Spooky Season AND Christmas came early!? - September 23rd, 2025 Newsletter
Hello, readers!
I’ve been getting into the spooky mood of Halloween coming up by watching some horror or horror-adjacent media lately, from various Youtube series (more on that later). 🎃
And yes, I’m not kidding when I said that Christmas is coming early!🎄 I’ve been to a few stores lately and I’m already noticing that there are Advent calendars, gift baskets, and Christmas-themed LEGO sets and outdoor decorations on display! Why is it already in stores so early!? 😱
With October coming up first, however, you probably saw an increase in Halloween-related sales. One of my books is taking part in one of those sales right now!
The Spooky Bundle Sale Continues Until The 28th!
Wanna start Halloween early by reading my murder mystery book, “Engagement To Die For?” 🔍 You’re in luck - it’s included in the Spooky Bundle sale on Itch.io!👻
The Spooky Bundle features 25 ebooks filled with eldritch monsters, witches, and even some cozy ghost stories. This bundle of 25 books can be all yours for $13 USD!📚
“Engagement To Die For” is the second book in the Harlow Mystery series. However, reading Book 1 (“Winner Takes All”) isn’t required reading.
The sale ends on September 28th, 2025, so make sure to get the books before then! Thanks for your support, and happy reading!
What Am I Writing Lately?
Writing the “Sonnets of Autumn” project is still in progress!✍️ At this point in time, Draft #1 is about 33% written. I hope to get that to 40% written by the time of the next newsletter, or even further.
I’ve also been working on the “unlisted WIP” that I mentioned back in my September Writing Update blog post. ✍️ It now also has an “unlisted WIP sequel” that I’m simultaneously outlining.
Fortunately, the unlisted projects are staying as a duology and will not expand into any more books! I’m grateful for this because I have way too many series WIPs on hiatus already.😵💫
There is also something else I started writing…but I’m not going to give details about this one quite yet.
In addition to the above, I also:
Submitted more poems to lit mags and contests to be considered for publication! ✍️
What Am I Watching Lately?
Spooky season came to me early in terms of what I’m watching, because I’ve been watching ApolloTV’s videos on Youtube a lot lately!📺 The general plot of ApolloTV’s videos is that Apollo (the person running the channel) secretly runs extreme experiments on many Minecraft players. 🧪Many of the videos are horror-based or horror-inspired, and I recommend watching the following:
I also started watching Vampires SMP, which is a new Minecraft multiplayer series with 14 content creators taking part!🧛Two creators are vampires and the rest of the group must figure out who it is and get rid of them. Meanwhile, the vampires have the task of turning everyone else into vampires and/or killing them off during the series.
If you’ve watched series such as Hermitcraft SMP, Misadventures SMP and/or Skyblock Kingdoms SMP, you’ll probably recognize some of the people taking part in Vampires. Vampires SMP airs every Sunday on Youtube and it started back on September 14th, so I highly recommend catching up with it right now!
I’ll be honest though: I was shocked to find out that people created so much fanart and even fanfics before this series officially started. It helped that the cast announcements were made a week before the series started (including fancy art of what everyone would look like in-series). However, I’m still in awe of the fandom already emerging for this series!
Additionally, I came across a Minecraft horror series called whitepine. 🌲This scripted Youtube series follows IvoryTV and several other cast members as Ivory starts work as a maid at a fancy estate…only for things to go increasingly haywire when murder occurs. I won’t spoil anything, but I will say that it’s incredibly detailed and so fun to watch!
What Am I Reading Lately?
My recent library book haul was a bit of a bust, so I DNF’d (did not finish reading) plenty of books recently and only finished reading a few…and I didn’t really enjoy reading those books, either.😅
There was one book that saved me from a complete disaster of a library book haul, however, and it’s “Chicka Chicka Tricka Treat” by Julien Chung. If you’ve read “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, you probably already know how the book goes…because it’s basically the same type of story, but with a Halloween theme. “Chicka Chicka Tricka Treat” is one out of a line of books published as companion pieces to the original “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!” I thought it was pretty cute and charming to read overall.
I did just start reading some more new books from the library recently, so I hope those will be entertaining enough to write about in the next newsletter!
Outside of books, however, I read this essay on Substack about being a beginner. I think it has some very thoughtful insights on what it means to begin again, whether it means a new chapter in life or figuring out your own identity. I also enjoyed reading this essay about embracing risks and trying new things.
Also, this essay I read called “I want to do everything, so I do nothing” very much reflects I felt in life lately.
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).