Am I the Boring Author of the Group?

Hey, readers, Angola Hone here.

I’m boring.

Hence, I've been on a bit of an online hiatus. I’d love to excuse that on making outstanding progress on my books. Which are not boring. And I could. 

The Canid Chronology Book Three’s draft has topped 130k words, about 85% complete, and my upcoming 2026 Christmas release, The Eve a Saint First Raced, is barreling through the last bits of the editing phase (with a cover design by @Nalakbel on Instagram almost finished too!).

With all this work going on with my stories, I’ve been rather lethargic about posting, well, anything on social media platforms.

Mainly, thanks to how boring I am. 

When I look at most author pages online, the most successful all seem to blend together. Indie authors on Instagram are upbeat, quirky, and all smiles.

I’m none of those things. Introverted in the non-quirky way. I don’t get out much. I don’t have many friends. Writing fantasy is my way to make life more interesting for myself and people like me. So I don’t really have anything new to post about.

Or so I thought.

Between drafting and editing these past few months, I’ve been blessed to have several readers reach out to me about The Canid Chronology series. These new fans have been such a bright spot during the work grind. They’ve really made my day several times.

And all of them have been aspiring independent authors, asking me for advice on how to self-publish books.

Me? Angola Hone? My most interesting personal trivia is my name, which isn’t my real one, but a pen name that eleven-year-old me came up with (not realizing that it’s a little weird to name yourself after an African country when you’re a white dude from the suburbs). But here come these readers, these fellow struggling creatives, requesting advice?

Honestly, that terrified me at first.

I’m not a wildly successful indie author. Not yet. Why should I be giving anyone advice when I still work a part-time job to stay afloat? My first responses to these folks, while informative, were riddled with backtracking. None of that super uplifting advice you typically see online. “Oh, this is just what I’ve been doing, but it might not work the same for you (and some of it hasn’t been working for me at all actually, so don’t try these bits).” As we went along, though, and I got more excited about sharing the ins and outs I’ve learned over the past two years, some of that terror melted away. I became naturally more upbeat.

None of the conversations were boring. Truth is, I love gabbing about self-publishing.

It struck me then, that maybe my resistance to posting wasn’t so much of a “boring” problem as it was a “confidence” problem.

I’m an introvert. Indoors feel safe. I tend to overanalyze instead of making friends. Writing is my way of feeling in control of things.

Taking these realizations to God (and to paper), I understand that I need to stop accepting the lie that I’m boring. After all, how will anybody trust a boring author to tell a tale?

The books are still the main thing you’ll hear about from me. Months of work are bringing them to you soon. But I’m going to start letting my thoughts out a little more. To try some things that are a little new.

If you’re struggling with the same boring issue, even outside of social media, maybe you just need to find what you like to do and share it with like-minded people. 

It may turn out to be something of an adventure!

~Angola Hone