iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Explored and written 4 openings between 11/2 & 17, non-stop thought about it, written in my head, discussed with my love / writing partner, and made notes for many more, to better understand and convey to our readers the true promise of the novel. #thiswildandsoulfullove #sapphic #romance #writing

IMG: Moon, a magical cat, in front of the Mystic Emporium from This Wild & Soulful Love. Image made in Canva Pro; no AI involved. The image is a detail of a larger, colorful composite of the world of This Wild & Soulful Love: A gray and silver tabby in front of a shop with a pink and beige awning, surrounded by trees. A sign in the window reads "Love Lives Here." Seattle Skyscrapers can be seen in the distance.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

I rarely make statement about what ppl should or shouldn't do, but this one seems like a sound question anyone can ask themselves about their cast of mind: contempt or contentment? . . . #love #understanding #peace #peace #healing #positivevibes #helpingothers

A sign with a garden fence and pink and purple flowers spilling over the top. The words are: contempt - "the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn. Or? Content - in a state of peaceful happiness. Eg: "they seemed more content, less bitter."

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Yeah, the world is kinda unhinged right now. But hope isn’t fairy dust. It makes the heart more loving, lighter and stronger. . . . #love #positivity #romancebooks #hopepunk #thiswildandsoulfullove

The word "hope" in pink on a white background. An outstretched arm, holding a poppy makes the "o" in hope.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

As writers, it's important that we keep thinking outside the bot.

A line drawing of a 60s depiction of a smiling robot standing inside an open box with the words, Think Outside the Bot.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Never forget, as writers, we have more influence than we may realize. We have the power to put love, hope, goodness and a vision for a better world into words. Blessings to us all. Read free on Medium with my friend link. tinyurl.com/servebold #writing #love #hope #politics #freedom

tinyurl.com

2025 Is a Dish Best Served Bold

Shapeshifting between strength and gratitude, love and hope

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

@ninageorgenovelist.bsky.social This account attempted to catfish me by impersonating you. I reported it to Bluesky & posted a warning on my profile. I knew I was being catfished when I saw your brilliant writing. It would be ludicrous to think that you would ask to swap pages with this unknown.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Writers beware! FlüsterndeNina @booksforeverr.bsky.social is impersonating author Nina George on Bluesky, offering to swap chapters. Nina George warns on her official site that this is a scam. The real author's account: ‪@ninageorgenovelist.bsky.social‬ #NinaGeorge #writing #authorscam #catfishing

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Lilla and I slow-hike the Pacific Northwest coast, holding hands. She touches leaves, calls to birds, breathes in green scents with bliss. “Isn’t this great?” Her smile is wide. Heat drops through the canopy, bringing moisture to her lip. I lean in—wait, I’m the writer! She’s kissing Sydney, not me.

A watercolor-style painting of a woman. A sunlit forest trail leads into the gentle foothills of the PNW. The woman leans against the thick trunk of a tall pine with the kind of smile of pure joy that spending time in nature elicits. Her strawberry-blond hair is short and tousled. She wears a blue T-shirt and backpack, with mountains, tall evergreen trees, and colorful wildflowers in the background. This is Lilla, one of the MCs from the eco-romance WIP "This Wild and Soulful Love." We can assume she is gazing at Sydney, a nonbinary climate worker and her lover and best friend.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Is this not just perfect? “You don’t want to hear the story of my life, and anyway I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen to the enormous waterfalls of the sun." (from, Dogfish) ― Mary Oliver #MaryOliver #writing #poetry #ecology #nature #love

A watercolor of sunlight in hues of pale yellow and white with Mary Oliver's poem superimposed:
Is this not just perfect?
“You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen
to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s the same old story - - -
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.
(from, Dogfish)”
― Mary Oliver

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

What big thing did I learn from my characters while writing my current romance novel? I thought I knew how they’d feel at certain points—but when we got there, they were deeper than me. I had to listen closely and humbly to what they were actually going through, and what they needed to say about it.

Watercolor flowers below the following text: What big thing did I learn from my characters while writing my current romance novel?

While plotting their arcs, I thought I knew how they’d feel at certain points. But when we got there, I realized they were much deeper than me. I needed to listen closely and level up to understand what they’re actually going through, and what they needed to say about it.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Finished my first draft and felt so peaceful-- for a day! One day, people! #theend #romancenovel #writinglife

Colorful book cover with nature and city.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Am I wrong? Tired of all the literary writing that laments the meaninglessness of modern Life. Okay then, take it as a given already. And then *make* meaning. Otherwise, this is just wallowing.

