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Active Engagement. This is something I haven’t spent enough time doing in my social media existence; I think we’re all guilty of “doom scrolling” when we should be working, or being productive. Now, there are some issues with that guilt, in that we’ve been told through this hustle culture that we have to always be productive, and that’s not true. However, I still stand by the fact that I hate how much I doom scroll (and my poor 30 year old neck hates it, too). I try to be conscious about what I do when I’m sitting, twisted like a pretzel on my couch with my laptop on my lap, my phone beside me, and surrounded by books (including my e-reader). With how busy I am between a 9-5, a weekend job, a social life, balancing being an author, marketing specialist, promotor, event planner, etc… it’s no wonder that when I sit down I want to do fucking nothing. What I want to do, going forward, is to make sure whenever I’m on social media that I’m actively engaging with the people who are important to me. Whether that’s my little group of weirdos, or new authors who are posting about their books… I think it’s important to put together a village, or make Instagram a village, where we support one another. In the past I’ve worked on posting book reviews of my fellow authors content. I still plan on doing that, though my reading has slowed down significantly over the years. A little group of authors put together a support group, so we engage and share one another’s content. Normally group chats stress me out and I promptly leave them, however, this one helps me stay focused on what I’m on social media for. At the end of the day, my S.Voerman IG is for promoting my books. I do have a personal account as well, where I share more day-to-day things such as house renovations and such. I realize as I’m typing this that I’m rambling and getting off topic; what I want to say, is for those of you who are working hard on promoting and marketing, please message me and let me know if you need a little love on your post. I want to engage, be active in supporting fellow creatives. Before I wrap this up, and this is mostly for myself because keeping organized is *hard*, and I’d be a fool not to drop some deets about upcoming events. May and June are going to be busy months! May 3rd: Curious ComiCon Nanaimo held at Country Club Centre (my name is on the vendor list!!) May 21st: Instagram Live: Discussing Blood Queen + The Blood Bound Series with Quill & Crow May 27th: Blood Queen releases June 19th: Author Event at Windowseat Books with Kate Gateley, author of the The Mythic Bones Duology (there will be snacks!) October 25th: West Coast Readers Event held at the Bowen Complex Auditorium in Nanaimo. This is a major event that will have an after party, a bar, food, and so many authors and books! Bonus Date: August 15th (I will say no more, but guess if you want) Recommended Read: Kayla McGrath’s “This Broken Memory” 
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I have a top secret project coming out.
But before I get to that, I have to explain how we got here. Every few months I realize how much I loathe being on social media. Perhaps loathe is too strong a word. I loathe the performative nature of social media, the way it sucks me in and bleeds me dry. The balance between subscribing to the brutal landscape that is competing with everyone else’s parade of success and trying to be both authentic and yet disgustingly catered to what the algorithm wants. None of these things are inherently natural. To share every aspect of our lives, but again, only certain things that will be well received to maintain followers and numbers. And then at the end of the day, all I end up doing is scrolling mindlessly. If you’re someone who doesn’t doom-scroll, you’re a better person than I. Before I deleted the Instagram app this time, I realized I was coming home and sitting on the couch, scrolling. Then, it would suddenly be 10PM and I needed to get to bed. Nothing had been accomplished, which is fine, because in this world we must often remind ourselves that we do not always need to be accomplishing/doing. However, it feels like a void of falsities. Like this post, share this reel, respond to that message,acknowledge, engage, acknowledge, engage. It never ends. It’s in those moments where I realize how much I hate it. And unfortunately I do have to return, because in this world, you must always be part of the turning gears of the ever-changing algorithm. I think I speak for most creatives when I say that constantly coming up with witty one-liners, captivating posts, and churning out utter tripe effectively slaughters the creativity within us. How can I find time to submerge myself in writing when I am worrying about having posted enough this week to keep the algo happy? It’s a balance that this libra has yet to figure out. So I throw myself into it while I can, then when I find myself drowning in the bullshit, I leave completely. And while things are not perfect in my life outside of the IG/Internet space, they got better while I was off Instagram. So, to end this in a positive (and yes, I’ll probably download the dreaded app again soon to market Blood Queen), I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to over the past few weeks. I worked out almost every morning. Rather than losing track of time to scrolling, I put my body and health first. And god damn it feels good to do that again. I insured my motorcycle (Green Bean ™) and then it rained for fourteen days straight. I read the following books: The Tongue is Sharp (an anthology of feminine rage, features my short story “This Foul Heart”), Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (utter heartbreak), Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (omg so meta, on brand for sure), Wool by Hugh Howey (hard sci-fi, not usually my thing, but I will probably read