K.M. West Creative

Pre-order today! 🤩

Wanna learn more about our mysterious and weird owners? Volume One releases next week in time to celebrate our third anniversary. Preorder today at www.sleyhouse.com

I've got a little yarn of my own sewn into this one! Can't wait for the release😍

Proof arrived today. We’ll have limited copies available at StokerCon. Are you ready to meet and mysterious owners?

19 years ago, I wished happy birthday to a boy in my freshman English and biology classes for the first time without knowing he'd be the one to change my whole life.

I freaking love you, 💖 Happy birthday!

Cozy days and baby snuggles while I work on my future best seller ✒️✔️

So ready to snuggle up and be *horrified* by all my Christmas gifts. 🥰🎄

The little guy and I are looking for books to add fo our Christmas list. Any suggestions? 👀

Did I have plans for today? Of course! Did my oldest ask if we could snuggle up and read Dracula together? SHE DID! Is that what we did instead?!! IT SURE IS 📖📚

Falling back in love with the writer in me 💕

✨️ Mother Goddess ✨️

Pic 1: updated profile photo I took for work after being told I was "all grown up" from my last one. Later, I was told I looked "very Filipino" in it. Later, I decorated it with what feels good to my grown up, Filipina soul

Pic 2: the background, a portrait of Dalikamata by in my office. The foreground, my daughter's "family bracelet" turned (by her) to show her portrait of me.

Pic 3: Moana & her mom, Sina (voiced by fellow filipina, Nicole Scherzinger).

Slowly piecing together this sense of identity that doesn't feel forced or in-between. Telling a new story. Exploring and leaning into my power and strength in this chapter where I am skipping "mom" and running full-force into "Matriarch."

Working on something I love right now and feeling the most like myself that I have in awhile. ✨️

Caught in my natural habitat 💻

Working on my love letter to Shirley and The Haunting of Hill House.

What's your favorite haunted house story?

Hi, I'm K. I'm a real person with a big butt and small children. I write and design covers and trailers for books, which means AI can probably do most of my projects nowadays. But, if you're interested in working with a real person or reading my published work (Wild Things Will Roam), info for all that jazz is on my link tree 🥰

Obligatory check-in: 2 months postpartum and I've written only a little but snuggled a lot 💕

I often think of the exercises we did in High School English, breaking down speeches and identifying logos, pathos, and ethos and how that directly translates to the way I digest advertisements, marketing, and political speeches today. 🙌

That said, as a writer, that 2nd question is the one that haunts my nightmares 😅

How I'm writing these days 🤳
My hands are full but I wouldn’t have it
💙 any 💙 other 💙 way 💙

Things went awry since we last spoke. My son was born happy & seemingly healthy a week and a half ago, only to be rushed to the ER at 36 hours. What followed was a week in the NICU filled with extreme life-saving measures, a likely cerebral palsy prognosis, withdrawal from his medications, and a heavenly host of glow lamps.

But then, by the grace of God and the manifesting nature of the Universe, the scans and the tests all came back normal.

It hasn't quite hit me yet. I'm still in total disbelief that he's not only home but healthy. I keep trying to release the breath I KNOW I'm holding. Time is skewed, and I've wondered more than once if none of this is real, and I've created some robust alt-universe to cope with my devastation a la Wandavision. I'm a broken record whispering, "I can't believe he's healthy," on repeat.

I'm not exactly sure what's changed, but something definitely has. I'm leaning into full-on Molly Weasley mode. There's laundry everywhere. The kids' art is on full display. The living room holds remnants of last night's pillow fort. We are moving forward slowly, non-linearly, and I'm absorbing, welcoming details, imperfections, and noise. The countdown is short; thirteen years left with my oldest at home, sixteen for the middle, eighteen for this latest. Eighteen that I did not think we'd have.

This world is not a cold, dead place. Go make a connection with another human being--there's no greater purpose than that. 💕

33 is the number of years that it takes for the Lunar phase to return to its original position in relation to the Solar calendar. The number of deities in the Vedic Religion is 33. Jesus rose into his greatest power and met crucifixion at 33 years old. 33 is the age at which we will dwell in heaven. Number 33 is a Master Number in numerology,  representing the Master Teacher. It resonates with the energies of compassion, blessings, inspiration, honesty, discipline, bravery, and courage. Number 33 tells us that 'all things are possible'. 33 is also the number that symbolizes 'guidance'.

Today, I'm 33. I'm also 39 weeks pregnant with my 3rd baby, and if there is anything I have learned in this particular part of my journey, it's that every single person exists and arrives for their own purpose. There is no timeline for growth; we are all variable. We start making our contracts for this life long before we are delivered, and we spend the rest of this adventure learning who we are and why we've come.

