End of A Long Drought

It’s been a helluva year, right? I mean, for all of us. What a doozy.

But for me personally, and as an author, it has been an especially difficult hiccup.

I won’t get into toooooo many details, but it will suffice to say that my husband of 17 years decided to take a little break form his life, our life, right at the beginning of this shit show. I guess the apocalypse was a good time for his midlife crisis. To say that my boys and I were devastated is a gross understatement.

I spent the better part of the last year trying to keep my life from falling apart, and then putting it back together when it did. I kept on writing through it all, but neglected all other things in the author realm. I just didn’t have the energy, or the mental capacity, to try to sell. Thankfully I still had the creative energy to produce.

Writing was my sanity, my outlet, my connection with my inner self and the glimmer of hope that was buried in all that darkness.

Paradise Found was especially cathartic. It was a book I’d actually started two and a half years ago, long before my world started to unravel. I had forgotten that it opens on the day that Tessa is signing her divorce papers. Imagine my surprise when I opened those first chapters to finally write the book just three weeks after I’d signed mine. Even though the main character is (also) a jilted divorcee, the story is not at all autobiographical. But I could sure relate to her heartache and her tenacity.

I processed so much of my own pain on those pages. I found my strength and learned to let go of my past right alongside Tessa. Once she did, she found her paradise.

I might not be quite there yet, but publishing this book gets me closer to mine.