What I’m Building This Fall
For a long time, my creative projects have felt like separate pieces.
There were the books I wrote as Cecily Magnon. There were the coloring pages and now BinderScenes I’ve created through PandaTudePress. Then there were the notebooks, coloring books, and other products I published under the publishing home’s name — 12 Angels Publishing.
Each project had its own purpose, but I didn’t always see how they fit together. I’m seeing that more clearly now.
12 Angels Publishing is truly becoming the home for everything I create. I’m no longer limiting myself and that feels great! That includes my fiction, where I get to build worlds, explore relationships, and follow characters into situations I probably wouldn’t survive myself.
Right now, much of the work is focused on Heart of the Storm, the final book in the Before the Order trilogy. Completing this story has taken longer than I expected, but writing usually does. Sometimes the story changes. Sometimes the characters refuse to cooperate. Sometimes life simply doesn’t leave much room for creative work.
Still, the book is moving forward.
Under PandaTudePress, I’m continuing to create coloring pages and BinderScenes. BinderScenes began as a fun way to give my trading-card binders a little more personality, but then I thought, other collectors may want this! So, I’ve included them in my Etsy shop.
But the bigger part of BinderScenes is that they’ve also become another form of storytelling for me. A card doesn’t have to sit against a plain background. It can become part of a concert, a quiet hillside, a glowing city, or something completely unexpected. I love seeing what happens when the card and the background tell a different story together.
I’m also building a growing collection of notebooks, coloring books, and other low-content books through Amazon KDP. These are simpler projects than writing a novel, but simple doesn’t mean unimportant. A notebook can hold someone’s plans, prayers, ideas, or private thoughts. A coloring book can provide a quiet break during a difficult or exhausting day.
I’m especially interested in creating more products that offer that kind of quiet space.
This fall, I’ll be working on all these areas — but not all at once. I couldn’t handle all that, plus a day job! I would go mad!
That may be the most important thing I’m learning about building a small creative business while working full-time and protecting time with my family. Every idea does not have to become an immediate project. Every project does not have to be completed this month. Progress can be small and still count.
My goal isn’t to turn 12 Angels Publishing into something enormous overnight. I want to build something meaningful and sustainable. Something that gives my different creative interests a place to belong. Something I can continue growing one book, one image, and one finished product at a time.
So that’s what I’m building this fall:
More stories.
More imaginative spaces.
More books that offer people a reason to create, reflect, or simply slow down for a little while.
And, hopefully, a stronger foundation for everything still to come.
Wish me luck. I’ll definitely need it.
