Greetings and bienvenue, all.
I hope you’ve had wonderful, safe Christmas and New Year holidays and that 2021 is treating you at least marginally better than its predecessor.
Given that this is my inaugural blog post, it felt right for me to use it as an opportunity to set a tone and manage expectations regarding what you should anticipate from this particular blog, moving forward.
1. First and foremost, this site is predominately a book blog. Not a food blog. Not a political blog. Not a social-issues blog or a daily-life blog. My posts here are going to largely be about books—my own books, more specifically.
I’m an author of Young Adult and Adult fiction novels, primarily novels that fall into the Mystery, Fantasy, and Science Fiction genres. My debut novel, The Women in White, released via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service in November 2020. And I’ll be discussing not only elements of that novel in further posts (including how I came to write the book, how I went about the publishing journey, etc.) but also future novels that I’ll be writing and hopefully releasing eventually.
However, the books that I’ll be discussing won’t exclusively be mine—the reason why being that I have a passion for many books that I (unfortunately) didn’t have the privilege of writing. The Bible is my all-time favorite book. And I’ve read and loved and been inspired by hundreds of other books from famous and obscure authors over the years. In fact, I still am actively reading quite a slew of books that I love, most of which give me ideas and inspirations for my own writing.
I’ll likely be talking about at least some of those books and their authors on here too, though I do not envision this blog as an explicit promotional or review site for other authors or their works.
2. Second, I hope you noticed that the emphasis in my first point is on the word “predominately.”
This blog is mainly going to be about books—and more mainly about mine—but that is by no means all that I envision covering here.
Why? Well, the reason is twofold.
a. I’m a fiction author, but I’m a firm believer that the best fiction has a relatively firm grip on reality. My books will inevitably tackle or mirror or at least satirize real-world issues (be they political, social, financial, etc.), so this blog will, by definition, inevitably contain at least some discussion of the same.
Again, this is predominantly a book blog, so any real-world issues discussed will almost certainly be discussed in the context of my books. But fair warning, they will almost certainly be discussed.
b. Quite aside from that, books aren’t all that I am writing or am planning to write. I’ve completed a film screenplay that I plan on shopping around for production in due time. I have further television screenplays that, God willing, I’ll also be marketing in the not-so-distant future. So eventually, I’ll probably be discussing all of those non-book-related endeavors here as well.
3. Third, I consider this blog a hobby and an outlet—not a job. Meaning that posts here aren’t necessarily going to come on any set schedule.
I am aiming to get at least one out a month, but that is by no means a promise. All blog posts were not created equal. Some take longer or shorter periods to write. Some involve more or less thought and planning. (This one, in fact, went from conception to drafting to editing to posting in about two hours. 🤪🤪🤪)
All of that to say this: “If you are one of those avid blog followers who expects to be titillated with a new post from your favorite scribe weekly or biweekly or monthly, the kind who sets your watch by the release time of each such post, I am almost 100% sure that I’m going to end up disappointing you.”
Sometimes, I may post once or twice or (dare I say) thrice a month, if not more often. Sometimes, not at all.
Unlike some bloggers, I’m not exactly deriving revenue from this. It’s not a career for me but a passion project. A passion project that I don’t plan on forsaking anytime soon but one that must, like all others, be tempered unfortunately by the dual forces of realism and practicality. And my practical reality right now is that I have not only another job but also a budding career as an author and screenwriter that I’m doing my darndest to make sure takes flight. Both of those occupations take dedication and make for a rather unpredictable schedule of free time for blogging.
That said, the one promise that I will make unequivocally is that everyone who subscribes to my mailing list will most definitely be getting an update by email each and every time that I release a new blog post. My subscribers receive first access to all free content that I offer—as well as to all of my latest news, including when my new books will be coming out and when I post new content on this site. And to top it off, they all receive a FREE copy of my debut Young Adult Mystery novel The Women in White.
A terrific deal, if I do say so. 👌🏿
Which brings me to today’s final point. IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU HAD BETTER SUBSCRIBE TO MY MAILING LIST RIGHT FRIGGIN’ NOW! I’ll even make it easy for you: just click HERE to get started.
So, there you have it. Tone set. Expectations (hopefully) managed.
Happy New Year, all! God Bless, and please—PLEASE—stay both safe and smart out there.
Fred
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