Hello Lovely, Thank you for stopping by and hanging out with me for a bit. Today I want to talk about the Summer After Sunset launch so grab a drink, grab a snack, and get comfy because this may be a long one 💚
When I first started planning Summer After Sunset, I had a timeline... A two-week timeline because for most of this year I honestly haven't been able to find my spark. I searched high and low for the inspiration that used to come as easily as breathing, but life just had other plans.
The launch was supposed to happen on June 13th (the date that Salient Books was originally supposed to go live in 2023). Products would be finished. Graphics would be posted. Everything would be ready to go all at once.
At least, that was the plan.
Life had other ideas.
Some projects took longer than expected. Some designs changed entirely. New ideas appeared halfway through. Other things needed to be set aside and revisited later. Somewhere along the way, the carefully planned timeline I had imagined stopped looking anything like reality.
Because as life would have it, redrawing every single Inkhaven character that I've created since 2024, updating every variation of Furfur, designing and launching new products, mixing 30 custom paints for more than 20 exclusive sprayed edges, updating the catalog I've been building since 2023, and refreshing every listing in the shop is a lot for a one-person team.
Honestly, it borders on impossible.
I tried giving up sleep, eating, and even drinking so I had little to no break between being a mom and being a shop owner (completely unhealthy by the way, please for the love of books, never do this) to make it all miraculously happen, but I still missed the mark.
For a while, that bothered me. I started panicking about getting it all done on time, minimizing how much I did get done because it wasn't finished, and eventually... well it all became so overwhelming that depression and doubt started sneaking in again...
As creators, I think many of us feel pressure to hit every deadline, meet every expectation, and present finished work as if it appeared effortlessly. We see the final product and forget about all of the sketches, revisions, mistakes, late nights, and unexpected detours that happened before it existed and comparison gremlins just love to see social media and feed imposter goblins all the things that we shouldn't listen to, sending us into the Cursed City of Doubt.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized something.
Summer After Sunset was never really about schedules.
It was about the moments that left an impression. The best summer memories rarely happen because everything went according to plan. They happen when a conversation lasts longer than expected. When you stay outside just a little later to watch the fireflies. When you take the long way home. And when laughter carries through the evening air. When a simple moment becomes a memory, you carry with you long after summer ends... Those moments aren't scheduled.
They happen like perfectly timed little plot twists that no one expected and that's what makes them memorable and worth the detour.
So, in a strange way, this launch ended up reflecting its own theme.
Instead of arriving all at once, Summer After Sunset is unfolding slowly. Piece by piece. Story by story. Illustration by illustration. Like a summer evening that lingers a little longer than expected. Every day I sneak something new onto the shop to be discovered (including things like this blog and author interviews).
And maybe that's okay.
Maybe some things aren't meant to be rushed.
The heart of Summer After Sunset hasn't changed.
It's still about connection.
It's still about wonder.
It's still about finding joy in small moments.
The path here simply looked different than I expected.
And if there's one thing I've learned while building Salient Books, it's that creativity doesn't always move in straight lines. Sometimes ideas need to branch off and expand before the roots are exposed to give us our spark back. Sometimes life asks us to slow down and sometimes the story we're trying to tell teaches us something before it's ready to be shared.
Summer After Sunset wasn't supposed to look like this.
But perhaps it became exactly what it was meant to be.
And honestly?
I think that's a little magical because small steps still lead to big progress and sometimes the journey itself teaches us way more than the destination ever could.
Thank you for taking the time to sit with me, explore my thoughts, and for visiting the shop today. It truly does mean so very much and I appreciate you more than words can describe.