Hello my lovelies, I’ve missed you!
It’s been nearly two and a half years since my last email 😳 and a lot has happened in that time.
After a long journey through burnout, healing, and rewrites, I’ve finally found my way back to writing and rediscovering what I love.
I wanted to share a little piece of my journey with you. If you’ve ever struggled with your own creative spark, I hope my story resonates with you.

I’ve been an author for six years now, but truthfully, writing hasn’t always come easily to me. So, I thought I’d share my author journey, warts and all.

Back in 2019, I started my very first series, The Alina Chronicles. Everything was going great. I’d published two books of the trilogy and was well on my way into writing the third.

Then Covid happened.

Needless to say, the world stopped and so did I. Writing was no longer a priority, anxiety ran rampant, and my main focus was keeping my loved ones safe and well.
When I finally returned to writing, I realised after rereading the first two books that they needed a ton of work and a serious overhaul. So, back to the drawing board, or in this case my laptop. I rewrote the first two books then dove straight into the third. The result was releasing the whole trilogy within months of each other at the end of 2020 under the new series name, the Phoenix Reborn Trilogy.
Publishing a complete trilogy was amazing. I loved Alina and her harem, and I’m really proud of what I created. That’s not to say it’s perfect, extremely far from it. But in a world where only 1% of people are likely to complete just one book, I’d finished three!

Then life picked up speed again. Lockdowns ended, school runs started, and the world started turning again, but I couldn’t keep up with publishing at the speed I had. So I slowed down. I took time to read and help other authors as much as I could. During that time, I focused on writing one fantasy project, Untamed, book one in the Tangled Bonds Duet. I eventually published it at the end of 2022 with plans to release the sequel within six months.

But life had other ideas.

Let’s just say chronic illness, grief, and mental health are not always the best motivators for storytelling, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I lost my love of creating stories. I was in serious burnout.
Crippling self doubt, imposter syndrome, and a loss of my creative spark happened and I couldn’t find a way out.
In 2023, I unpublished Untamed, apologised to my readers, and disappeared from social media, pushing everything author related to the side. I just couldn’t do it. It felt as though I had to rediscover myself and find new ways to just be me, which is still a work in progress, even now.

But slowly, ideas began to return, and I wanted to write. I thought back to my unpublished duet and knew I needed to finish it. I thought about making changes, such as changing it to paranormal or shorting it, anything just to get it done. But after revisiting story, I realised I wanted to stay true to the original while also adding more depth, and improving/expanding scenes. It’s now grown into a 122000+ word standalone called Tangled Bonds, and I hope to share it all with you soon.
So, why am I sharing all this?

Honestly?

Because I think it’s important to say that writing, just like life, isn’t always easy. Sometimes it simply flows and other times it can be a chaotic soul destroying monster. But even when it’s hard, your passion and interests are worth it. It may take time, or take over your life, but the end result is more than worth it, because completing something from your heart is the greatest gift you can give to yourself.
The journey isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it 🥰
All my love and hugs,

Raven James 💙

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