All the writing updates you never asked for 😅

Plus a title reveal hidden in there somewhere 👀

Before getting into it, I want to thank you for grabbing a copy of Ugly Like Me and/or entering the Aurora Graves x Haunted Delights birthday giveaway. I'm not a birthday or holidays person, so keeping things chill and doing something special as an author is my way of celebrating. Really, my goal moving forward is to have a new release on my birthday, but, well, obviously that didn't happen this year. You'll see why with all the writing updates in this newsletter.

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

The Big List of Aurora Graves Writing Updates™️

This newsletter will be a very long one.

TL;DR: writing is hard and going very slowly.

Obviously, it's been a hot minute since my last release (coming up on a year, if anyone's keeping track). I tried resurrecting the old Facebook group a few months ago to keep myself accountable writing for a month and, well, the election happened, and I wasn't very invested in the story I chose to work on, so that kind of fell apart rather quickly.

As the new year started and I was considering next projects, I wanted to keep the stories I work on this year short and simple. Go back to what gets my gears turning, write a couple of novellas or something. Those of you who've read Anything for the Devil know better, though: ya girl don't do simple. When I sit down to plan or even pants (write without a plan) a story, things get very complicated, very quickly. Not that this is a bad thing; it just means I have to throw out my original plans.

Anyway, given the current state of the US, all plans have been thrown out the window, anyway. I'm a little too preoccupied with real life.

I'll get into *gestures vaguely* all that in a bit. Right now, let's get into some updates.

A quick explanation about my writing process

Some writers are called plotters, where they plot their entire story before ever writing a word down for the actual draft.

Some writers are what are called pantsers, where they start writing without a plan — they write by the seat of their pants, throwing caution to the wind and taking them wherever their characters may.

And then there's freaks like me who start off writing notes that turn into an outline, and before you know it, WHOOPS! There's stage direction and dialogue in the outline, and you're writing the actual story in the outline so you don't forget any details you really wanted to include. This can be referred to as zero drafting, which is like a mishmash of outlining and writing the barebones draft of a story. In some status updates you'll see that phrase, zero draft, so that's what that is.

The Witch Father novel

Status: unraveling the outlining. 4,549 words.

It's been over two years since Claiming the Witch Father was released, and I've had the first chapter of the novel available to preview for almost just as long without a promised publish date.

I know, I know… the worst kind of author 😭

Those of you who have read Claiming the Witch Father know that it leaves off on a question mark. I wouldn't call it a cliffhanger, but I guess romance readers would (speaking of: reminder that it's paranormal erotica). Anyway, obviously it ends that way for a reason — that's not the end of Sam and the Witch Father's story. Actually, I had a small series of novellas planned for these two, kind of following them through the Wheel of the Year as they navigate their relationship.

But then I let popular opinion start sinking into my brain.

People don't want to read novellas or series; they want thick-ass novels that explore every facet of a romantic relationship with chapters from each main character's point of view.

With that in mind, I went back to the outline and tried adjusting things to make it into one single novel. Minus the dual POV, of course — some characters should remain mysterious, and the Witch Father is 110% one of them.

I'm not sure if y'all understand this by now, but I don't write long books. I don't even write standard-length books. I don't want to.

I like writing stories on the shorter side, quick and snappy books you can read in a day but still think about for the rest of the week. As much as I love reading, I limit myself to reading on the weekends — otherwise, I'm hyperfixating on a book until it's finished, and then I want to keep on reading, even if I have work. Like y'all, I'm an adult and have responsibilities; I can't spend all day every day reading. So reading books on the shorter side over the weekend helps to keep my hyperfixation tendencies in check.

I have a goal to write an epic-length book one day. But for the rest of my books, I prefer for them to be 350 pages or less. Really, 300 pages or less.

Even still, having popular opinion stuck in my brain really threw me off for the rest of the Witch Father story, and I let it fall to the wayside.

To top it all off, I based it on a real entity, on real traditional witchcraft because I'm a nerd who loves researching religion and spirituality and wanted to incorporate that into a story. While I recognize writing about a real entity wasn't the smartest idea and I don't have regrets writing about the Witch Father, it's tricky business moving forward with the story and incorporating elements of traditional witchcraft because its roots are incredibly problematic, and I don't want to ignore that.

I realize how niche of an issue this is. I'd be genuinely surprised if anyone knows what the hell the Shabbos Queen and that story is, or that aspects of traditional witchcraft is based on accounts from witch trials that are rooted in antisemitism.

But here's the rub: I know better.