Close up of a chickadee standing in the open palm of a man's hand. A lush, green hedge is in the background.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Just dropped my first Medium.com essay this year. It's a callback to my NYE message for 2025. It’s giving a soft boi summer debrief, and some ‘how do we heal / what do we do’ energy.” . Read free by tapping the link. . . #hope #love #life #spirituality #war #philosophy #politics

medium.com

Summer Surreal

Halfway through a strange year

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

By moving from oppositional to additive writing, writing becomes a place of healing and integration. #writinglife #romancebook #love #loveofwiting #writingnerd

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Sydney, one of the love interests in my book. Externalizing what they look like helps me write them. Interestingly, they keep subtly changing. #writing #romancenovel #love #writinglife #characterreveal #WIPCharacters

An illustration of a White nonbinary person in their early 30s. They are standing at the beach, wearing a light three-piece suit with the blue ocean and a lighter blue sky in the background. Their hair is dark, short and wavy. They look friendly and a little pensive.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Finding precious gems during garden cleanup: a perfectly blue Robin's egg shell. Always making sure we wait until after the end of mating season.

An empty Robin's egg shell in a hand, gloved in orange work gloves.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Almost done with draft 1 and rewrites have begun. I'm learning that revisions aren't simply a flesh-out/fill in & clean-up job. They're an emotional, spiritual, psychological, and philosophical, emergent discovery process. So thrilling🧡🍊 #writing #romancenovel #love #writinglife #revising #editing

A fountain pen and notebook with the words "Revision is Revelation" laying on a rumpled white sheet, strewn with wildflowers.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Just some of my family. Listening to chapter 49 and loving it, hahaha, because that's where all the good things are coming together.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

To me, writing feels like patterning. A feeling arises, then its resonance. Structure lives not in plot as sequence, but emerges as a relational field, gathering meaning. #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #WritersLife

A pale green background with leaves with the post's words on the left. And on the right, a stylized typewriter with undulating paper, sitting on a beach blanket with muted orange and gray stripes and fringes.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, or because everything she does is golden. A writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway." Junot Díaz #writing #writer

A watercolor painting in muted shades of beige, gray and brown of a pensive girl writing in a journal with these words superimposed:
"In my view, a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden.
In my view, a writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."
— Junot Díaz
Dominican-American writer
Professor of Writing
Winner of the Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction, 2008

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Biden said "Don't question the motive, question the action," worked for him in politics, yet the bad guys won. Now, let's admit that the dominant US actors are operating in bad faith. And let that motivate love and compassion— for the victims, for the planet, for ourselves. #love #politics #truth

Water color of a forest with words superimposed:
Biden often said, that "Don't question the motive, question the action," got him through working with Republicans.
Well, now we know how that story ends:
The bad guys won.

So, let's try the opposite: Admit that the dominant
US actors are operating in bad faith
and let our action arise from that knowledge.

Not with hate for them but with love
for those who are suffering and afraid.

Let it not lead to distrust:
Once we admit their bad faith,
there is no need for further distrust because
we have identified the evil.

Let that remind us how necessary
our love and compassion are—
for each other, for the planet, for ourselves.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Needed now: Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Evening pink sky fading to dark blue. A deep green coastal forest sinks into twilight with the silhouettes of seven birds rising into the sunset. Plus the words of Emerson's poem.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Congrats Canada 🇨🇦 & Australia 🇦🇺. And thank you, Australians 🦘💗and Canadians 🦫🐴💗. The people of two major nations did not allow a move to the right. What a relief!

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Just wanted kindness, peace, equality, love, inclusion, hope, and diversity to grace my feed today, and add compassion, empathy, curiosity, and connection 💗🌹💗🌹💗🌹💗.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Today's challenge: not to work a stitch. Join me?

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

"The lesson of incarnating into this particular world isn't just to learn that life is immeasurably precious and meaningful, but to hold everyone's possession of *their* life as that precious and meaningful." From "Lilla & Sydney" #writing #meaningoflife #love #romancenovel #savetheworld

Watercolor painting of a sweet deer in a green and lush landscape in colors or gentle greens and blues. Text is the same as the post, taken from the romance novel, Lilla & Sydney, coming in late 2025.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

If you 𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐚 shop, maybe go to a tiny thrift shop and pay with cash? Or even put it on lay-away. Or window-shop and take pictures of what you want. It's not just a message; it gives the environment a little break for a day💗 #Feb28thBoycott #DEI #Inclusion #MindfulConsumption #ThePeople'sUnionUSA

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Hopepunk isn’t about ignoring the storm. It’s about planting gardens in the middle of it. Choosing love, kindness, and community—because it matters. In a world that says “give in,” hopepunk says resist with joy. #Hopepunk #OptimisticFiction #EcoRomance #ClimateChange

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

To help us remember what joy and happiness, and generally being lit up look like. Art by Agata RG

A child with bright eyes and a happy smile. And expression of sheer joy.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

My eco-romance is hopeful and positive. But the "All is Lost" moment is just inevitable. It's already breaking my heart in the first pass. Come Monday I'm going deeper. I wonder if it's like that for everyone.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Struggling much with my romance's crucible before the exhilaration of the grand gesture. Deeply feeling the characters' pain. But I'm making it through, moment by moment. #romancenovel #queer #love #writing

