This year’s list was short and sweet. Let’s see what I’ve achieved this year.

1 – Write whatever books I feel like.

2 – Do the half-yearly catch-up, which won’t really be much.

3 – Do my yearly Jackie Collins post.

4 – Release a novel, blog about it here and across @tiarakinghq, and @royalstarpublishing.

5 – MAYBE upload a new theme and logo.

6 – Do a full year catch-up.

As you can see, four out of six were achieved. Two were not.

While I wanted to write books, plural, that did not happen, but that is okay.

And while I wanted to upload a new theme and logo, that also didn’t happen because of some thinking that I’ve been doing. And that leads me to…

2023

At the beginning of 2022, in the Before post, (you can see that here) I talked about going back to before. I was suffering burnout, had no interest in writing, needed a mental break from writing and publishing, and wanted to make life easier overall. I deleted social media, and considered deleting this website.

When I release books, it’s not just on this website. It’s also on my publishing house. That means repetitive posting and uploading of the same things. That’s one of the reasons I closed down the Porn Star Brothers website at the end of 2020/beginning of 2021. I don’t want to do that any more. So I am seriously considering closing this blog over Christmas. But not just closing it, moving it over to my other two websites. The posts about my books would be migrated over to tiaraking.com.au, and fun posts would be migrated to jeweldivasstyle.com.

When I publish a book it will go up on the royalstarpublishing.com.au website which will get an overhaul, as it should.

But as for this website, come 2023, I have no idea if this will still be here. It’s been a long time, a long hard slog, and tiring to boot. I need to make things as easy as possible, and if that means closing down, and migrating over, and then redirecting the url, then so be it.

Back on January the 1st, this blog turned 13 years old.

Unlucky for some, and time for me to cut back, or cut it out.

After the revolting effort 2020 and 2021 put on, I came to the conclusion that in late 2019 I’d hit burnout. And it took me those two years to figure it out.

Don’t mistake that for writer’s block, though, that stupid bitch doesn’t exist.

I had burnout after writing over 1 million words in The Porn Star Brothers family saga, and releasing a book every six months until 2019 when I not only had to write an extra 67 pages for DeLuca, but then write Spiros & Jenny as well. In 2020 it was an overwhelming effort to write the final book, And Always, from April until August, with a September release, no less, run the PSB website, plus this one, and then try and do other things. 

A LOT of other things!

I ground to a mental halt and needed a break.

From EVERYTHING!

In January 2020 I had a brilliant idea for a novel, or two, but pushed that insane inspiration aside to try and focus on writing other stuff, namely that final PSB novel. In January 2021, I still hadn’t even attempted to write those new novels.

Why?

Burnout!

Not that I knew at that time.

I battled on trying to get my hardcovers and large prints done after they were delayed from 2020. They were finally released in March 2021. They, for the most part, were finally done.

In September 2021 I had ANOTHER awesome idea for a novel, but had to put it on the back burner for other things, thus extinguishing the inspiration for it. This novel is something else; it actually made me rub my hands together at all of the twists and turns my brain was coming up with. That has NEVER happened with any other book I’ve written.

And so, after small ideas had been percolating in my brain, simmering away under the surface like a volcano ready to blow, I took time off from the gym, wrapped up a few other things, and wrote copious amounts of notes on WHY it wasn’t working anymore.

Why what wasn’t working?

My writing life, that’s what.

I wrote note upon note, had thought upon thought, and came to the decision to change how I do things moving forward. And then over the last month of 2021 I had more thoughts, and changed things again.

But that means changing EVERYTHING moving forward.

Including at this blog.

The choices I’ve made are this…

1 – There is no longer a newsletter.

2 – I’m no longer posting to other social media because some of that social media will be closed down.

My Twitter and Pinterest accounts will be closed, but my Instagram account and Facebook page will go silent and private. FOR NOW.

For those who don’t know, L.J. Diva is the adult author pen name of Tiara King. Any posts here will be posted to her/my social media at @tiarakinghq, or on the publishing house’s social media at @royalstarpublishing.

3 – I will no longer be posting at this blog monthly. The only posts throughout the year will be the yearly plan, the half-yearly catch-up, the full yearly catch-up, the yearly Jackie Collins post, any book releases, and Christmas and New Year’s. So when a book is released, there will be book quotes, character lists, cover reveals, header images, etc.

