I'm Judging The 2024 Indie Ink Awards! - January 14th, 2025 Newsletter
Happy mid-January, everyone!
2025 is finally here, and with a new year comes a lot of new goals!
There is a LOT I have to cover in this newsletter, so let’s get into it!
I’m Judging The 2024 Indie Ink Awards!
I am so happy to share that I was selected to be one of the judges for WriteHive’s 2024 Indie Ink Awards!
Though my books weren’t nominated for this time around, I am incredibly honoured to have the position as judge. This means that I’ll be reading the 2024 Indie Ink Awards finalists’ books, and scoring them appropriately so all of us judges figure out who wins. It’s also my first judging a book competition, so I’m incredibly excited to take on this role.
Thank you to the Indie Ink Awards organizers for selecting me as judge!
Nominate “Bloody Fantasia” for the 2025 Indieverse Awards!
My book, “Bloody Fantasia,” is eligible to be nominated for 22 CATEGORIES in the 2025 Indieverse Awards!
The nomination period for FREE categories ended incredibly early. Initially, the free categories were supposed to close on January 13th. However, due to the huge amount of submissions, the organizers closed submissions even earlier on January 6th, 2025.
This means that, at this time of reading, you can’t submit my book to be nominated for 16 of those categories anymore. However, the nomination period for Book of the Year & Best Of (paid) categories is still ongoing, and “Bloody Fantasia” is eligible to be nominated for 6 of those categories!
Wondering which Book Of The Year & Best Of (paid) categories my book is eligible for? Check out the list below:
Eligible Paid Categories:
Book Of The Year
Best Bookish Artist (Claris Lam - yes, I designed the cover!)
Best Book Cover
Best Book Media
Best Mystery Novel
Best Self Published Novel
All you need to do is click here to go to the awards page, scroll down the page and enter “Bloody Fantasia” in the forms provided!
Thank you to those who already submitted my book for the free categories. Fingers crossed that “Bloody Fantasia” gets nominated for one of those!
Meanwhile, the nomination period ends on January 31st, 2025 for Book Of The Year & Best Of (paid) categories. Don’t delay with nominating “Bloody Fantasia,” and thanks for your support!
Upcoming Published Books
I wrote about my goals for this year in my January writing progress blog post. Go ahead and read that first if you haven’t read it yet (and come back to this newsletter after you’re done)!
If you don’t want to read it, well…in that post, I announced that I’m releasing TWO books this year!
The first book that I’m releasing this year is my debut poetry chapbook, “Refilling The Well!”
“Refilling The Well” was inspired by my going through creative burnout and recovering from it. I am incredibly excited to share this with you when the time comes!
“Refilling The Well” will be released on February 10th, 2025.
Preorders will be available starting February 1st, 2025, so keep an eye out for preorder links that day.
The second book that I’m releasing this year is “Stay Magical!”
This is a Young Adult (YA) short story collection that’s themed all around magical girls! If you liked magical girl series like Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, and Ojamajo Doremi, then this is for you!
“Stay Magical” will be released in Fall 2025. An official release date, preorder availability date, and cover reveal will be announced later this year!
What Am I Writing Lately?
I spent December enjoying the Christmas holidays. I also spent ample time writing, including drafting an entirely new novel inspired by the open-world dress-up game “Infinity Nikki” (more info on that game in a later section - I promise it’s fun!).
Yes, this means I actually drafted or completed the writing of 18 books in 2024! It’s a lot, I know. I wasn’t expecting to draft an entire book in less than a month, let alone during December, but the inspiration just struck and I had to get it done!
During this January so far, I finished my fourth round of editing “Immortalz,” my standalone isekai sci-fi novel. I intend to focus more on editing already-drafted books versus writing new ones during 2025. This is because there are so many WIPs that I just want to get done first. If you’re wondering exactly how many WIPs I have in progress, well…read the WIP page on my website for full details.
I also started more-regularly submitting poems and short stories to literary magazines to be potentially published again. I missed doing this a lot last year (2024), and I hope to have some more of my work published in lit mags and collections this year. That also means, however, that I need to start writing more poems and short stories so I have ones available that fit upcoming submission calls.
What Have I Done Other Than Writing Lately?
I updated my author website!
I hadn’t updated the overall aesthetic of the website in about three years (back when “Winner Takes All” was published) before then. I’m glad that I finally got around to giving it the new updates it needs!
Along with a new website theme, I also updated both the appearance and information of some pages, including the homepage, WIPs, and so on.
In the past few weeks, I also have:
Done preparations for “Refilling The Well”’s upcoming release
What Have I Been Playing Lately?
For those who don’t know: I enjoy gaming a lot in my free time, and I’ve been influenced and inspired by many games when writing my books! Given this, I figured that it was worth giving some occasional game recs in this newsletter!
Back in early December 2024, an open-world dress up game called “Infinity Nikki” was released. As a long-time fan of dress up games (and I previously played “Love Nikki: Dress Up Queen” from the same franchise), I knew I had to play this one. Not only did I end up enjoying playing the game, but I also drafted a book inspired by the game, as I mentioned earlier in this newsletter! I hope to share more information about this book in the future.
If you love dress up games, but you also want a game with an in-depth storyline and lots of sidequests, “Infinity Nikki” is definitely for you! I’d recommend playing this on a computer if possible because you will do a lot of running around in the game (the player character, not you in real life). There are also ample opportunities to take photos of your player character in various outfits and clothing pieces you collect in-game, which I think is a huge reason why the game got so popular (among other reasons). If you want to play it on a computer, you can download it through Epic Games. (Before you ask: no, this is NOT sponsored, but I just really enjoy playing the game and I know some people prefer playing games on their computers or on a TV screen vs. on their phones).
What Have I Heard Lately?
This time I’m recommending “Deeply Rested,” a podcast hosted by Maegan Megginson.
This podcast’s tagline is “The podcast that helps people doing good work in the world take incredibly good care of themselves.” Megginson regularly interviews guests who discuss mental health, self-care, burnout, burnout recovery, and finding balance between work and other duties and taking care of themselves.
Episodes I recommend include:
Ep. 15: Outsmarting Perfectionism with Amber Petty
Ep. 7: How To Be Busy And Deeply Rested with Lori Cangilla
Ep. 9: Introvert-Friendly Business Strategies with Rachel Cannon
What Have I Been Reading Lately?
I was gifted a copy of “Mothstorm” by Phillip Reeve for Christmas! “Mothstorm” is the final book in the Larklight series by this author, and I enjoyed reading the first two, so I eagerly read this one.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this one as much as the last two books - the plot was a bit slower with pacing, and there was a particular subplot that I didn’t enjoy reading, and (without giving away spoilers) felt like it treaded backwards on one character’s development. Even though I didn’t enjoy reading this book as much as the other two in the series, however, I am glad that I finally finished reading the series after all these years.
Other recent reads include:
“The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas
“The Tea Dragon Society” by Katie O’Neill
“The Revenge Of Analog: Real Things And Why They Matter” by David Sax
“Time Is A Mother” by Ocean Vuong
Thank you for following my writing journey!
I hope you look forward to seeing more of my writing process and work. I also look forward to giving all of you more frequent updates as well, so stay tuned for more!
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at clarislamauthor@gmail.com! I’ll respond within 48 hours (except on weekends and holidays).