With the revised version, I adjusted things to avoid problematic issues going forward and, instead, venture more into Southern lore. "The Devil is beating his wife" is a saying I grew up hearing, so I thought it would be interesting to take more of a witchy Southern angle like that instead of straight trad craft.

So for those of you wondering what the hold up is with the rest of the Witch Father story, that's what's been going on with it. It's a clusterfuck.

Maybe one day I'll get it figured out.

Metalcore romance / New Year's Ball

Status:

I struggled with writing all last year — mainly because the only stories coming to me were from Anything for the Devil characters, but Anything for the Devil isn't as popular as Claiming the Witch Father or Ugly Like Me, so I wanted to focus on writing other stories that I thought y'all would want, instead.

I don't know about you, but I'm starting to see a trend here.

I wrote a little bit of Shannon's story. I wrote a little bit of Ty's story (the guy wanted to talk, so I listened. Not sorry). I've got notes and plans written down for each spin-off. I even have an idea of a prequel novella for Stephani's parents I'd love to explore.

The New Year's Ball universe is my ultimate passion project. Even if it's not my most popular work, I'm going to keep writing it because I wrote it for me and me only. I've been threatening to say "fuck it" and run back into the New Year's Ball universe for months now, but I still haven't done it. Writing up this newsletter, I'm really starting to see where and why I've been going wrong and struggling so much, so I think I will return to this universe sooner rather than later.

Here's the catch: in order to make this series work, I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to have to unpublish the Anything for the Devil trilogy and republish it all as one book — that way I can move forward with future books under one series and not a confusing "this series is part of a larger series but you HAVE to read this series first" type of deal.

Ew, now I've written that out, yeah, I have to make that change. 😩 Heyyyyy, looks like I'm finally getting my thick book, after all! 😂 (Wait till y'all get Shannon's story though — I got a feeling deep in my bones that's gonna be a thicc boi™️)

Lmao watch, I'll start churning out long books after my short book spiel 💀

The Ugly Like Me novel

Status: outlining/zero draft. 28,838 words.

I was working on the outline/zero draft around October when I hit a wall around the 65% mark. The election happened shortly after, anthologies started popping up, so I switched gears to get to work on anthology submissions and let the Ugly Like Me novel simmer for a bit.

Given current events, I feel confident in saying I'll return to it pretty soon.

When this is published, it'll have a different title to differentiate from the novella. Which sucks because how perfect is Ugly Like Me for Korey and Leah's story 😭 I did this to myself.

LITS

Status: 6,349 words.

Ignore the word count, I didn’t renew my Canva subscription so I could update it lol.

A few months back I had teased a new for-funsies project, title acronym LITS. Since signing up for anthologies, I haven't written anymore for this one at all, but I've been thinking about it lately. It's very different, unique, challenging for me to write. It was supposed to be one of the simpler stories and yet I found a way to make it a little more complicated, so…

Out of all my ideas, however, it's still pretty straightforward, and I think this one may get finished sometime this year.

Dark surfer romance

Status: zero draft, 4,248 words. Abandoned.

I mentioned this one at some point between fall and winter. Haven't worked on it since October lol.

Yeah... October was full of throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick. Obviously, nothing did.

I think this one will become a story I play around with whenever the mood strikes since it's a bit of a nostalgia project. There’s a plot in there, but again, it’s not one of those I-must-work-on-it-or-I’ll-die projects.

I'm not sure if this one is all that dark, either. I mean, it kinda is — I'm confused about it since my sense of dark is apparently way more messed up than the average dark romance reader's.

Ultimately, if it does get written and published, I really don't think it's an Aurora Graves kind of book. (More on that after the anthology update.)

Feminine rage charity anthology

Status: still writing. 7,157 words out of 15,000.

Here's the full author reveal by volume for the anthology! I'm in volume one ❤️‍🔥

While it's been difficult to concentrate on anything during this tumultuous time, writing sapphic smut has been a great distraction 😅 Even though it's fun, it's still been difficult to write. I've started over a couple of times, so this is draft #3.

Honestly, after texting with my writing bestie Michelle Cruz (find her over on

Michelle’s Substack

) about it yesterday, it’s lookin’ like a scrapping draft #3 to let draft #4 come in like a wrecking ball kind of weekend ahead.

It's due by the end of March, but...

1) I have yet to finish a complete fucking draft.

2) I have yet to send it off to my critique partners for their feedback (although Michelle is getting plenty of texts of me bitching about it).

3) I need to send it to an editor after all that.

So I've been panicking ever since I signed up for it because hi, hello, I'm a writer who can't fucking write anymore, apparently.