the rest of the series out of completist behaviour), Milk and Honey by Rupi Kuar (love love love, please recommend me poetry books), Until The World Falls Down by Jordan Lynde (buddy reading with Kate, my love). I spent time with friends and family, I attended morning farmer’s markets, I wrote. My god it’s been a while since I felt the ability to write. It’s utter tripe, but at least I’m writing again. Something about publishing and marketing and being a face rather than an isolated feral creature with a laptop really kills the desire. Which leads me into my secret project, sorry it took so long. No, I will not be telling you the title or revealing much at this point. This year I will be shifting gears, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. But it’ll be a whole new branding for me. Later this year, sometime in the summer, I will be publishing a chicklit/romcom - currently it is a standalone, but with the novel I’m actively working on, there will likely be some crossover with characters going forward. But the biggest thing with this change is that I will be self-publishing. I want to take back the autonomy, allow myself to work at my own pace, market how and when works for me. Having a few friends in the romance game, I’ve had a slew of support (looking at you, Dove Cavanaugh-King), that has led me to understanding some of the more difficult parts of self-publishing. Finding covers, editors, support groups, formatting programs. Too often in this world of writing, everyone is hush hush about their process. They’re scared of sharing in case it helps someone else become successful. But one person’s success does not mean another’s failure. I never understood the gatekeeping… So, this chicklit/romcom will be coming out this summer. I have an amazing cover (stay tuned, reveals will come in June), my editor Nicole Simpson did a stellar job, I’m working on formatting and interior design right now, and of course I’ve adjusted my website a bit to find a balance between dark fantasy and this new trajectory. I will be seeking ARC readers in the future, so if a romcom with a focus on sexual health sounds like your thing, reach out. xo There is a certain inevitability to taking a social media break, isn’t there? Not everyone does it, but every few months I need a detox from the endless stream of information, opinion, politics, reels, doom-scrolling, and just generally hollow interactions. Now, that’s not to say all the interactions on social media are hollow, please don’t assume that is what I mean here. It’s that so much of it is.
I like to engage with my followers, my fellow authors and creatives, and the friends I’ve made through social media (particularly IG). However, I can’t say that it doesn’t feel performative to constantly engage sometimes. Whenever I start to feel like going onto IG is giving me anxiety because I have unread messages or unwatched reels that have been sent to me, I know that’s when I need to take a step away. Usually I plan to take a week off, and end up taking several away because after a day or two, it feels amazing to not have the constant urge to look at my phone. I even have notifications for IG turned off, and yet the immediate reaction to unlocking my phone is to go straight to IG. That’s a problem, it’s an addiction, and so I’m taking time away for a little bit. There are other things going on that are causing me to want to step away from engagement - a few frustrations with the world and being human. I’m burned out, essentially that’s the crux of it. Totally, utterly burned out. From work, from life, from relationships and spreading myself thin across all fronts. Naturally I can’t cut out work or friends or family, so social media is the first to go. After all, there is no reason for me to be on IG 99% of the time I spend on it. I’m working on a lot of things right now; currently in the midst of preparing for Blood Queen to come out. There are some parts of this element of my life that are coming with their own frustrations, but I’m not going to get into that. Additionally, I’m looking to shift my focus from The Blood Bound Series to something completely out of my normal scope. And I think it’s going to be a really good change for me, one that will allow me to have a bit more freedom with my writing and the journey I’m on. I want to focus a lot on this throughout 2025, and so I must take a break from the thing that’s distracting me the most from what I love to do; write. Coming out of seasonal depression, having a rough start to 2025, I’m taking care of myself by having this breather. When I come back on, I’ll likely be in substantially better spirits, it’ll be a turn of the tide this summer (also the motorcycle AKA Green Bean will be insured, which in itself brings me the will to live). Trying my best to stay positive, but there is a lot of negative infiltrating IG and that’s getting to me. I’m going to catch up on writing, let myself write whatever my heart desires even if it’s crap (that’s what editing is for, right?), devour books day and night, embrace the rain and celebrate the sun, put my health and my home first (I may pop back on for renovation content). And I encourage anyone who made their way to my blog to read this and made it this far to do the same. Buy a facemask, get a tattoo, do something spontaneous, go on a road trip, delete social media for a while, go puddle jumping, just enjoy being human. In the month of February, I received two pieces back from two different editors. Looking at them side by side, I see the juxtaposition that I am. The first piece is the fourth and final book in the Blood Bound Series, Blood Queen. Vampires, werewolves, witches, all sorts of fictional creatures doing all sorts of wicked and vile things. The other piece is a RomCom I wrote a few years back and finally took the leap on - it’s a contemporary non-traditional romance novel with a focus on sexual health.
