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A Heartfelt Valentine’s Message

Happy Valentine’s Day to all my wonderful readers and followers! Today isn’t just about roses, chocolates, and romantic dinners (though I fully support all of those); it’s also about taking a moment to appreciate the connections, kindness, and love that make life truly special.

As a writer, I spend a lot of time in my own head—crafting stories, dreaming up characters, and chasing plot twists. But what brings those stories to life is you. Your support, encouragement, and enthusiasm make this journey so rewarding. Whether you’ve been here since day one or just discovered my work, you’ve made a difference in ways you might not even realize.

So today, I want to take this opportunity to share my gratitude. You’re the heart of this journey, and I’m so thankful to have you along for the ride. Wishing you peace, love, and a sprinkle of joy—not just today, but every single day.

May your Valentine’s Day be filled with the little things that make you happy—whether that’s a good book, a cozy cup of tea, a sweet treat, or simply a moment to yourself. And may every day moving forward bring you the kind of love and connection that make life beautiful.

Thank you for being here, for believing in my stories, and for making this writing adventure so fulfilling. Here’s to more tales, more connection, and more moments of joy in the year ahead.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Behind the Pages: The South African Influence on My Writing PART V


For those unfamiliar, I am a writer from South Africa. Born here and raised here.

Over the course of 5 posts, potentially more, I’ll share about me behind the pages. I will discuss what influenced me as a writer. I will also share how being South African influenced my writing.

The future of Anne, the writer

I love self-publishing. I love the freedom to dabble around with the technology available to writers today. There are some ‘old’ platforms and resources that most US and UK writers are completely used to, that’s not even available for writers from South Africa. It adds a little level of complication to publishing and getting to my readers but I love learning. And I will be playing the long game.

Currently my series of sweet historical romances in The Unknown Series, are floating around Amazon and soon to be everywhere else. I’m not quite sure where my audience loves to read so I’ve started there. It’s been a game of thirds: one third is reading on Kindle Unlimited, one third pre-ordered it from Amazon and one-third pre-ordered directly from my authorshop. Time will tell I suppose.

In the TIMELINE blog post I kinda showed my double-mindedness in admitting that I am a writer by building and changing and closing and starting up various platforms on social media. Oh, the following I’ve lost!!! It took me forever to accept that there is a way to write. I am very lucky that my husband actually supports my endeavor.

I’ve always loved writing the shorter formats out there, hence my collection of short stories in a mush mash of genres of which the bundle is available only on my website. In the future I will be releasing short stories in Kindle Unlimited. Possibly exclusively there. Patreon will see the rest of my short stories.

I have so many story ideas and so many genres that interest me that I decided to release romantic adventures through Ream in serial format until it’s complete. I will do the same with the cozy mysteries through Patreon that’s in the pipeline as well. And then use Wattpad for the young adult series I’ve been postponing. The word count for these books will be more genre-specific with the romances about 40k words, the cozies to as high as 70k words and the young adults to about 30k words. Each story will tell I suppose. Patreon and Ream will allow me to save up money for editing and possibly book covers after which I will release it everywhere books are sold, including my author shop directly.

I love writing. It’s no pain for me to write a minimum of 2k words a day. I do however find it boring to write 2k words in one story. And since my interest and story ideas are sprinkled over various genres, story lines and themes, I figured I’ll split it up in this way. That way I get to write every day in a structured form and my readers get regular material to read and comment on.

On this blog and on Substack, I will put the musings… I’m super curious and love exploring new ideas. I would like to share the background of the books and stories I’ve written. Maybe all of the stories, maybe some of the stories, maybe the background on the settings, or maybe just updates. If there’s something you would like, please let me know. I’d happily oblige if it’s in line with my own interests or just something that’s fascinating.

**I promised myself to keep blog posts to no more than 500 words so I’ll end this post here.

Thanks for reading. Look out for the next post in this series where I’ll go into a little bit more detail about my writing

Cheers!

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