I Haven't Been Writing

There are and aren't reasons for it.

Since I finally finished Call You Mine right before the start of summer, I figured that I would jump right back into writing my next book. I planned on making sure I finished the Barnett Witches series in 2024. I wanted to write two more books to create a quartet, even if the one book was already starting to give me trouble in the fun “only exists in my head” phase– which, to be honest, is never really a good sign.

It’s like when you’re at a clothing store. If you don’t love the outfit in the dressing room, you probably aren’t going to like it at home.

But I had the cover design for the next Barnett book already scheduled for July and I figured that was okay. I just needed a break after CYM.

CYM, after all, was a big book. It was bigger and had a lot more feelings packed in its pages than I expected, and I loved it a lot more than I ever figured I would too after starting it with the set goal of simply writing a holiday romance novel. I needed to, in a sense, grieve CYM. 

I was done. 

It was time to finally let it go before I could move onto something else that could perhaps get me excited in the same way even though CYM was an entirely different animal from anything I had ever previously wrote, for the best, as I now am starting to really understand where I am going as a writer and author continuously publishing.

You know, if I could make myself write– something I haven’t been doing like I should’ve been all summer long when I had the time and days to spend daydreaming in between the online grad classes I’ve been taking. This way, I can maybe make consistent income and get actual healthcare before the end of the year. It has become clear, after all,  that I’m sadly not going to become an overnight sensation of a romance author like the chosen and wonderful few (unless you all know someone who can help make that happen?).

As I finished CYM and sent it off to my editor in the early weeks of June, I paused and asked myself. What next? The answer was supposed to be the Barnett Witches, but again, the character wasn’t right no matter how much I wanted her and her story to be since it just didn’t fit. It wasn’t magical which would’ve just been wrong. Right? Most of all, it clearly was not what I am meant to write. So, I wrote nothing.

I thought about writing.

I made marketing images and videos and promos for CYM.

I posted about CYM on social media.

I wrote a few chapters of a silly paranormal romance under a pen name that will likely never see the light of day, just to remind myself that I wasn’t broken. The words were still there even if they weren’t usually good or flowing all the time.

I felt, most of the time, that I was wasting a lot of time. I was being unproductive and reading more than the average amount on Kindle Unlimited and most of all, disappointing myself during this strange summer that was going wrong in so many ways. I told myself that it was okay, though.  Maybe I was burnt out or burning out and I needed this time before I turned into nothing but a snuffed out ember that didn’t even get its chance to burst into flame yet. I certainly didn’t want that.

I read some more. I talked about CYM more on social media. I approved the color on the next Barnett Witches book’s cover that’s so pretty and I plan on writing sometime even though it is not the third book in the quartet, but likely will be the last book in the interconnected trilogy.  I added new pictures to my website home page. I sent out ARCs of CYM on Netgalley where I promptly found three typos I missed and told myself to just be glad that I found them before the actual publication day.

Then, yesterday, I started to think about my writing timeline and how I may only get one book published in 2024 and though it should be that next Barnett book, I don’t want to be writing it right now. But that was the thing… 

I did want to write something again. 

And I think I was done just thinking about wanting to write.

So maybe it would be two books in 2024, if I managed to start writing now. 

I have a feeling it’s going to be a bumpy road, but today I’m ready to start brainstorming something completely new again and full of too many feelings.

I also realized that I want to write more in this newsletter because I used to read stream-of-conscious author blogs that showed the nitty-gritty of writing and life as a writer. I remember how much that inspired me to see the struggle and feel understood.

So yeah, it’s me. Hi. I’m the problem. It’s me. I haven’t been writing, but I think I’m starting to find myself back to it again. Even if it took the summer to make it happen.