2025 Year-End Reflection: A Year of Refining Fire, Faith, and Forward Motion
By M.D. Petrocco
If I could sum up 2025 in one word, it would be this: becoming.
Not arriving. Not perfecting. Not finishing.
But becoming, again and again, in ways I never expected.
When this year began, I told myself that I was going to give Moons and Shadows everything I had. Every ounce of discipline. Every late night. Every moment of courage when fear whispered that I wasn’t enough. What I didn’t realize then is that the book would demand far more of me than edits and rewrites. It would ask me to grow. To stretch. To rise. And at times…to break.
And yet, here we are, standing at the edge of 2026, with a momentum I only ever prayed for.
🔥 April–June: Drafting, Refining, and the Shift
By spring, I had stepped into the part of authorship no one warns you about—the in-between.
The tunnel.
Not drafting anymore. Not publishing yet.
Just refining, sharpening, and pouring every ounce of intention into the pages.
This was when I learned what endurance really looked like.
The edits got deeper.
The world building expanded.
Characters like Runa, Izayah, Diesel, Rayanna, and Ashla demanded more honesty from me — and from themselves.
And in the midst of all of this…
I took the first real steps toward narration preparation - making decisions about voice, pacing, character tone, and the sound of the world that was dying to be shared.
This was the season where I realized:
Moons and Shadows isn’t just a book. It’s a world people are meant to walk slowly through. A world meant to be lived.
🌓 July–September: Publishing Milestones & Unshakable Purpose
This summer was a whirlwind.
The FIRST Special Edition
Administrative decisions
ISBNs
Formatting wars
The KDP vs. IngramSpark saga
Price alignment
Author branding
Building the Moonlighters community
And the slow, intentional preparation for Book 1’s final form
It was messy. Beautiful. Stressful. Holy.
I learned that publishing is not a straight line — it’s a battlefield with spreadsheets.
But it was also when the purpose behind all of it sharpened:
This story isn’t meant to be rushed. It’s meant to heal and disorient, to slow readers down, to challenge the way they enter fantasy worlds.
It’s meant to walk with people.
Just like I walked with God.
🌑 October–December: The Home Stretch & The Becoming
The final months of 2025 held everything:
Finishing edits
Moving into refinement
Preparing for narration
Uploading
Reuploading
Fixing formatting
Creating A+ content and Lumis Blooms
Writing alt text
Building character cards
TikTok reels
Blog posts
Reader questions
Discord growth
Cover files
Price shifts with purpose (hello 555 & 999)
Learning to communicate with Amazon systems
And stepping into the version of myself who can launch this story in full
These months were a sanctification by fire—the kind that leaves you different on the other side.
Different…and ready.
💛 What 2025 Has Taught Me
This year taught me:
That discipline is an act of love.
That healing doesn’t happen outside the work — it happens through the work.
That community matters.
That fiction can hold truth.
That God is faithful in every season.
That I wasn’t writing a book…I was building a world.
And that the woman who began 2025 is not the same one writing this reflection.
🌟 Looking Ahead to 2026
2026 will hold:
Final narration preparation
Audiobook production
The full release of Moons and Shadows
Events
New readers
Book 2 momentum
Shadow Guard expansions
The next cycle of growth
New quintessence, new truths, new revelations
And God willing—transformation for every reader who steps into this world
This is the year everything begins.
Everything shifts.
Everything becomes what it was always meant to be.