Endings, Beginnings, and the Stories in Between

For the better part of the last several years, The Woods was a huge part of my life.

What started as a job became something much bigger. It became late nights answering emails, weekends spent planning events, endless social media posts, vendor applications, tours, contracts, and phone calls. It became friendships, memories, and a place I genuinely cared about.

It became part of my identity.

Walking away wasn't easy.

There are still moments when I instinctively think about something happening at the venue before remembering that it isn't my responsibility anymore. There are events I helped build that I won't be part of. Traditions I helped create that are now continuing without me.

That's a strange feeling.

When you spend years pouring yourself into something, it's impossible to separate the work from the emotions attached to it.

I had to force myself to ask: What comes next? What now?

The honest answer is that I've spent a lot of time grieving. Not necessarily because leaving was the wrong decision, but because even the right decisions can hurt. The reality is that closing one chapter leaves a lot of empty space behind, and empty space can be uncomfortable.

But it can also create room for something new.

I've spent countless hours working on Shadowed Truths, the second book in The Chronicles of Fate. Progress has been slower than I originally hoped at first, but now I'm close to the end and almost ready for beta readers (super exciting!).

Life has a way of interrupting even the best intentions, and chronic illness certainly hasn't made things easier. Still, chapter by chapter, scene by scene, the story has continued to grow.

For the first time a while, I've been able to devote meaningful energy to writing again. Despite the way my sudden free time emerged, being able to write more has been a gift.

Writing has always been where I process life. It's where I make sense of grief, uncertainty, hope, and change. Whenever life becomes overwhelming, I inevitably find my way back to stories. This time has been no different.

At the same time, another idea has quietly begun taking shape.

Publishing Marked by Fate taught me far more than how to write a book. It taught me about editing, formatting, distribution, marketing, launch planning, and the countless moving pieces that exist behind every published novel. What surprised me most wasn't how much work goes into publishing a book, but how much I enjoyed that business side of the publishing equation.

I've wanted to own my own business for as long as I can remember. Ever since graduating high school, I've explored different ideas and different paths, always searching for something that felt like the right fit. Something that combined my creativity, my love of planning and organization, and my desire to build something meaningful.

Somewhere between writing Marked by Fate, building an author platform, and figuring out how to navigate everything from websites to distribution channels... I realized I genuinely loved this side of the industry.

The building.

The planning.

The strategy.

The possibility of helping creative people bring their stories into the world. That realization became Riley Publishing Studios.

Right now, Riley Publishing Studios is still in its earliest stages. The vision is simple: helping independent authors navigate the publishing journey while preserving the thing that matters most—their creative voice. Long-term, I hope to grow it into something much larger. Every story starts somewhere.

For now, I'm building one chapter at a time.

Much like Shadowed Truths.

Much like Marked by Fate before it.

Much like my own life.

Losing The Woods was not the ending I expected when this year began. But sometimes the chapters we don't choose are the ones that lead us exactly where we need to go.

These days, my time is spent writing, planning, dreaming, and building. I'm finishing a novel. I'm building a publishing studio. I am allowing myself to be excited about what's next.

The future looks very different than I imagined, but maybe that's okay. Maybe that's where the best stories begin.