A pastel sky fades from blue to pink over the silhouette of Seattle's skyline with the Space Needle, the Big Wheel, and Mt. Rainier, framed by vibrant flowers in the foreground. Two silhouetted figures - lovers - one in a suit and hat, the other in a blazer, button-down, and pleated skirt, stand close together.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Had a big insight this morning during discussion: Yes, the 'All is Lost Moment' is about making the Happy Ending feel earned. But it's much more than that. It's what they learn during this dark night of the soul that shows them how to reconcile their differences so they can be together.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

“Glad you’re back.” Uschi’s smile is warm – like she really is glad to see us again. “Me too. I didn’t think we would.” “Maybe we’ll have a miracle today.” At my doubtful face, she swats me lightly on the arm. “Well, don’t let me keep you. You go make it happen, girl.”| #romance #love #hope #queer

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

I guess the idea is to stay ahead of the struggle by writing furiously. #writing #romancenovel #love

Text image with a river and blue sky behind it, framed in watercolor roses.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

The pain and destruction they cause spurs me on to write stories with happy endings, create goodwill, care packets for the unhoused, encouragements for friends, and on the edge of the torrent, a calm home. You?💗 #resist #withlove

Text image with a blurred river behind it and flowers along the edges.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

What if the road takes an unexpected turn? Will you let it shake your faith, or will you trust the journey? #queerromance #enby #sappic #soulmates

Excerpt from Written In Our Stars, the story of Sidonie and Lilla. A field of words, surrounded by watercolor blossoms in many colors.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

OMG! Writing my debut novel (I was writing only nonfiction before). This past week, I cracked the code of how to cover a lot of ground without info dumping! Yaya. And today, I started and finished a chapter. Now in Act 3. Woohoo! #writing #writingcraft #writer #romancenovel #celebration

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

As seen around the internet. All the ways you make a difference.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Highlight of yesterday, found in a free pile: A baby colander! Ahyousocuteliittlecolander! Did you know? Yardsaling and free piling are Seattle pastimes. Of course, I gave this passion to one of the love interests, Lilla, in the queer romance I'm writing🌹 #kitchen #cute #romance #lgbt #queer

A tiny 3-inch colander, sitting on a wooden cutting board on a kitchen counter. In the background sit a water jar with cilantro and a stuffed, handpainted bunny.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Four years is a long time. To not let this person dominate our lives for takes effort. I choose hope over cynicism and despair, putting that into my queer eco-romance novel. We can do this together. What are your go-to's for the next 4 years? 💝💖🙏🏻❤️ #love #thriving #resist #writing #positive

A beautiful sunrise over a turquoise ocean with the words
"Love much. Don't revile. Choose hope over cynicism. Curl up as needed, but stay awake to the beauty all around.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Opinions, impressions & perspectives, please: Writing a sapphic romance novel with a nonbinary and a lesbian MC, I'm concerned that the new administration will affect my chances of getting a traditional publisher. What do you think? #writing #publishing #LGBTQIA+ #LGBTQ #trans #nonbinary #trad

Watercolor of a green book cover with flowers, surrounded my colorful watercolor flowers. Happy vibes.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I'm going to remember every day for the next four years that dawn arrives in increments, but it arrives! #hope #love

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

In honor of Martin Luther King, one of the greats and one of my heroes. His "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is a sublime treatise on the importance and power of love.

Black & White Image of Martin Luther King in front of a microphone to address a crowd.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Tomorrow, Monday, let's make ourselves heard, loud and clear: Join us for Blackout Monday. Stay off Facebook, X, Threads, Instagram, TV, network and cable news. Instead of watching the inauguration, listen to NPR, read Reuters or Associated Press. Or watch movies. #inauguration #boycott #blackout

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

My plans for the weekend and, of course, reading! (And probably writing, cuz I just can't stay away. What are you up to?

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

We're going through a lot of trials right now. Here are some ways that make them not quite as hard to bear. (As seen around the internet).

A block of text above a watercolor scene of a house in a summer landscape with sunshine on the left, and another house, this one, in a winterscape with falling snow on the right. The text is: If you can't meditate, pause before every sip of coffee.
If you can't pray, simply say 'thank you' before every meal.
If you can't manifest, enjoy what's already yours.
And if you can't journal, talk
to yourself in the car.
There is no spirituality rule book.
Just show up for yourself
in ways that feel good to you.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Tell me what you love about writing. Your characters? Tropes? Storylines? The yearning? The All is Lost Abyss? I love it all! Also, a massive, enthusiastic word nerd: punctuation, grammar, syntax, story structure, concepts--like semi-tangential narrative layering. Wow, what? #romancelandia

Watercolor collage of a close-up of an old typewriter on a table in gentle grays & browns, pastel pink hearts, balloons, flowers before a soft blue sky.

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Just discovered that Jay Gruber is a woman. I now want to make an effort to make it work here 10x more. Facebook is pointless now. Ads stuffed into every corner. Instead of my friends, unwanted "suggestions" that, with the recent change in moderation, show me MAGA content. Wow!

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Henry India Holden @henryindiah.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

A New Year's Message to remind us we are strong, we a powerful, we change the world.

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