Anxiety and other drugs

I’ve got a lot of feelings right now.

A frankly prodigious amount anxiety, mostly. But we’ll get to that.

First, let’s catch up. Twin Cities Con was a BLAST. A huge thank you to my readers who took the time to stop by, say hi, and share their excitement for book 3 (and for not forgetting about me, since I took…erm, 4 years to write it). I can’t begin to describe what it means to me when you guys let me know that you enjoyed the books. You literally make my dreams come true.

I shared the booth with a fellow author (Justin Rose, whose work can be found over here), which was a first. It was fun to chat about the joy and despair of writing with someone who experiences the same highs and lows. We were also both English Majors, so again…the joys and despairs. Saturday flew by with all the chat about books, authors, and the art of storytelling. We were just nerds nerding in nerddom.

And I must have spent all my luck points when I registered, because my booth ended up next to Jordan Bethea of Big Hair Illustrations. Not only is his art completely awesome, he is a completely awesome human. You should definitely check out his Instagram @bighairillustrations. Thanks again Jordan for the snacks, water, and charisma-saving Tylenol. You turned this haggard, overstimulated, introvert-zombie into a living, breathing person. I’m the proud owner of one of his Mando/Grogu prints, and once I get my shit together, I’ll share a picture.

Speaking of getting my shit together…well, no. Speaking of pictures, here a few of my favorite cosplays.

This last one gets top marks. If you know, you know.

Alright. You were promised anxiety. Prodigious amounts of it. So here goes.

Dust has been submitted to the printers.

*screams/giggles/blacks out

I’m not sure what happened between me deciding to publish one book a year in 2018, and the MASSIVE WALL I ran into in 2020, but…well, actually, I know exactly what happened. It turns out that mortal dread and crippling depression aren’t as lucrative for my creativity as I would have thought. Emerging from 2020 with my sanity ‘mostly’ intact was as good as I was going to get.

So, then 2021 comes around, and I think OK. I’m going to ease into it. Get life back on track.

But then I blinked, and 2021 turned into 2023. An impressive magic trick and an utterly dick move.

My undying thanks to my readers, who are just as excited as I am for this book to be born. It was a long road, and the manuscript experienced some graphic violence. Not as in content, but as in I took a machete to it. Technically, I wrote this book three times. Start to finish. And the manuscript that was just sent off for approval by IngramSpark doesn’t even smell like the first two drafts.

I’m proud of it. I think it’s beautiful. And I can’t wait to share it with you on December 11th. If you’d like a reminder email sent out when it arrives and is ready to ship, please drop me a note at krilliams@gmail.com.

That’s all for now.

Cheers,

KAW


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