Writing again!

I'm back at it!! And it feels great!

The last two years have been rough. 2016 was basically a shit storm for my writing career. The last book in my Classy n Sassy series released in July and I wrote 5 novellas for Kindle Worlds that released throughout the entire year. I fired my agent that summer and my publisher decided not to offer me a new contract. After that I took a step back and figured out whether or not I still wanted to do this, pursue this career... Did I still even have passion for it anymore??

Turns out I did. But it was still very hard to find the motivation to actually write.

Fast forward to Feb 2018. During a burst of "I can do this" energy I registered for the RWA (Romance Writers of America) National Conference that is held every July. The energy faded into "why the hell did I do that?" It's a lot of money to attend the conference and in order to at least make it semi-worthwhile, I needed to pitch a new book. Which meant writing a new book.

I had one started...about 20K in, so I got to work. It was rough....not gonna lie. It was tough to get back into the writing groove. But I did it and finished it just before I left. It's a cute story and I'm proud of it. It has major series potential. I pitched it and it got lots of interest. I sent it off after I returned home and then I waited.... It's the end of October and I'm still waiting..... But that's how this business works.

So in the meantime I had to figure out what to work on next. Should I start book 2 in that series? Or work on something else? I have another book I adore that never went anywhere and I might go indie with it. The sequel to that was calling to me...so that's what I'm doing.

In the last month and a half, I attended a marketing workshop, attended a weekend writing retreat, volunteered to run for my local chapter's board of directors, and signed up to do NaNoWriMo. I feel like I'm on my way back up. I have no clue what will happen in 2019 but I'm excited again. I have motivation and inspiration again.

Hello :)

I'm writing this post because I haven't written one in over 10 months and I feel like I need to have something at least a tad newer. Even if I have no clue what to say...

I've had a rough couple of years. Like fall into a deep abyss, everything falling apart, kind of rough. Practically every aspect of my life was a mess. I'm sure many people can relate. We all go through it at some point in our lives. But things are better. Things are falling back into place. I'm starting to find success at various things in my life.

But to get here it involved a lot of soul searching and letting go. Letting go of things and people that were not good for me. Finding ways to eliminate and deal with stress. (Which the first thing helped with immensely.) I found a new mindset and it's helped me find peace with a lot of things that used to keep me up at night. I learned to accept things for what they are instead of what I wanted them to be.

Which doesn't mean I shouldn't still keep working hard to reach my goals...to change the things I can change. Cause I certainly am. I'm working harder than ever.

One of the things in my life that went completely downhill was my writing carer. Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't. I had nothing new to promote or celebrate and I kinda fell off the face of the earth. I didn't write for a while, trying to figure out if I even wanted to do it anymore. I found that I do. But it's still a battle between continuing and giving up. It's a tough business. And right now, even more so than ever...

But I do have some renewed hope. Hopefully it will last. I'm making plans for the future--even though tentative. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping to find someone else who loves my books and my characters as much as I do.