2019 Year In Review - Looking Back, Pressing Forward

When I was getting ready to write this post, the first thing I thought was: "Gosh, 2019 flew by in such a rush that I don't think I had enough time to do anything! How in the heck am I going to come up with a Year in Review post?"

Come to find out, after some scrolling though my blog, it turns out that I did accomplish a few things! Yay for progress and productivity!

Here's a look back at 2019 and the highlights of my fictional and real-life Red Valley life...

I revitalized my YouTube channel and posted Book Trailers, Moment of Zen videos, Hump Day Hunks and had fun with Cover Reveals. And my first full year on Instagram had me "Choosing Courage" and sharing 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me.

Between posting Cheap Date Night Ideas and Book Playlists,your burning questions about writing romance and which character I'd rather be stranded on a desert island with were answered.

On the writing/book front, I opened the corral, swatted Ice Cowboy on the rump and sent it out into the world. After putting her story on the backburner for far too long, I did Revecka Zee justice and gave her the kind of romance that made her uncomfortable, anxious and excited and had her quaking in her cute little peeptoe shoes. And I dove back into the steamy world of erotica and Rock and a Hard Place was the adventurous, hot-flash-inducing result.

And, in between writing books about mouth-watering men who look fantastic with their shirts off and on the bedroom floor, I managed to do some traveling and hiking, and also started a new website called Wildflower Wednesday for all my wonderful wildflower sightings. (How in that world was that domain name still available?! You know I snatched that puppy up as fast as I possibly could!)

Whew! And I thought I'd been a no-good bum all year! Nope, no couch potato here!

2020 is ready to launch itself out of the gate, so I'm rollin' up my sleeves and ready to take it by the pointy little horns! Are you with me? Let's make some new memories, continue to spread nothing but positivity, and create some more things we can be proud of.

Off to the races,
Rachelle Vaughn

    

Merry Christmas from the Vaughn family!

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Christmas Eve 2019

Merry Christmas!

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Hugs, kisses, and best wishes!

Winter Solstice 2019 ❄ Bargain Romance Book Bundles

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It's officially the first day of winter!

Stay cozy and warm with some sexy bargain book bundles...

Thorne Creek 2-book Romance Bundle

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The Bad Boys of Hockey Trilogy Bargain Bundle Box Set

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Some of Me
Me Series, Stories 1-5

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How to gain followers on Instagram...

That was the first thing I Googled when I decided to finally spring for a shiny new Instagram account one year ago. And you know what I learned? There are tons of articles about how to represent yourself by posting uniform content and using the same filters so that people will easily recognize your brand. Also, posting at a specific time of day when people are most likely to see your content is another tip I came across over and over again.

And you know what I thought about those suggestions? No freakin' way. The thought of using the same color schemes and filters just so my page will look uniform and "pleasing" makes me want to cringe. I want to post whatever I want, whenever I want. If that means I don't gain thousands of precious followers, then so be it. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing or what I'm "supposed" to do in order to become popular. I'll do it my own way, thanks, because it's my account and my name's the one on it.

I want variety. I hate it when everything is uniformly the same. Variety is my whole motto, especially when it comes to writing. When I wanted to write something clean and wholesome and all about young, innocent teenage love, I wrote Falling Awake. When I wanted to write something action-packed and full of gory bloodshed after watching Game of Thrones, I wrote Hockey Gods. Sure, I could have written these departures from the Contemporary Romance genre under a different pen-name, but I didn't think I should have to. If you like my writing, it shouldn't matter what in the world I'm writing about. I guess I'm just complicated like that.

Anyway, back to the Instagram thing. Now that I've been posting for my first full year, I look back at my feed and I like seeing the variety of content there. In fact, I love seeing that it's not all the same "perfect" photos because that's not what I'm all about. I might not have gained thousands, or even hundreds of followers in the last year, but that's no big surprise to me. I didn't win any popularity contests back in high school and I'm not shocked that my only-ever-positive thoughts and posts aren't a big hit on social media now.

So, come on over and check it out. You won't find photo after filtered photo of me posing with my back to the camera while I stare out at some exotic location. You'll find all kinds of things, from writing tips to pics of my adorable cat to quotes from my books and close-ups of my backyard flowers. It's real and it makes me happy and I can't see the point of doing social media if I've got to be all systematic about it.

Let's follow each other, be unique and true to ourselves and live happily ever after! Who's with me?