Amy Laurens's Blog, page 8

Restarting With Gratitude Seems Apropos

It’s Friday, and it’s the first of March, which means that a) it’s a Friday Favs kind of day, and b) I’m back to blogging again (at least for now, we all know how this goes :D). So! Expect mostly week-daily blogging again (you can sign up to get posts delivered straight to your inbox!), with a bunch of exciting updates on my books for 2024 (there will be four of them!!) – and in the meantime, let’s kick the month off with some gratitude!

Right now, I’m grateful for:

My new water bottle,...

My Next Book Has A Cover!

Hurrah! If you’ve been following along on my Instagram stories, you’ll have seen snippets of Touchstone over the last ~10 months, the urban fantasy novel I’m currently working on. WELL. IT IS NEARLY FINISHED AND NOW THERE IS A COVER.

AND not only is there a cover, there is also a BLURB!!!

Kayla’s Touch – her magical, involuntary ability to discharge fatal energy from her hands every few days – often lands her in hot water. None so hot as a meeting with her estranged sister though, esp...

Paranormal Species have been RELEASED INTO THE WORLD!!

Yay!!! On The Origin Of Paranormal Species, my darling lil non-fiction book about the history of seven key paranormal creatures, is OUT TODAY! Don’t meander, RUN to your nearest store (online) to grab your copy, if for no other reason than that the cover is just So! Dang! Pretty!

Why do werewolves transform with the moon? When did mermaids get their tails? What sinister history underpins the goblin? 

Uncover the answers to these questions – and more! – in this collection of seven essa...

Friday Favs

Trying to bring this gratitude practice back into my online work, as well as just my online journalling Here’s what I’m loving this week:

My new kettle, which has temperature controls so you can set it right for green tea and so forthMy Instagram feed, which, with the help of the darling Jacqui at White Deer Graphic Design, now looks so so so so prettyMy garlic is sprouting! Even the bulbs I planted only a couple of weeks ago already have green tips peeking through the mulch and le...

Writer Wednesday: Causes of Writer’s Block

Welcome to Writer Wednesday, one quick tip to improve your writing weekly. Today’s topic is writer’s block!

For me, there are usually three reasons for this.

Number one, I have done something wrong, and in that case, it’s a matter of backing up to the last point in the story where the writing felt easy and basically just rewriting from there.

Number two, it could be that I am actually just flat exhausted. In that case, it means that my creative well is basically sucked empty and I ne...

Friday Favs

It’s supposed to have been a short week this week but it sure doesn’t feel that way I’m hitting Friday evening pretty exhausted after a week of poor sleep – but! I have a relatively clear weekend so sleeping in will be a Thing and hopefully that will help

In the meantime, here’s what’s been keeping me going.

Things I’m grateful for today:

T2 Terrific Toffee black tea. Sweet and creamy but LACTOSE FREE. *drools happily*Sunshine. Sure, it means I need to remember to actually WAT...

Phew – Pretty Much Done

Welp, the website is functional again and the restructure is complete! Now, if you go to the Books menu, you’ll see options to browse by AGE category (middle grade, young adult and adult) as opposed to LENGTH category – and you can select from various novel worlds or short stories etc on the appropriate age-category page. Complete with really pretty graphics! Woo hoo!

Also there is a proper home page, not just my bio, phew!

Hmm. What else is new?

I’ve started Irish dancing again, whi...

Moving Things Around – You Probably Should Subscribe, Just Saying.

The website is in a state of disarray, my bio is functioning (tenuously) as the home page, and the shop keeps telling me I have nothing for sale, despite the fact that you can still purchase books from their individual pages. *all the eye rolling*.

I’m working on it, but I’m doing it all solo, in between all my other Regular Daily Tasks, so it’s going to be a slow process In the meantime, I recommend either subscribing to get post updates in your inbox or subscribing to the sporadic-but-kin...

Brain Hacks for Productivity, How to Figure Out Your Priorities, and My Thoughts on AI in the Arts

The delightful Barney from StoryComic had me on his show again this week Grab a box of chocolate or something and eat one every time you see me make a list on my fingers in this episode, oy and vey.

Topics we ramblingly cover include:

Brain hacks for productivity I’ve developed after realising we had ADHD in the family – these are applicable for everyone! How to figure out what your priorities are, and coming to grips with the fact that you’ll always have more ideas than you have ti...

Oh, Such A Pretty Newsletter!!

So as part of all this rebranding and prettifying work I am doing (partly behind the scenes and partly, let’s be honest, literally ON the scenes), my newsletter has had a make-over! I am EXTREMELY happy with how it’s turned out, and you can take a peek at the edition I sent out this morning (without having to subscribe) right here.

Of course, if you DO want to subscribe, you can do that too. In THEORY I aim to send one out a month but IN THEORY I also aim to blog here 3 – 5 times a week and ...