What is your life purpose, your true destiny? Chévre and fig pasties to help you ponder on your goals and dreams

Well, I did not count on staying away from this blog for so long! The year is almost a month long, already, and I can't really say I've been so busy I couldn't even breathe. It's not that. It's not that I didn't have recipes and photos for the blog, either. It's just that in fact, my mind wasn't quite on it, as it has been distracted by plenty of other things. Fatc is getting back to routines after the holidays was rally hard, is being really hard. For the first time in many a year I did take time off, I did slow down my work load, and I did step away, to do nothing more than rest, eat, read, and play endless board games with my loves. And it was EPIC, let me tell you. It was so good to slow down and unwind, to not care about numbers and sales and promos and pushing my books and reaching new audiences and getting reviews and writing more, better, faster. I made a decision last year and stuck to it: was only going to publish one or two books per year. I Am the Night, the fourth novella in the Blood Series Trilogy, was first, followed closely by Avalon Hall. The first was a spur of the moment kind of thing, the second was planned almost a year in advance.

I finished writing Avalon Hall (which is the first instalment on Heir of Avalon trilogy) in 2017. I decided not to publish until the other two books were written, which they were, by 2018. After letting them stew and sit for all that time, I fought with the decision whether to publish or not, because I wasn't on my best mindset last year. I struggled a lot with self-belief and what right did I have to be in this industry, and was on the verge of pulling all my books off and never publishing anything else again. But then something clicked in my head, and my entire frame of mind shifted. Suddenly, I had faith in my work, I believed in my capacities. And so I decided I had to publish the darn thing. I started prepping for it nearly a year in advance, with countless edits and re-writes, tons of graphs made for later promos and advertising, I had my author copy in my hands by the mid of July so I could work on it further, and when October came, all was ready for publishing. In the meantime, I'd written another novella on the Blood Trilogy series, edited, worked on it and published. It was a flop.

And I mean a flop. Which is funny, seeing that in my opinion, that is my best work so far. Those lines, those paragraphs, that book is the best piece of writing I've ever penned down. But it tanked.

Avalon Hall, although it didn't tank, wasn't quite the success I'd been aiming for, or hoping for. It did all right, and has quite a few great reviews. But I think we, as authors, as writers, always feel that the book we're about to publish is going to be THE book that makes us. The breakthrough one, the masterpiece that'll get us all these new readers, all these fans, all these people who are so into our work they make fanart for it. I don't know if that's just me, though, maybe it is. I had hoped, after four years and ten books, either I Am the Night or Avalon Hall to be the ones who'd boost up my sales and my results, the ones who'd get my name out there and find me a host of passionate new readers. Alas, even though I worked my arse off and strived for it, it was not to be. Mind, the results I got were amazing, last year was amazing where it comes to my career, but as the year came to an end, and the new one started, doubt began to creep back in. It's stupid, I know, but it is how it is. Because the sales aren't happening, the reviews aren't coming in, and I find myself asking if maybe this is it. You know, maybe this is as far as I can reach. Maybe I've peaked and now it's all the way down from here. Maybe passion alone is not going to cut it for me, maybe being very passionate about something you do doesn't mean that something is your purpose, your destiny.

My novella Blood has been my best selling book so far, and the one who's garnered the highest number of reviews. And lately, I've been wondering if maybe that was my peak, I reached as far as I was ever going to as a writer when I published Blood. What if being a writer is not what I'm supposed to be doing? What if it's not my soul calling, not my life purpose, my one true dream? What if it's not my destiny? But how does one know for sure if one's following their true path, their dream? I often struggle with that and find myself questioning the decisions I've made lately, namely the ones that led me to becoming a full time writer of books that don't sell. What if there's something else out there for me, something I was supposed to be doing and am not? I once believed food blogging was my calling. Maybe I'm fooling myself again, maybe I'm stopping myself from seeing the reality of what I was meant to achieve, maybe I'm being stubborn when it comes to writing and am sabotaging the chance for something better, something bigger, something that was really meant to be. Because I got it in my head that writing is my true calling. my "mission" and I refuse to consider any other possibility. It's stupid, I know, but bear with me. What if I'm right? I try not to search for vaildation in others, I try not to go seeking approval from other people, but come on, as a published author that approval - from readers, who buy your books and keep on buying, consuming, reviewing and championing them - is necessary. As is the validation from them a necessity. Without sales, without reviews, what am I even doing here? So these are the questions that have been on my mind lately.

To pull myself away from such messy confusion in my head, I go back to photographing food, and books, and coming up with treats. This one was something we baked earlier last month, and it is one of my favourite things to eat. Chévre and fig pasties, laced with honey. It's positively easy to get together, and will leave you all warm and fuzzy eating it. For that, you'll need:

• one puff pastry recipe (get it here)
• one packet of chévre cheese - I used the one that looks like a log
• a few figs - depending on the amount of pasties you make, I used one per pasty
• a drizzle of honey
• eggwash

Start by making the puff pastry according to instructions and allow it to cool in the fridge. Then roll it out on a cold surface, cut into squares the size you want your pasties to be. In the center of each square place a slice or two of cheese and the fig cut into thin slices or medium sized chunks. Drizzle the honey over it, fold the pastry and brush with eggwash. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180º until golden and puffed up, serve warm. Enjoy!