Chatty nothings, a new pen, and crazy honey badgers.

I realized (for the 5257 time or so) this morning during my morning ‘walk and chat’ with Michael and Molly that I put way too much pressure on myself to constantly create the perfect post or update or even excerpt. The kind of pressure that often just makes me stop posting unless I have something ‘really important’ to say.

So … having recognized that (again for the 5257 time), moving forward through the rest of 2026, I will attempt to be a little more off the cuff on my blog (and socials) and keeping the organized and ‘specific’ updates confined to my bi-monthly newsletter (subscribe here).

When social media became a thing (way, way back 😜), you’d simply post a quick update on your life. Later on, we all started sharing articles, having actual conversations, and posting other things of interest (pretty photos, fav things, etc). After a few years, we (authors, etc) realized that we could reach our readers (and hopefully find new readers) by organizing and maintaining fun spaces to interact on those platforms. Very soon after, those platforms decided we should pay for that privilege even though we were creating the content that brought people to their platforms. 

For a long time, I really held out against ‘paying to play’, just doing my random thing: dropping teasers, pictures of sunsets, and writing updates. But through 2025 with the social platforms massively suppressing all of our reach and highlighting a deluge of A/EYE slop instead, it feels like … well, like helplessly shouting into (through?) a void. 

Having all my books, and no doubt this blog, all scraped to train A/EYE also made me wary of blogging at all. But I miss interacting with my readers via my own platform, though which can actually reach those readers. Especially if they’re subscribed (scroll to the bottom of his page), and instead of dropping my chatty ‘nothings*’ on Facebook or Threads and only having a few of my readers see them. I’m also hoping that blogging more will result in me taking more pictures, writing more words (therefore staying in ‘the flow’), and not worrying so much about curating my entire freaking life so much!

*chatty nothings aren’t ‘important’ enough to post in one of my two monthly newsletters.

So, with all that set-up … today’s main topic is my pretty new pen! 

If you haven’t been following the mini saga of my pen, I broke my go-to fountain pen a few weeks ago while attempting to clean it – another TWSBI. I love the piston ink-filling system. And, feeling more than stupid, I refused to replace it. $$ is tight right now. Book sales are way down, and we have a lot tied up in our house (never again) from renovating and building an addition through the rising (insane) costs of Covid, then being forced to renew our mortgage at more than double the rate. Anway! A new pen was an indulgence and I convinced myself I should wait until I deserved a reward (say, when I finished the first draft of Conduit 4). 

But, I kept using it, broken, because I wanted my purple ink.

So, I got purple ink.

Everywhere.

But mostly all over my hands, like constantly.

After a few weeks of this battle, I broke down and ordered myself a new pen (see above pic). It arrived yesterday. But not before I found smears of purple ink across my forehead after my morning writing session. Because, apparently, I touch my face/rub my forehead while writing. Don’t believe me? There’s video evidence on my socials. 😂

The new pen writes like a dream. Yay!

Let me know if you have any favourite pens in the comments. [And don’t get me started on notebooks (or stickers).]

TL;DR:

• I’m blogging again
• I got a new pen (a TWSBI Diamond 580 Fountain Pen in White Rose Gold)
• I’m reading The Naturals Series (book 1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes via audiobook and the Kate Daniels (Magic Bites) series via eBook.
• I’m still writing the first draft of Conduit 4. No release day yet.

---

Side note: I should keep my mouth shut about this, but … this honey badger post (below) came up in my IG feed and it is so crazy appropriate – and not only because I’m an October baby. I was … well … a bit thrown by the serendipity and had to save a screenshot. Why is this image so crazy appropriate?? Well, I can’t tell you until deep into 2027! Sorry!!

---

If you have any requests for blog posts – say something you ever wondered about my books (characters, background, etc) or anything else that you might be interested in me putting a few words together for, let me know in the comments!! I’m really going to try to be more consistent (and without all the preamble) moving forward.