The Unbroken is 5 Years Old!

Five years ago, I published The Unbroken.

My debut was everything I could have asked for and more than I was told to expect.

This book started as a NaNoWriMo book back in 2012. When I finished it, I put it through their little self-pub createspace program and made a few copies. Gave one to my mom, one to my grandparents, kept one for myself. Now it’s been out in the world for FIVE WHOLE YEARS.

It connected me to people all over the world. It’s got fan art of all sorts. It even lost several awards, which was, surprisingly, very cool.

The five years since have also been busy ones, and I’ve learned a lot in that time.

5 Thoughts 5 Years out from My Debut

1. This is supposed to be fun. It’s writing fantasy, for pete’s sake. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Have fun with your work, have fun with your readers. And if going to the desk isn’t fun anymore, you’ve messed up, and you’ve gotta get back to the heart of it: play. Maybe that means get out of your head about what other people think. Maybe that means get out of your head about what you think. Which leads me to…
2. Show up without expectation. It’s not the same as abandon hope all ye who press enter here. Without hope, it would be difficult to face the gauntlet that is publishing. But you can’t input [X] social media formula and guarantee a hit. You can’t guarantee a “major deal” by chasing market trends. It’s sounds cliche but it’s not really a cliche because no one listens: all you can do is the work and make it the best that it can be. All you can do is do your best to get the word out. The rest is out of your hands. Show up for yourself. Show up for your work. Show up for the people you’re speaking to…even if they don’t know you yet.
3. Be a fan. I had a hard time leaving Twitter, not (just) because so many of my readers were there, but because it was the best place for me to be a fan of things. When people asked me for advice about being online as a writer, I told them the truth: I didn’t have to do “marketing” as they thought it because I was just talking to people who liked the same kinds of books I liked to read. I wasn’t talking to them about my books, I was talking to them about Gideon, or Arcane, or reccing books. I still miss that. But I’m still recommending books, and now I’m obsessed with BeauYasha, if 5 years too late…womp womp. I prefer being loudly enthusiastic about something than trying to get clicks by tearing someone else down.
4. Know when to shut up. You don’t have to wade into every book drama. In fact, you don’t have to wade into any of it. Maybe if people didn’t wade in on the same dramas every time they spun around, there would be fewer of them. Maybe less mess would be generated for clicks. Then again, maybe not. But at least you can protect your peace and be better for it.
5. You have a voice. Use it. This seems counter to the above statement, but it’s unrelated. It means more than you know to stand up publicly for what you believe in. So if you’re out there protecting your neighbors, protesting ICE, fighting for trans rights, speaking out about the Israeli-US warmongering land-grabs in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran, showing up at your councils and school district meetings to fight for education and the right to read—whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. If you’re not, find a wheel you can put your shoulder to. Lives depend on it.

I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who knows the difference between #FuckLuca and #FuckLuca, who has read and recommended and gifted The Unbroken.

Here’s to the next five years of lesbians falling in love and fixing broken things and breaking things that can’t be fixed.

Stay sharp,

C.L.

To say thanks, I have a couple of giveaways:

• 5 lucky people (who live in the US) will win a google play audiobook of The Sovereign, the final book of the Magic of the Lost trilogy
• One very lucky person will win a set of cover art posters—one for each of the books, Tommy Arnolds amazing artwork

All you have to do is comment on this post—which means you do have to be a subscriber to the newsletter, yes.