Two very different pieces, both I can stand behind and say I poured my heart and soul into. Often times I’ve described myself as a “Genre-Slut”, meaning I read and write any genre. And for the first time, I’m truly seeing them run parallel. Though there are many similar themes between these two pieces, such as consent, figuring out who you are, there are some obvious differences, as well. What I worry about with this transcendence of my authorship, is how I’ve curated followers, and established a social media presence. Dark fantasy with a touch of horror has been, until now, my main focus. How does one then shift their entire persona into something completely different? It’s not as though I’m suddenly writing dark romance, which often goes hand-in-hand with dark fantasy. No, I’ve written something wildly out of scope. Though, those of you who have witnessed my entire writing journey, you’ve seen some other projects that go hand-in-hand with this shift (PDL, IYKYK). I’ve considered a pen name, however, I’m prideful and I want my real name on all my writing. The thought of making a whole new social media profile just for a pen name while I can barely keep up with the minimal socials I have, it’s never going to happen. This upcoming piece, the RomCom which I won’t reveal the name of just yet, has been on the roster for a few years. I wrote it years ago when I was in a relationship that was coming apart at the seams. I didn’t know it then, not really, but whenever I reread the journey my main character goes through, I feel so deeply my own metamorphosis. Who I was then versus who I am now are two very different Sabrina’s. I’m able to look back at that Sabrina and cherish who she was, and I’m able to look at the Sabrina I am today and be thankful for all the hardship I went through to get here. When I heard about a convention a city nearby, The West Coast Reader’s Convention, I jumped on board with it. However, I didn’t really read much of the fine print. It’s a romance convention. I don’t have any traditional romance novels out. Sure, Blood Coven, Ashen Heart, and Song of the Sea have elements of romance in them, but none of them fit the romance-genre bill. That kicked me in gear, knowing I had to get something out by October of 2025. With a couple of connections, a few Facebook pages, I met a Canadian editor, Nicole Simpson (link to her website here). I trusted her with my manuscript and I couldn’t be happier with the care and consideration she has put into it. I can speak only high praise of Nicole, and if you’re looking for an editor, look no further. Now I have two manuscripts to work on - both edits have been sent to me. Blood Queen takes priority, because the deadline is much sooner than this new novel. I’ll be self-publishing this new novel, moving away from trad/small press publishing, which is a scary endeavour, but I believe I have the right tools and people to help me through that journey. I look at these two novels and see two Sabrina’s. Not past and present, more like a balance (I am a Libra, after all). The side of me that loves gore and bloodshed and tearing my characters apart (literally and figuratively), and the side of me that is softer and is open to growing alongside my characters. Both books show hardship and enduring loss and love and the messiness that is life. One is supernatural/paranormal/fantasy, and the other is a bit more raw and real. When this RomCom comes out, I hope people find parts of themselves in the characters the same way that I have. I was fourteen in 2010, full of angst and desperation to understand the world, or to have the world understand me. In order to do that, I began to channel the emotions and hormonal overdrive into writing. I’d dabbled in fanfiction and those cheesy “girl in a home where four ridiculously hot men who are also vampires/werewolves live and are all in love with her”. It’s embarrassing to think back on those pieces, and yet, you have to start somewhere. And honestly, a woman in a home with four hot paranormal men are in love with her sounds like my kind of book now. Maybe I ought to revisit that…
But I digress… The purpose behind this entry is getting lost already. The point is, I started writing what would become Blood Coven during this period of my life. Originally titled “The Truth Behind Little Red Riding Hood”, the entire story was fueled by an image I saw online. It was a drawing, and I wish I could find it again and locate the artist who did it. Red Riding Hood was holding a gun to a man’s belly, he was wearing wolf’s clothing, and had his hand on her breast. It sparked a lot within me, and while the original version of Blood Coven was wildly problematic with large age gaps and questionable consent, I look back at this and understand why I channeled this into that version; it was all I knew. I won’t get too into depth of my problematic start in relationships, though. The crux of it is that the original version of Blood Coven was a deeply emotional outpour that started my journey of writing. Doesn’t most writing come from some form of trauma? But I won’t give that to my abuser, I refuse to credit them for this. Over the next ten years, I added to this tale, put it away, locked it in drawers, forgot about it. But it never left me -- some stories never do. If you’re an author, you likely know what it means to be perpetually haunted by a