Hello, friends!

I hope you had wonderful and joy-filled holidays at the end of 2021! We've started a new year and it's hard to believe it's already begun to be honest!

While right now I admit I would love to make "small talk" about the holidays and how wonderful they were (I hope they were for you too!), I am going to be brave and dive into the heart of the meaning of the title of this email.

At the beginning of this year, I had a moment where I knew it was time to let my fiction writing go.

I don't know all of what that statement means in regard to my future and fictional writing, but I am not going to analyze it. I'm not going to dwell and worry if that means my fictional writing career is over.

It was just a moment of laying in my bed, praying to Jesus, and feeling like it was time to say a hesitant goodbye.

I won't delete my stories that I have or the snippets I've written down and I definitely won't stop thinking of my characters!

But this morning, I read a post from a friend sharing about the saying that we should ring in the new year doing things we want to continue into the new year.

That really resonated with me in light of how I spent my New Year's.

In fact, while this was the most "chillest" way our family brought in the new year, it was also the best. I wouldn't change it because it was exactly where my heart wants to be.

And writing fiction sadly was not part of it and has not been for some time now.

For this upcoming year, when it comes to writing pursuits, I am going to keep pursing the joy of writing faith-based articles that center around anime and/or manga on Beneath the Tangles and devotions for Finding God in Anime: A Devotional For Otakus for as long as I'm allowed to do both. (I also want to add writing manga reviews for Clean Fiction Magazine and general reviews on Goodreads and other platforms, even if that is different than the previous.)

So, I wanted to share that little bit with you friends. You may not see any personal writing updates from me for a long time, Gathering Faith or otherwise. I realize that might be very disheartening to hear because so many of you have expressed such excitement for my story ideas and manga that on more than one occasion, I have cried from your support.

It is because of that support I wanted to send this newsletter even though I know it does not match the excited goal-making atmosphere right now.

Truly, thank you so much friends for all your support, love, and encouragement! I know this is not the end, but again, if you don't hear as much from me this year, it's because of a…I want to say change of direction, but that doesn't feel right.

I think it is more of walking a road of discovery and finding out where it will lead.

To wrap up this email, I do want to share that submissions of volume two of Finding God in Anime will be opening this January!

The submissions period will be from January 15 to February 15 and we would love to have you submit if you're interested! You can find the guidelines on my website and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me or my co-partner Moriah Jane!

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Friends, I am so thankful for you! I pray that 2022 would be your own walk of personal discovery and growth as well as rekindling of past joys! (Fun fact: Years before I started writing fiction for the first time, I wrote devotionals on my first blog called Crafty Booksheeps. Talk about coming full circle!)

May you each be deeply blessed and should you like to hangout and here me gush about my obsession for Haikyu!!, enamel pins, and clean manga in general, I would love to still hangout over on Instagram and YouTube!

All my love,

Laura A. Grace