Ten years ago, before the term "romantasy" was thrown around quite so commonly as it is today, I was a fledgling author who loved fantasy but didn't love that most mainstream fantasy I could get my hands on at the time was mainly geared towards men.  So, I took that advice that's handed out so often - write the book you want to read.  And so I wrote The Dragon's Bride, a story about a woman sent by her village as a sacrifice to the dragon gods who ruled over their land.  I wrote a few more books that could have been defined as romantasy, but after two years of writing, I'd given up on success as a fantasy romance writer.

Now it's 2026, and I'm back to seeking old comforts in a world that's far from comfortable.  A few ideas for new novels struck me in quick succession last year, so fast I couldn't keep up.  My brain adores love triangles, and after playing a video game where I found myself in the midst of one that made me kick my feet and giggle,  the idea of writing a novel about a girl in the middle of one hit me so hard that ideas bled right out of me.  I'd already had an idea for a story about a woman needing to go on some kind of journey with men escorting her, but I'd never ironed out the details.  So I did, creating Mira the blacksmith's daughter, Daeron the handsome elf adventurer, and Reed the wizard with a secret, all traveling together on a mission.  But this book, titled Travel Companions, ended up being more complex than I'd anticipated, and as much fun as I was having with it, the story was going to need significant rewrites.  So, I shifted to another story that has been knocking around in the back of my mind for awhile now - Second Calling.  The main character, Lena, ran away from home three times the summer she turned 13, always towards the dense woods behind her home.  She was never able to explain why she ran, and the experience never happened again after that summer.  Now, it's the night of her 30th birthday, and she feels that pull again.  It's a fated mates / rejected mates story, but with a protagonist who's a little older (like I am), who may have missed her "calling."

So with new ideas brewing, I'm left with books I published a decade ago.  The idea of becoming the bride to a dragon god is charming to me still, but I'm sure the writing is atrocious, and I'm honestly too embarrassed to read it again and find out.  I could just leave them up, but someone reading one of my new books and then going back to one of the older ones would surely end up disappointed in the drop in quality.  It was a scary choice to make, but I knew what I had to do.  I had to start over, even if it meant from scratch.  I had to unpublish those old stories and start anew with books I believed in and could stand by.

Starting over is rarely easy, but it was the best choice for me to make.  Here's to 2026 and new beginnings.