Either way, it'll get done. The horrors persist, and so must I.

Southern Discomfort is a sapphic Southern Gothic second chance romance that will be in The Tales of the Scorned femme rage charity anthology. Yes, it features the fun stuff like religious trauma and sacrilege (and boy, is the sacrilege in this one fun), but TWs include homophobia, bigotry, sexism, etc. — classic Southern Gothic content warnings.

Hey, didn't you announce you were in two feminine rage anthologies?

I did, but I pulled out of one. It was a horror anthology, and the one and only idea I had for it wasn't panning out. To be frank, I straight up have not been in the mood for horror for the past year, so I withdrew to focus on a project I knew would work out.

Other projects and… possibly a new pen name?

Of course, I have a shit ton of other projects and plans that I dabble with here and there. I have a few non-NYB rock star stories I'm really itching to write, but most of them are, well, just plain ol' contemporary romance and not anything dark. Actually, one of them I figured out how to make it gritty, so that's something — I think it could still pass as an Aurora Graves book on the lighter side.

But that's a huge thing I've been struggling with the past year: whether I keep publishing as Aurora Graves, or if it's time for a new pen name.

Like I mentioned above, I haven't been in the mood for anything horror or even dark. I haven't been watching horror movies because I can't really handle blood, gore, or violence lately. When I texted my BFFs about withdrawing from the horror anthology because I didn't have any other ideas, they were like, "What do you mean?? Isn't horror your thing?"

Yeah, it's supposed to be my thing. Spooky spicy stuff — that's what I set out to write as Aurora Graves. But I haven't written anything like that since The Final Deal, and all the ideas and stories I've had inspiration for on are the complete opposite. Most of them aren't even dark.

So it's been on my mind that if I'm not writing spooky spicy stuff like Claiming the Witch Father or Anything for the Devil, or at least something on the darker side like Ugly Like Me, then… is it time for me to step away from Aurora Graves for a little while?

Well... probably.

But I've put in a lot of work over the past couple of years, and I feel like stepping away now is flushing it all down the drain. Here's what I'm realizing as I'm writing this newsletter, though: I'm creating so much pressure on what I think you want to read rather than what I want to read (and ultimately write).

Look, straight up, I'm not writing any of my stories for you. I didn't start writing thinking about the market. I didn't even start publishing thinking about the market. I've been writing for a very long time, and I can tell you from experience that the second I started thinking about the market was when my stories have gone to shit and were quickly abandoned. When I decided to quit pussyfooting around and started publishing on Amazon, it was because I figured it'd be nice to earn a few dollars for all the hard work I put into my books to maybe help pay off my student loans a little quicker. (I have so much student loan debt, please buy one of my books or some merch/swag lol 😭)

All this to say: I have a sneaking suspicion that the new pen name I've been itching to dash after is a symptom of a bigger problem, which is me worrying too much about what you want, dear reader, instead of what I want.

Me waiting on my brain to cooperate and WRITE.

So does this mean you're going full-force on one project to publish something sooner?

I don't think any of you are necessarily asking anything like this, but my internal guilt definitely has been.

If it wasn't apparent from all the updates above, I haven't been able to choose a story to work on. None of them have really screamed at me as the one I need to be working on right now.

My dear friend Harleigh Beck told me all throughout 2024 that if I needed to step away from writing for a little while, that's okay — but I've been afraid that if I did decide to go on hiatus that it'll be another long one because I'm at a point where I could walk away from writing for a while and be perfectly content.

I know that's a sign, but I put to much work in the past couple of years to go on hiatus.

There's a Quentin Tarantino quote that I kept in the back of my mind as I started publishing:

"I love my movies. I'm making them for me — everybody else is invited."

And just the other day I came across a YouTube Short of Randy Blythe discussing Lamb of God's music and how the band doesn't make music for everyone — they make music for five people (hint: there's five members in Lamb of God).

Even though I always write for myself, I lost that focus last year after Ugly Like Me blew up. I kept thinking (and hell, keep thinking) that I needed to chase after the wave of popularity to keep getting more readers and sell more books. At the end of the day, that's not why I started to tell my stories.

I think what all of this means is that I'm going to go back to the stories that compel me want to write, whether I think you'll end up reading them or not.

I love my books because I'm writing them for me — I'm just inviting you along for the ride.

Stay fucked, my abominations.

P.S., Ugly Like Me paperbacks are currently with the printer, so I’m hoping I’ll get those in the mail and sent to those who ordered a copy in the next 2-3 weeks.