2025 Update

Well, hello there. Remember me? I still exist. I think.

Life is crazy for a lot of us humans right now. Crazy can be substituted for so many things - busy, scary, sad, wild, happy, terrifying.

But crazy, nonetheless. And here's where I've been:

I took the past year off from writing to figure out what I wanted to do with it, or even if I wanted to get back into it. I've lost some traction, and I'm okay with that. And now, nearly one year after my last author action (removing Kelly James and Julian Gray from publication), I...guess I've made some decisions?

Two years ago last summer, I quit my full-time job to work on writing full-time. The plan was to ghostwrite for others to pay the bills while building up my catalog until I didn't have to ghostwrite anymore.

But you know what they say about plans. You end up with a pile of mice, men, and bad Steinbeck jokes.

Since the growth of self-publishing - and more accurately, Kindle Unlimited - the ghostwriting industry has become a cluster. I met multiple people in programs that were like pyramid schemes for publishers. "How to become a successful published author - and you don't even have to write!" type deals. They wouldn't have plot outlines or even ideas sometimes. I'd get a few tropes thrown at me and told to make it work for much less than any professional ghostwriter would touch. Oh, and "make it steamy, please."

Any romance author knows that "steamy" covers a LOT of ground. Broken Records has been called closed door, fade to gray, and open door. (I myself would call it fade to gray based on the current norm.)

I sometimes wrote 20,000+ words a day and fell asleep on my keyboard. Seriously. I would write a thousand words, fall asleep, wake up twenty minutes later, write another thousand words, and repeat. I was exhausted and miserable and writing stories that I absolutely hated.

And if I did have time to work on something of my own, I had no energy to write. And like my clients, I was starting to focus on tropes and market trends and not on my stories at all. The Unmasking of Kelly James was pushed back three times because I just couldn't write it. I was trying to fill it with those magic tropes and trends and completely lost myself in the process. But I did what I was "supposed to do," even if I wasn't happy with it.

I released The Unmasking of Kelly James when it felt half-finished to me. The Unraveling of Julian Gray was even worse, in my mind. Thank you to everyone who loved them just the same. That gives me hope to keep writing so I can give you a better story.

But after that, I stopped ghostwriting. And I stopped writing.

I took a year and a half off of writing. I got a new full-time job that I love. Oddly, at a time in our history when everything feels chaotic and scary, I now find myself wanting to write again. Correlation, not causation, or however the cliche goes.

As the "joy of writing" comes back to me - and yes, I cringed as I wrote that - I also find that I don't want to stay in one particular genre or pairing. I enjoy most subgenres of romance. I enjoy writing most subgenres of romance. I've got partial drafts of everything from paranormal to why choose/harem. So....I'm not gonna change my pen name. I spent a year writing as many other people -- I'm good with staying one person.

Does that mean that I will have readers who won't read all my books? Yes. I see it all the time. Readers that read Broken Records don't move on to Mother Road. Readers that were reading Kelly and Julian weren't reading Broken Records. I think you can see a little into that trend. As someone who will read any romance as long as the story is good, it's weird for me to compartmentalize them by pairing type.

I've unofficially stated before that all my characters are canonically pansexual unless otherwise indicated, and I think I read other people's books similarly.

(Because really, Cosette and Eponine would have been happier together. But I digress.)

But, I also understand that everyone reads differently, and just because my brain works like that, doesn't mean someone else does. We don't shame anything about the reading process unless it causes shame towards others in return.

What I'm basically saying is that I haven't disappeared. I plan on having books out again, and soon. I don't know if it will be Kelly James first, or something else, but it will be something, and it will be soon.

I will also be more active here on the blog and on my BlueSky account, where I've already been pretty active. @bellechapinbooks.bsky.social, if you're interested. I'll try and update Instagram more. I suck at Facebook. Always have, always will. I'm sorry in advance if that's your main way of getting info. I will try.

As always, a thank you to those who reach out about Lucy and Broken Records. I'm so happy to have created a character who helps readers feel seen.

These are scary times. Love one another. Help one another. And above all, do something that makes you happy so that you can experience the joy that still exists somewhere in the world.

I know I will.