested in my writing and what the future holds in that respect. Even if you’re here mostly for the book reviews (and I won’t be upset in the least if you are! I would take it as a complement), I hope you’ll find this at the very least entertaining.

As you can see I have new logo design. Obviously, I have to take this opportunity to show it off. I absolutely adore it and all its variations (FB , Twitter , and Instagram all sport the new logo). Whimsical, mysterious, and dark, it truly touches on everything I want and need it to. The team at Deranged Doctor Design did a brilliant job capturing the essence of my current work and long term creative goals.

But I digress. I promised to be honest and to talk about my writing.

I have always loved the darkness. Even so, it took time for me to learn that the darkness wasn’t to be feared. That it adds beauty to life. The darkness is our shadow, the shade of the trees. It helps the moon and stars shine more brightly, it lulls us to sleep at night. The darkness does not hurt us, it is what is in the darkness that is to be feared. If you have ever stepped on a Lego barefooted in the dark, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

But I was always encouraged to be interested in other things. Polite things, less morbid things. After all, as a child, and to this day, I’m a kind and optimistic person. My interests by and large clash with my personality, or so I’ve been told.

And when you are told things enough, lies or otherwise, eventually it becomes hard to ignore those words. And so I held back. And back. And back.

I’m quite done with all of that. I am no longer holding myself back. It is not fair to myself and it’s certainly not fair to my readers. After all, if I’m holding back, I’m limiting the stories that I can and want to tell. Considering the fact that I write to give back, to give back to the writers who have indirectly healed and helped me through their works, by writing my own stories so that others may grow and heal, well to hold back is unacceptable.

I still adore the stories I have written previously. They have taught me so much and I will certainly finish the Secrets of the Lion series (although if I’m honest, it’s giving me a bit of trouble at the moment, hopefully my other works will inspire the final story in that series). But, they only touch on what I want to explore.

For many years I have wanted to expand my writing. Go deeper, darker, edgier. Life is full of sharp edges and jagged rocks. It’s filled with seemingly bottomless pits and black nights. I want to explore that. Not for the shock value, but because that’s true of life. Jagged rocks can be gems, the bottomless pits do indeed end and lead to the most extraordinary of places. And of course, we all know that the darker the night, the brighter the moon and stars. There is a beauty in the darkness. I want to try to express that in my writing.

I’m so very excited for the future. I’m already working with close friends to expand what I bring to you, in both my stories and other outlets. The book reviews and blog posts are not going away. I will simply be adding on to what I already do.

I hope you take this as an invitation. I hope you decide the darkness is worth exploring with me, that through exploring the darkness we can learn to love the light all the more. Whatever the reason that brought you here, thank you. Thank you for your time and your curiosity. May we always find something beautiful and appealing, even in the darkest of moments. And may we never hold ourselves back.