This blog has been happening for thirteen years. It’s time I stepped back and made more time for myself to once again be creative. To once again write what I want, when I want, how I want, and not set myself ridiculous deadlines that I can’t possibly meet. Because that’s been the main problem. I’ve set myself deadlines and have not met them. I’ve spread myself across too many outlets and the inspiration and motivation has disappeared. I’ve written millions of words across three names, multiple genres, stories, non-fictions, stand-alone novels and a family saga that burned me out, and it’s time to go back to “before”. Before having all of this, before doing all of this, before when I wrote with no stress and no publication date.

THAT is what I want to get back to. Regardless of wanting to release something every year on the anniversary of Jackie’s passing, that is a date that will always be a year in the future. If I can start writing “something” on the 1st of October every year, or just write for a full year whatever the hell I want, then there will be “something” released on September 19th for years. It’s just a matter of letting myself write whatever my muse gives me as inspiration.

Getting back to free writing. My way. Not my brain’s way.

So that’s it. They are the changes.

No more monthly post, and this site simply becomes a website which may get a new logo and a new theme at some point.

Thanks for being here for thirteen years if you have been. Thanks for stopping by to read about my posts on publishing. Thanks for buying my books and the support you gave, even though you have all left. But then again, I did too when I moved on from following and commenting on other people’s blogs and moved from Blogger to WordPress. It has been thirteen years, after all.

It’s time to reduce the weight of work and get back to BEFORE, which is now my word for the year.

See you next blog post.

As we come to the end of 2019, I’ve begun to realise just how far we’ve come since 2009. The eleven years since I’ve been blogging, ten since I’ve been on other social media sites, phones, the internet, how we process every scrap of data we see as it scrolls past out eyes. And for me, I’ve become exhausted.

Exhausted by the internet, although I still think it’s fantastic. Social Media, although it’s awesome for following your favourite band, actor, muso, etc, and running a business in general. But it’s wearing me out. Has done for quite some time which is why I take December and January off blogging and being online for the majority of the time.

It’s refreshing. Gives you time to do other things, read, potter around, watch movies. Also gives you time to get blog posts ready for the next year. But in thinking back over the years, I’ve come to see how much I’ve done, yet how little I’ve accomplished. It all depends on the grand scheme of things and how they go for an individual. For me, they’ve leapt ahead, but gone nowhere.

In 2006 I wrote my first novel under my first nom de plume.

In 2008 I started setting up my jewellery business.

In 2009 I started two blogs and a website.

In 2013 I started writing under my real name.

In 2015 I started writing under T.K. Wrathbone and put my jewellery on hold due to health issues and caring for my mother.

In 2017 I set up my own publishing house to accommodate all three names.

I never imagined then, in 2006 with that first novel, that thirteen years later, I’d be 4 novellas, 9 novels, 41 short stories, and 11 non-fic books down the track, with most being written across 2016-2017.

Technology has come so far it has allowed me to do this, and to blog about it as I went.

But times have changed, and I’m now thirteen years older. Physically, my schedule has worn me out. Mentally, I’m exhausted, but I refuse to stop until I’m fifty for L.J. Diva, and fifty-three for T.K. Wrathbone. So, I have a few more years to go yet.

Because of my exhaustion, I’m cutting back on blogging even more. No longer will I be blogging here weekly as I’ve done for many a year, but it will now be a once a month catch up newsletter style post. A quick blog to let y’all know what I’m doing or about to do. I’ll still do the yearly writing plan and catch ups, I’ll still do the book premiere blog posts, but I’ll be blogging more over at my style site, Jewel Divas Style, so I only have a one stop shop for blogging. Movie and Book reviews will be over there, legal and copyright issues will be over there, unless they are so important I put them here too.

But in general, a monthly post will be the way to go. That will give me more time to plan books, write them, and get them typed up without a publishing schedule. The more relaxed vibe from back in the early days when I wrote a novel two years apart. Although, it won’t be two years apart now.

I have exciting new ideas for novels, and will write what comes in the next couple of years. I will then type them all up, edit them all, and plan a publishing schedule. It will not be the same as the one I’ve had for Porn Stars, a six monthly plan that wore me out.

I want writing to be fun again. Standalone novels fun. And that’s what I’m going back to. In order to do that, I need the time, so cutting back on blogging is the way to go and then I’ll blog in bulk when the books come out.

So, until then, I bid you adieu until next year when I come back with my yearly writing plan for 2020. My god, 2020, where did the time go?