It's Been A Long, Long Time

 

Wow.

It's been damn near 2 years since I last posted to this blog.

January 2020 was a whole lifetime ago. So much has happened since then. For starters the world went to absolute shit with Co-Vid, which doesn't seem to be getting any better, but let's not even go into that. 

In my life, a lot has happened. In 2018 I fell madly in love with a man who was literally the definition of my favorite romance hero---the reformed bad boy with the swag and sex appeal that just makes your mouth water. In 2019, I was surprised to find myself pregnant. Yes, surprised, especially when the doctors told me my chances of that were slim. He and I were overjoyed, but sadly I had a miscarriage. It was one of the most emotionally dark times for me in my life.

We'd both been overjoyed at the thought of finally being parents, considering we were both in our 30s and had no children. I suffered from depression and PTSD for a long time afterwards and grieving the loss of our child took a real toll on both he and I. I didn't think I'd ever get over it and some days when I think about our baby and what would've been the baby's birthdate, May 12, 2020, I get emotional and cry. But life has a funny sense of humor.

In July 2020, after months of trying we got pregnant again. I honestly could not believe it. But my second pregnancy was not without complications. My first pre-natal visit, I started to bleed a lot and I placed on bed rest and told that I was likely going to lose this baby too. I just couldn't handle that again. I fell into a depression and only started to breathe a small sigh of relief when I made it to my last trimester. Even then I was afraid, because of the "silent miscarriage," I'd had with my first pregnancy. Somehow, miraculously, my little one turned out to be a true fighter and on March 27th of this year, I finally became a mother of a perfectly healthy little boy.

His father and I couldn't have been any more overjoyed and grateful. It took us to mid 30s but we were finally parents. I don't think there is anything in the world I love more than being a Mom. He is my little rainbow, my miracle child, just truly my everything. And just let me say giving birth during Co-Vid was definitely no joke!

On the flip side of things, my muse has been dead for a while. After self-publishing my last book to sales that were not at all what I expected, I wondered if there was even a point in me trying again at this publishing thing. But the most amazing thing happened. While out on maternity leave, I started back writing. And somehow in the midst of becoming a new mom, job changes, the stress of Co-Vid, I wrote two 70K+ novels and started writing another one, while madly querying agents for another story that I had already completed. My muse had finally come back!

Well, I got a ton of rejections on my query, but two requests for full manuscripts. Both agents loved my work, just didn't feel like they could sell it in this current market and wanted me to send anything else I'd written to them. It was absolutely the confidence booster I needed. Although the market and people's tastes are very subjective and let's not forget that the publishing industry is still inherently racist, I started to believe that I could make a go of this publishing thing again. I even had some new branding done and started strategizing on a plan for a career.

I even attempted NaNoWrite.

Attempted.

 I only made it to 25K, but it was in a genre I've never written in before, YA. I wanted to see if I could write something besides romance. Not going to lie, it has been a little daunting, but also thrilling stretching my writing muscles. So, I'm going to finish my YA story, but first I'm in the process of editing my other two finished novels and submitting them for querying. So yeah, the mojo is back. I have no idea what 2022 is going to bring so stay tuned.