I spent my twenties starved. I was hungry to reach my goals, pressured by this sense of fleeting time. Then I turned 30 and the world ended. These past three years have reset me, recalibrated me, and helped me to remove from my life the things that don't really matter. The clock is still ticking, but the moments are filled mostly with laughter and hilarity with these tiny people Daniel and I've been tasked with shepherding, each a vibrant mosaic of our extended family. I have the honor of nurturing them. This year, my 33rd year, will be one of beauty and change and pause. The development is quiet. It's still. It's surrounded by loved ones who have stepped up, dug in deep, and weathered the storms with us.

My focus this year is support. Offering it, accepting it. I thank each of you for yours.

💕

Grabbed this from the local library when I went with my daughter before Christmas. I have until tomorrow to finish it, which is exactly what I need to convince myself that I should, in fact, sit down and read a little. 📖

I'm hoping to read more this year. Open to recommendations!

👇👇👇

Creativity is a product of rest, observation, and a quieted mind. This year, I want to step out of the productivity cycle and instead explore the ideas I want, how I want, in whatever way feels best. I think all the advances in AI are really forcing the needle in ways we won't understand fully for a long time, but I'm taking it as a sign to shift my focus.

Commercializing myself and my time has never felt right, but it also led to unintended pressure, deadlines, and a skew in the kinds of projects I work on. I love this stuff, but it's hard to hear my inner narrator when my brain is busy focusing on the right angle, the perfect caption, or the next witty remark. Which platform is best? Where is my audience?

None of that matters. It's my fundamental belief that those who are called to make things will make them. And those who are meant to feed off those ideas will find them. The "audience," whomever they may be, will find you. We're all just processing and digesting the world around us to then manifest our expression of that world. But when our lenses all start to look the same, then it's hard to find that spark that makes the work distinct, the magic that gives creating something its meaning.

This past year, my goal was to be unapologetically myself. This year, it's to become more in-tune with who that person is by welcoming dreams, quiet, visions, love, and warmth, then translate that into whatever feels right. 💕

Happy (upcoming) new year! Thank you to everyone who constantly supports me on this wild journey!

Up & enjoying my "bonus hours" with baby #3. We had an amazing Christmas season with family this year, and now it's time to nest in and prepare for the new babe to arrive in the next 7ish weeks.

Seasons, seasons, seasons. I've finally lived enough of them to see that they really do come and go, and sometimes even come back again. Each of my kids has demanded my attention at 4AM, each has asked me to slow down, and each has needed something different from me.

My projects are like that, too. Lots of questions this year about the next book or the future of the series--it's coming, I promise, but it hasn't been in season. Life has been in season, the world has been in season, and my little ones have been in season. Writing has been a bit like a swimsuit in winter. It still fits, but not quite as well, and it hasn't done as much to serve me. Meanwhile, I've been busy becoming the person I need to be to tell the next part of this story. Liv, Lash, Ander, Carian, Mala, the Fox, Louie--they're all waking me up, demanding my attention, calling me back.

I'm excited to see where this next season takes us. I appreciate your patience on this adventure 💕

The holidays are all about spending time by the fire with the ones you care about.

🎄 Merry Christmas, bookish friends 🎄

"I'll never be this person in this place with this company ever again. Yeah, s**t might be bad--something usually is--but this moment can be perfect if I choose to appreciate it for the magical, fleeting thing it is." - Ander Farrow, Chosen King of Nothing and Nowhere

🖤

Taking my coffee from my car this morning bc I know how cold it's gonna be when I have to actually get out and go inside 😶

But PS I'm writing again, since I guess people follow me for writing updates or something. 🤣

Disappearing down the rabbit hole for the weekend. I'll see you on the other side 🐇

Sometimes it feels like the end of the world out there. Find something that brings you comfort & let that be your rebellion. 🪓

"For a moment, he could shake the fear of the things which hunted them. He didn't realize, of course, how close those demons actually were."

☠️ HAPPY HALLOWEEN ☠️
from Liv, Carian, Ander, and Lash.

Oh, and from me, of course.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"Where things are wild, WILD THINGS WILL ROAM."

Get your hands on something that will keep you up all night 😉☠️

https://kmwestwrites.com/books-links/

Snuck out of my house this morning to let my family sleep in for 🍂 Fall Break 🍂

Actually getting back to work on these books for a little before I go into the office. Wish me luck! It's a lot to wade through 📚

Where things are wild, WILD THINGS WILL ROAM 🪓

☠️☠️☠️

In honor of spooky season, tell us what in WTWR scared you the most?

I'll stop the world and melt with you. ☠️