concept, a character, a line. When I started writing what would become Song of the Sea, it was so easy to loosely connect to this concept I had locked away. Subtle, mostly just done for me, but it sparked something inside of me. Song of the Sea is my golden child; the story wrote itself and remains one of my strongest tales to date. I didn’t struggle once with its inception, the characters spoke to me during car rides and hot showers. I was late for work countless times because I just needed to finish the next scene or chapter. From the creation of Song of the Sea came two characters I simply could not relinquish: Roman and Ivan Sokolov. Natural born killers, in a sense, these two characters grabbed hold of my throat and refused to let me breathe unless I wrote more about them (children are ever so greedy). And from this came Ashen Heart. My decision to write Ashen Heart was where everything changed. It was not an easy story to write, I’ll be the first to admit that this one stumped me a few times. But I persevered and out came a story that I resonated with on a variety of levels. By this time I was in my early 20’s, learning who I was while not being able to grow. So I grew through my writing, channeling versions of myself into characters who would remain on paper, minds, and hearts. With these three books written, I was at an impasse. What to do with these three tales… Leave them? Weave them together? Write a finale? At this point, it was a struggle to figure out how to wrap them up. They were all so individual. Sure, characters crossed over, long lineages of Luca’s and Sokolov’s had their stories penned. But it wasn’t enough. So I rewrote Blood Coven entirely. My problem child, Blood Coven, but still my first born. The story that you read is nothing like the original version. I had to give it a complete makeover. And so it was always a difficult relationship that I had with Blood Coven, and still do to this day. It’s not my strongest piece of writing, but it was the first thing I wrote that I thought “I could publish this…”. And that means something. Once all four books were written, COVID hit. I came into a lot of money and decided “Fuck it, I’ll publish”. So I went with a vanity press, didn’t know much about anything to do with publishing. I put a lot of money into the first two published books: Red & Æsa (Blood Coven and Song of the Sea). They were well received, but I couldn’t possibly go on publishing via a vanity press. But I wanted my books out there, The Blood Bound Series deserved to be published. That’s when I got into indie-press publishing with Quill & Crow Publishing. Republishing an entire series with new titles and covers was more difficult than I expected. People don’t want to repurchase, reread, or give much time to something they’ve already committed to. Time is money, after all. I have a complicated relationship with The Blood Bound Series. I love it to pieces, it shaped much of who I am as an author. To put it lightly, it has been a fucking journey getting from a short 10K Wattpad story about a seventeen year-old girl and a four-hundred year old wolf, to a four book series spanning hundreds of years with a plethora of characters who are unshrouded versions of me. The cover reveal for the fourth book, Blood Queen, came out today via my Instagram. It’s bittersweet knowing that the series is going to wrap up in 2025, but after over fifteen years of working on it, it’s time. Every single time I decide I want to have a blog, I let it slip under the radar. Now, I'm not going to try and imply some "new year, new me" nonsense, because I'm nearly thirty and am fully aware of who I am as a person. However, there are a lot of things in 2025 that I think need to be categorized, addressed, dealt with, etc...
Let's start with the first one: the Blood Bound Series will be coming to an end. I'll do a separate post about that, and the catharsis of such a long journey. It's bittersweet, in a way, but again, this isn't the post for that. Instead, I'm elated to finally have the whole series out in the world. Blood Queen will be out in 2025, wrapping up the stories I've spent over a decade working on. Second up: short stories! Recently there was a call for "feminine rage" stories, which is my wheelhouse. During a time of emotional turmoil, I was able to channel a lot of pain and struggle into a short story titled "This Foul Heart", which was then published in "The Tongue is Sharp". It's an anthology of feminine rage, and all the proceeds of this book go to the ACLU. It's a good cause, and the collection is excellent. Third on the 2025 house keeping list: a change is coming. Again, there will be another blog post about this to get into it in more depth. But to summarize, I'm changing gears with my writing. In 2025 I will be publishing a romcom, which is currently with my editor. It's totally left-field for me, I know. But I hope that those of you who know me for my dark fantasy and horror writing will accept this change and still give me the time of day. I will also have some author events; signings, West Coast Readers Convention, and hopefully more! That's all for today - much love xx |
About the AuthorSabrina Voerman is a small-town author with her hands in far too many pots. She uses this blog section to ramble, so she apologizes in advance. Archives
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