Blog - Kristian, Writing

You might have noticed that I changed my name from Kristian Wilson to K.W. Colyard on social media. In case you haven’t heard, surprise! I got married. Having decided to take my husband’s name, I’m now going by my new moniker in most places, including Twitter, Instagram, and Bustle.

A lot has changed for me in these last few weeks — and I don’t just mean my marital status — and now those changes have affected my web presence in general, and this blog in particular. This post will give you a road map for the path ahead here. Thanks for being here with me, and here’s to what’s just over the horizon.

Note: This is a longwinded blog post. Skip to the end for the tl;dr.

New Names All Around, or Who Is K.W. Colyard?

So it finally happened. And by “it,” I mean everything. I finished grad school. Got a promotion. Signed on as an adjunct at my alma mater. And I got married to the absolute love of my life.

I decided to do something I honestly never thought I would — take my husband’s name. When I publish on Bustle and elsewhere, my bylines now read “K.W. Colyard.” On Facebook, I’m Kristian Wilson Colyard, which is the same name you’ll find in my email signature, as I do still go by “Kristian,” in spite of the decision to use my initials.

That email signature, in turn, will no longer come from kristianwilsonwritingATgmailDOTcom, and my website — as you may have noticed — is no longer hosted at kristianwilsonwritingDOTcom. Instead, I’m now using the shorter kristianwritingATgmailDOTcom, and kristianwritingDOTcom. I’ll also be shortening my website name to Kristian, Writing from Kristian Wilson, Writing.

All of this brings my website and email address in line with my social media handles, and also makes my email/URL a lot shorter to type and harder to fuck up. Trust me, hardly a day has gone by in the last five years that I haven’t wished I had a shorter email. And now, well, today’s the day!

So basically, if you’re looking for me online, just search kristianwriting, and I’ll probably be there.

Branding and Re-Branding

Up until now, this blog has been home to my book reviews and writing tutorials, as well as a few reading roundups. At one time, I kept track of all my publications, in meticulous, MLA-formatted detail, but I eventually made the decision to make better use of my time by linking out to my writing profiles on various websites. My insincerest apologies to anyone who actually wanted an impossibly long list of citations to scroll through.

I’ve found myself wanting to delve deeper into video game and general fandom writing, but have felt as if my work writing about books — which I love, don’t get me wrong here — eclipsed and buried that career path somewhere along the way. That hasn’t stopped me from sharing nerdy things on my social media channels, but I’ve written very little outside of books, both here and elsewhere, for the last two years or so.

Yesterday, I had an epiphany, thanks to DIY MFA star Gabriela Pereira. I was reading her “Alpha-Blog Soup” article from the May/June 2018 issue of Writer’s Digest, and her suggestions for what writers of fiction and memoir should blog about struck me. From the article:

[I]f you write romance, you’re likely to find readers hungry for classic ‘Happily Every After’ endings. Think about sharing content that taps into that core emotion. You could write about real-life romantic anecdotes from the lives of you and your friends. You could publish a list of the ’10 Most Underrated Rom-Coms.’ You could employ humor and share ‘worst date’ stories or funny dating advice. And if you pen historical romance, all that juicy research you’ve done could lead to roundups like ‘Worst Victorian Pick-Up Lines’ or ‘Best Lines From World War II Love Letters.’
Pereira, Gabriela. “Alpha-Blog Soup.” Writer’s Digest, vol. 98, no. 4, 2018, pp. 22-25.

Now, I am not a romance writer, and I probably never will be, in spite of my love for Jane Austen and the Brontës. But I realized that I had already built — to quote my Twitter bio — “nerdy shit” into my online presence, by virtue of sharing countless Dungeons & Dragons memes, video game reviews and announcements, and snippets from my time playing board games. Pushing that content onto Kristian, Writing‘s editorial calendar — such as it is, y’all, I know it’s been a while — wouldn’t be that big of a leap.

So what does all of that mean for you, as a reader?

In addition to getting your book reviews and writing guides, same as always, you’ll also start to see posts related to D&D, video games, and board games pop up here on Kristian, Writing. As I’m currently working on a sci-fi project, you can expect to see more sci-fi content, as well.

Kristian, Writing on Social Media

I haven’t been the best self-promoter, admittedly. Part of that is due to Facebook’s refusal to allow post scheduling from third-party apps, and part of it is due to my own time constraints. As a result, I’ve been losing and gaining one Twitter follower for the last few months or so. I don’t have the social media following I’d like to have, and that sucks.

I’m going to start doing what I can to post quality content here, and to share my articles — from Kristian, Writing and Bustle, in addition to other outlets — on Facebook and Twitter. If there’s anything you’d like to see more of, or see more frequently, drop me a line below to chat about it.

TL;DR

I’ve changed my name, as well as the name of my website. I’m rebranding to include more nerdy content, in addition to the book reviews and writing tutorials you’re used to seeing here. I’m also trying to increase my social media following, so get ready to see a lot more of my articles heading your way on Facebook and Twitter.

If you want to help, just like and share. If you want alerts every time I publish something here, sign up via email below. Either way, thanks for being here.