Once upon a time there was an indie author who started a blog. It was a haphazard but earnest effort, and three years later, enticed by a special offer by another service provider, the indie author decided to start over with the blog. It was a good run for another three years. Then the lower-priced service provider started annoying the hell out of the indie author with “security warnings” that turned out to be widely declared a scam by the denizens of various online communities. It was time to rethink and rebrand—again.
I started Her Raven Domain Productions in 2010, knowing there were a lot of books I wanted to publish, but I wasn’t entirely sure where this indie author venture would take me. Six years later, I’m on the verge of publishing my fourth novel, and a number of short stories have been printed in journals and anthologies. There have been a lot of side projects over the years, but Her Raven Domain has yet to be the multimedia empire that was imagined over a table full of margaritas at Border Café in Harvard Square one night, long ago.
It’s okay. A lot is happening, and it’s all good. I decided to split my blog in two: one for author news and random thoughts, as well as supporting my passion for flash fiction—both independently inspired and the writing challenges issued by Chuck Wendig and the like. The other will focus on a series I started several years ago. Formerly titled “How Do They Feast,” the posts delved into how food is portrayed in works of literature. It originally focused on how food is portrayed in historical fiction, and I shared recipes I experimented with while writing my own novels. It has since grown to explore a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, and I look forward to giving it its own space to grow. Now called Savored Words, it has its own site and social media channels.
While the fourth novel goes into the editing process and the Muses duke it out to be the focus of the fifth novel, I’ll be rebuilding my online life. While the experience of dealing with the aggressive marketing of what was really an extortion racket by a “security” company was annoying (and err...educational), it’s liberating to start anew.
