J. Evan Ramos

On August 25th, it will be the one year anniversary of the publishing of my debut indie novel, The Sacred Datura.

This book had a long and winding journey towards publishing. It originally started as a comic book. I broke my finger playing dodgeball, silly I know, and was unable to draw. I still wanted to explore the story, so I started to write. The first iteration of this book was entitled, Midnight’s Angel: Sam and the Queen of Chaos. It was a different story that served as an allegory on personality types and life. It was fundamentally flawed due to my inexperience with writing. I shelved the story for years.

After I received my Bachelor’s degree, I decided to continue with an M.F.A. in Fiction. I kept the main characters from the previous versions of this story and completely rewrote everything. I had over 80,000 words that I deleted. We had to write a creative thesis for the program. I used that opportunity to write what has become The Sacred Datura.

Even after it was written and edited multiple times, I shelved the book for years because I had little knowledge of traditional or indie publishing. As an effort to finish what I started, almost one year ago, I took a chance and self-published it.

I have been so fortunate for this book to find its audience and receive such positive feedback. I originally decided to self-publish because my book is different and strange. It is fantasy but using Taino mythology as its inspiration. It is queer and Puerto Rican. I knew that marketing such a book would be difficult as it is quite different than many others on the market. That being said, I have no regrets! I have been able to find a wonderful community of indie writers and readers. I have some thoughts and ideas on how to celebrate. I intend to share that information soon!