Do you want to know why I hate my book?

It’s kind of crazy. I am so excited about releasing Lilly soon!

But I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a long, rough road to finishing this book. I started writing it a few years ago, and I thought I was going to release it six months ago, but I got sick, stayed sick, moved, and have been recovering.

THIS is the most difficult stage of publishing a novel for me. I’m working with my editor to do our last edit before our last read-through. I have EIGHT drafts of this book! I am finished!

I don’t know if it’s only something authors will understand, but . . . I hate my book. No, it’s for real. At this point, leading up to publication, the deep desire I had for ya’ll to read my words suddenly vanishes and is replaced by a desire to hide that book under a rock!

It sounds crazy. But right now I am totally doubting myself, doubting any talent, or ability I thought I might have had. In my mind, I am a terrible writer and my book is garbage.

Now, don’t worry, my book isn’t garbage, and I don’t actually think I’m worthless.

This feeling comes for every book I publish. It’s actually so scary to feel, and I’ve never understood it. At all!

Yesterday, I started to think that maybe this feeling comes because this is the point that I really get hard on myself. I’m reading my book, looking for anything that isn’t perfect and might need changed. For my story to resonate with you, my reader, I have to use the right words, in the right order and combination. Every word has to work together to convey what I want you to imagine, think, and feel.

I love refining my writing, but with this mindset of reaching for perfection, I’m terrified! But I love refining my writing. This part of the process is what can make my writing actually have an impact when it’s read!

So, I’ll keep going, even if it’s agonizing some days, and hopefully “Lilly” will come to you VERY soon, polished and perfected; ready to suck you into the story and take you on a journey with the characters I’ve grown to know so well.

“What is it like to be a writer?” People sometimes ask me. It’s hard to explain, but it’s just life. Being a writer is my work, my hobby, my fun, my frustration, and my enjoyment. Of course, I have other things that are my hobbies, frustrations, enjoyments, etc. But, writing is also all of these things. It can be hard, but I love it!

My favorite place to write is sitting up in bed, or on the couch with my feet up and a notebook in my lap. But, when I have paper on my lap and a pen in hand aren’t the only times I write. I’m writing whenever I think about a character in the middle of the day, whenever someone around me says something a certain way and I want to jump up and say, “That’s exactly how this character would have reacted to that!”

I think it’s said best in this single line from one of my favorite TV shows! Dick Van Dyke, in the Dick Van Dyke Show says, “The hardest writing is in the shower.”

That’s what it’s like to be a writer. You think about people, places, and times. Everyday, you think about how saying something this way or that way will come across to people you’ve never met. You wonder about what it looks like for someone to be frustrated, or overjoyed. Not only how it looks, but what combination of actions, words, and punctuation will make a complete stranger who is reading that sentence feel a tiny part of that emotion in themselves.

Sometimes I write while taking a walk, or enjoying a plate of warm cookies.

That’s what it’s like to be a writer, it’s everything! Entire lives take place within the pages of novels, and the writer lived through every moment described.

Until next time, enjoy the books that authors lived for!

Have you ever wanted something so badly, you felt it almost had to happen? Has it ever actually happened? I do! For years, I’ve wanted to go to different places around the world, to live there and experience different cultures. I want to do all sorts of things!

I haven’t gotten the chance to do many of them, but I still believe that dreams are so important! A lot of things we dream of doing, seeing, or becoming may not be realized. But, what if none of us ever hoped for something that seemed impossible to have? Would we ever do anything? If we didn’t dream of being successful in our chosen profession, dream of raising a good family, dream of where we want to go in life, would we ever have those things, or go anywhere? Or would we be stagnant, only doing what was neccessary to live from day-to-day.

That wouldn’t be any kind of life! At least, not the kind I’d be happy with!

It’s hard to have dreams sometimes, I know. Believe me, I know! It’s hard not to wish you don’t have the dreams you do! Sometimes, when they seem so unattainable, and yet you want them more than ever, it’s hard not to wish you’d never thought of wanting such a thing.

I’m a writer, I’m a dreamer. It may be easy to see that my career wouldn’t exsist without my dreams. But, neither would yours, or your neighbor’s, or your father’s, or your brother’s. Everything we create, or do, starts as a dream; something we imagine, or want. And amazing things happen when we take a step, and just go for it.

Until next time, go for your dreams!

What do you love? I mean, really love! There’s so much to be grateful for.

I love the sky,

my family,

sunshine,

playing with my niece,

writing,

going to new places,

learning about different countries and cultures,

studying maps,

comfy pajamas,

thunderstorms in the spring,

and birds that sing each morning.

There’s so much good!

Until next time, take a moment to enjoy your favorite things!

    Seriously! Most days, writer’s block couldn’t be any further from what I feel. I feel it today. So, I decided that if I couldn’t think of anything but writer’s block, I would write about that.

    Do you ever go to say something, but forget what it was the second you open your mouth? The words are on the tip of your tongue! You don’t know what they are, but they lay so heavily on your mind, you can’t think of anything else. That’s what writer’s block feels like. It can drive a person crazy! That’s why I start rambling when I have it, rambling in my book, or my journal, or to the people around me.

    The story is waiting for me, the characters ready to say and feel and do my bidding. I’m the one being waited on, to form the words that reveal those things to the world outside my imagination. I’m being waited on to unlock the next chapter in the lives of those characters.

    Even with all that hassle, I still feel that overcoming writer’s block far outweighs the trial of it. When the rambling transforms into heartfelt dialogue between two characters who are falling in love. When you forget it’s sunny outside because there’s a downpour at the castle a man is trying to find his way back to. When the conversation of the people in the room grows silent in the stillness of the sunrise a young girl stands watching on the last leg of her journey.

    That’s why I don’t mind sitting on the couch all evening, forming useless sentences that are eventually going to be edited out anyway. That’s why I don’t mind writing hundreds of words just to finally come to the point where I can make those moments come alive.

    If there wasn’t any challenge, the one great sentence would never mean what it does, the rain at the castle would not be so real, the dialogue not so heartfelt, and the peace of a sunset not so penetrating.

    Until next time, delight in the hurdle to inspiration!

      Life is full of twists and unexpected curves. You get a cold the night before you were supposed to sing in a recital, you win a scholarship, you go on your dream vacation, or maybe you find yourself moving thousands of miles away from home.

     This week held some surprises for me, as I left my home to move to the dry, hilly American west.

    I’ll be twenty in a few weeks. I could have thought that would make it easier, or I would somehow be “better” at leaving home. But new experiences are new, no matter what age we have them.

     Now I’m living with my brother and his wife, and being a nanny to my beautiful niece.

    It’s all so new! I’m not with my parents anymore, I’m learning to live in a new place with its own culture from the city I grew up in, and I haven’t lived in the same house with a two-year-old since I was six. All of this came at me faster than I could have imagined. It’s been hard to transition, but so much fun!

     Sometimes, the knew independence feels overwhelming, but I can still talk to my family every day, this new place is breathtaking, and my niece is the sweetest little girl. All these things don’t come without the price of getting used to the hard things, but they are worth it!

     A year, or two, or maybe three from now, the hard things will be over, and the amazing things will have been a part of my life. I’m nervous sometimes, but so excited for the months ahead!

    Until next time, let’s all keep going!