THE FIRST EVER BLOG

Hello! If you're reading this then you're currently reading my first ever blog!

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to come here. In case you haven't looked through my website already, I'll briefly introduce myself here and go over some of the things I'd like to include in these blogs, as well as talk a little about this website.

My name is Kennan and at the time of writing this, I am seeking agents to represent me in the hopes of traditionally publishing my debut novel, Sins of Ash. I started querying agents in the middle of March 2024 and as I'm wading through the trenches, I thought it would be a good idea to finally start having an online presence as an author. To start that process, I decided to make a website (my very first!)

Something that might interest you is the fact that I didn't use any other website or platform, like WordPress, to build this one. Instead, I decided to code the entire thing myself. That meant learning html and css through YouTube tutorials and a lot of googling. Every piece of text you see here, every image that is aligned, etc. were all organized by me. It's not perfect, and almost certainly not written the best, but seeing the finished product and knowing that I did all this fills me with the warm fuzzies inside.

This process is not something I would recommend to most writers, simply because it's largely unnecessary with the many resources out there that can build you a website or help you build one for free, but it was a process that I enjoyed nonetheless. I hold a degree in Aerospace Engineering and throughout all of college spent a lot of time coding, primarily in Python, and continued that in my actual job. For me, coding is another form of writing; I enjoy the process of writing code and making it better as much as seeing the results of the code. For that reason, I was interested in learning web development, or at least a small portion of it, and after some initial research realized that coding my own website would not be the monumental task I originally thought it would be. Html and css are not difficult to learn if you have a coding background and I highly recommend this YouTube playlist if you're interested in doing the same.

The website will contain information about me and my books, as well as offer, for free, sample chapters for you to read. The blogs will be my way to talk to people in a longer format about various topics that interest me. You might find me here talking about my book, the inspirations behind it, and writing in general. I'll also include book reviews, general/bookish updates, and perhaps the occasional random discussion that is sci-fi fantasy related. As far as I'm aware, everything about the website works, but I plan to make improvements and updates as needed.

If it wasn't immediately obvious, I'm at the beginning of my authorial career. I'm definitely no profession and I'm playing a lot of this ear, but I'm having fun. That's the important thing to keep in mind. I love writing and storytelling and it's fun to share these passions with others. As exciting as it would be to be a full-time, best-selling author (that is the goal), that's not the reason for any of this. Keeping that in mind, I'm not going to promise something like 2-3 blog posts per week or highly analytical and lengthy analyses of certain books. I don't think I would enjoy that. Instead, I'll write when I have something I want to talk about or have updates to give. The most successful stories are born from a passion within people whose minds cannot bear the thought of keeping these to themselves.

That's about all I have at the moment. The next blog will either be a book review or a discussion about my book, I think. If you made it this far, know that I appreciate you. Our time is finite and precious and it means a lot that you're willing to spend some of that here with me. I hope to get my books out to you soon. Take care.

- Kennan Hodovic