Here's to a different year
Returning to my writing roots and quitting the wrong things
What’s up, Substack? I'm Aurora Graves, author of Anything for the Devil, Claiming the Witch Father, and Ugly Like Me.
If you ask my readers, they'll probably say I write dark romance. Although I've tapped into the dark romance reader audience to find my own readers, the label has never sat well with me. It never felt right.
Aurora Graves was borne of the swamp in April 2022 as a Southern Gothic writer. Spicy Southern Gothic stories you can't tell mama about.
The thing about Southern Gothic, though, is not a whole lot of people are googling or asking specifically for the genre. Not that it never happens — just doesn’t happen as often as, say, dark romance + specific tropes. Or horror romance. Or erotic horror.
That’s what I love about the Southern Gothic genre: it can encompass all of these things. I was hesitant to embrace the romance genre, but after episode three of The Last of Us completely and thoroughly destroyed me, I was ready to embrace the HEA/HFN life because, God help me, I need the occasional reassurance that all will be well at the end.
2024 was the year of rest for me. I spent a lot of my (admittedly, forced) downtime contemplating where I wanted to go in my author career. What I was doing right; what I was doing wrong. Things I liked doing and things I hated doing. What I wanted to write more of and what I wanted to not write. Especially after Ugly Like Me took off, which I feel like is a far cry from everything else I’ve published up to this point, I was left digging for the core of all my stories so far, searching for a common thread because I felt like I had royally fucked up publishing my now most popular work.
Though I felt like I screwed up bad, I realized all my stories were still deeply rooted in Southern Gothic. Whether paranormal romance, or horror romance, or contemporary dark romance, I can still clearly see that Southern Gothic thread connecting everything together in my universe.
So 2025 is the year Aurora Graves returns to her roots while continuing to embrace the romance genre. Instead of trying to call myself something I’m not — a dark romance author — I’ll stick with what I started with a little update.
Aurora Graves, author of Southern Gothic romance.
Beyond the ever-present genre confusion/debate, I feel like I’ve been at war with social media for far too long. Honestly, though, what author isn’t? And now with the looming TikTok ban that may or may not happen, many indie authors (especially indie romance authors) are in the lurch. Now where are we supposed to find our audience and connect with new readers?
To be fair, I’ve been pulling away from social media this year. It started with getting ill multiple times at the beginning of the year, which turned into taking an actual break from author stuff for a couple of months (or few, I don't remember). Then, after a month of giving it the ol' college try and posting almost daily to social media like "you're supposed to" and seeing diminishing returns, I said screw it and posted maybe once per week on Instagram before falling away from that, too. TikTok I was consistent with for about two weeks before the algorithm supposedly reset and views went back to being shit, so I finally gave it the middle finger, too.
The only thing that’s helped besides TikTok when it works has been Facebook groups, and those have become rather inhospitable to authors. With how some authors spam copy-and-paste self recs, I can honestly see why.
Regardless, I’ve always felt like I’ve been wasting my time with most social media. When I’ve focused on “working ahead,” batch creating and scheduling posts for socials, it’s been nothing but a huge time suck and keeping me from writing.
Okay, that’s a bit of a lie — it was getting to where I was using social media as an excuse not to write.
Then all the drama with the book community ensued, especially with the rise of AI and the witch hunts that followed. There for a hot second it got so bad that I had to pause with each post before liking it and scrolling to question, “Is this even real?” before finally having to ask, “What is real?”
That was a weird train of thought to have.
I’m also the type of person who looks at their weekly screen reports on their iPhone. Usually I just glance at the daily average and move on with my day, but when I was contemplating deleting Facebook, I got curious about how much time I was spending on which platforms. 1-2 hours daily on Threads alone was a wake-up call.
I knew what I had to do.
I’ve started with removing Facebook from my phone, because I wasn’t really using it much anymore, anyway. And before the year is over, I’ll remove Instagram and Threads from my phone, too.
Yes, I’m aware Substack is another form of social media. Didn’t exactly say I’d be quitting social media altogether — just removing the time-wasters so I’ll be encouraged to do more of what really matters. And since I’m moving my newsletter here, makes sense to me to focus on Substack, anyway. 🤷
All year I’ve had a phrase on my letter board: Writing comes first. It was supposed to serve as a reminder to keep my priorities in check and keep my focus on the thing that matters most, the thing that makes me an author. And yet that’s exactly what escaped me all year.
2025 is going to be different. 2025 is the year that writing comes first.
All that to say, my lovely abominations, is that all news and updates will be found here in my newsletter — don’t count on seeing what I’m up to on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, or elsewhere. It’ll be funneled through here first, and I’ll have the occasional post elsewhere.
I’ll apologize in advance for being up in your inbox twice within a week since I promised another newsletter on January 2nd.
And just because I am that cringe person who loves saying this every year: I’ll see y’all next year! ❤️🔥
You write magic my love. Your genre is delicious and dark and magic; dark magic that casted one yum spell over me. Now hope I can say all of that.
Excited to see where 2025 takes you!