From Book Blogger To Book Writer

My love for books began at an early age, but my ambition to publish a book came much later. I became seriously ill (or so I thought) when I was 21 and I added ‘publish a book’ to my bucket list. It still took me years before I’d write and publish my first book.

From book blogger

I started blogging when I was still a student and wanted to share my passion for games with others. I’ve since branched out and launched Narratess to focus on stories mostly. I wanted a separate space to talk about books and the craft of creating and telling a story. Every writer has their own voice and you can only find your voice by trying out different things.

That’s why reading is so important. I’ve always read a lot and read widely. I’ve read good books, bad books and exceptional books. All of them have their own thing to teach me. And all of them have a thing I enjoy. I’ve found gems that I never heard anyone talk about, mostly books by indie authors, and I wanted to highlight them.

Indie authors and small press authors have to work twice as hard to get sales since they don’t have a big publisher with a marketing budget to rely on. That’s why I wanted to talk about books that aren’t as mainstream. Most of my reviews are from indie authors and I want to keep supporting them by doing reviews for their books.

If you’re interested in indie authors, please check out Josie Jaffrey (paranormal romance), James Calbraith (alt history Japan fantasy), Jeroen Steenbeeke (fantasy and urban fantasy) or S. M. Boyce (transporter fantasy). Their stories are still on my mind today.

To book writer

I’ve been writing for a long time, but always had the problem that I wasn’t good at finishing things. Writing short stories, especially my Guild Wars 2 fanfics, helped me learn to finish. Most of these were under a thousand words, which is short even for a short story, but not yet flash fiction. I didn’t mind. I had learned to finish.

My next goal was to finish the short stories I wanted to write as a world building exercise for my larger fantasy series. The first one I finished was years ago (read The Sacred Maiden now for free) and only finished the last one in December. Some of the stories have gone through several large rewrites while others only needed a few. Every story taught me something. What I should or shouldn’t do. The things I like in books, or what kept me reading.

Yesterday, my first book went on sale. Tales of Lunis Aquaria is a collection of nine short stories I wrote to practice finishing and learn more about the craft. Publishing this book has taught me more than finishing a story. I now know what goes into publishing a book, but it was the book blogger community who taught me how to get my book to readers. I’m grateful to all the bloggers (if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of them) who shared their experiences and opinions about books and the publishing industry from a book lovers’ and readers’ perspective.

Now I’m a writer and a book blogger. I will keep blogging about the books I love, help promote authors I love, and talk about writing. I hope you’ll stick around for it.