It seems redundant to get all nostalgic and wistful on New Year’s Eve. Originally, I wasn’t going to make this post. I didn’t think I had much to say after a second year of a raging pandemic, the year I lost my beloved dog and felt incredibly… stuck. Emotionally, mentally, financially, physically, stuck.
But Facebook Memories has a way of throwing at a person things from years past that either make one cringe or reflect. Today, it made me reflect, upon showing me a post I made on New Year’s Eve of 2017 – the year my marriage ended. As I got home from grocery shopping today and finished feeding the cats, then made a cup of tea, a song came on which kept on point with the theme. Tina Turner, “When the Heartache is Over”.
In the same way that 2021 was significant for Tina Turner getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, separate from her ex-husband, this year had a way of showing me light, opportunities, friendship and more despite the adversities the world is facing. I, too, have separated my identity and life from my ex-husband and everything that marriage was. Much like how Stevie Nicks also had to find herself, personally and creatively, after she and Lindsey Buckingham broke up.
My adversities didn’t end with 2017. I entered 2018 with optimism, but still spiraled into a horrible depression rut in which I was suicidal. I couldn’t bring myself to write. I could barely function through work. Being cheated on made me feel worthless, ugly and that I would never be good enough for anyone. That I was unlovable. I saw absolutely no reason to go on. I was exhausted of living, of being strong, of resilience. Of living with myself.
Writing is as much a part of who I am as breathing is to life.
At that point, I’d been working on my rock star series, “Edge of Glory” for six years, maybe longer. The fallout of my marriage left me feeling disconnected from a story whose characters I adored and still do, but I couldn’t salvage the story. I couldn’t keep going on with something that skidded to a halt and became stagnant. I ended 2018 by doing something terrifying that would uproot my entire writing career. I changed genres.
In January 2019, I began plotting and building characters for what I thought was going to be a brief spinoff from a project I was working on with my long time co-writer and best friend. This “spinoff” became its own series and has taken over my writing life completely. That was the birth of “Beyond Dark” and the dynamic duo of Alyssa and Thayer. All I wanted to do, starting out, was explore the character of a serial killer’s daughter that had been in my mind for many years.
In February 2021, in a surreal time that I thought I would never arrive at back in 2018, I hit the “publish” button on the first book in the series. “Belladonna” is dark and twisted while both the killer and Alyssa agonize with massive insecurity and trauma, a reflection of the place from which I was emerging as both a person and a writer. That book means the world to me. The series is my obsession and my love. It is what I started when I was on my own, discovering who I am and struggling to find my place as a writer. I wrestled with insecurities throughout the entire first and second drafts, unsure if I could write mystery. After crashing with “Edge of Glory”, after so many years devoted to that story only to come up empty, writing, editing, and publishing “Belladonna” in two years astounded me. I blew my own mind. There’s something healing in that.
I could finish a book.
I could keep going.
I could write again.
I had a future again.
It’s still not easy, between the depression and the trauma and the state of the world. But it’s better. I still struggle a bit with who I am as a writer. For many years, I spoke openly about my abuse and my healing journey. In 2020, somewhere in my weariness of my own trauma, I became quieter about it. Not everyone wants to be the poster child for recovery and survival. Maybe it was time to let that go and focus on the present. But every time I talk to someone about “Belladonna”, the place from which it came, one word keeps coming up. And even in an interview I did recently, the word sat in the headline of the Twitter post.
“Inspirational.”
I’ve never applied this word to myself. I see nothing inspirational about the regurgitation of emotions, the agony, the scattered pieces that all come with healing. Journals filled with scribbled pages about why I feel this way or that, decoding my own brain and nervous system. Working my entire life around living with severe chronic depression, right down to how I clean my house and prepare meals for the week. Living in a messy depression house during the ruts doesn’t feel inspirational. That’s the thing about survival, about resilience:
People see the shield and the armour, but they don’t see what went into building the entire fortress and what happens beyond the walls.
But even as I learn and apply new coping mechanisms, as I write and publish more books, I’ve come to accept that there is a story that will always be my own. Hitting rock bottom in 2017 and crawling back to be here, on New Year’s Eve of 2021, has led me to embracing this. Not as my entire identity as before, but as a piece that will always be there. It’s up me what I do with it, whether I bury it at the bottom of a box, or air it out so that perhaps others can know they aren’t alone. So that the ones who don’t want to be the poster children for healing and surviving, don’t have to be. Healing looks different for everyone. For me, it has always been in creating, speaking out and writing stories.
We need to believe it will be better, that there is a future. Even if the victories are small and personal. Even if the only one who knows of the accomplishments is yourself. There is considerable strength in pulling yourself out of rock bottom, even if you crawled, to make a comeback.
Because when the heartache is over, there is light.
What does 2022 look like?
Well, I did a crazy thing and jumped at the opportunity to take up a time slot with an editing company for the end of January, since their word count max fit for a novella. With the unexpected realization that I gave myself a deadline, I have been feverishly rewriting and editing “Martha Holmes Mysteries”. This used to be “She’s so Lovely” but I have since re-titled and re-branded it. The story and characters took on life of their own in this second draft.
The first book of “Martha Holmes Mysteries” will be released in 2022.
I am thinking perhaps March or April. A pre-order will go up as soon as I decide. It’ll likely be April, to give myself extra time for any mishaps that may come up.
I am still rewriting and editing “Beyond Dark 2: Gravedigger”. That, too, will hopefully see a release date in later 2022. I have a ton more editing on other drafts to do, as well, for books three and four, and the undercover spinoff I was working on. Those will see light again this year, too.
And what of “Edge of Glory”? That’s a subplot of this post I cannot leave unaddressed. It won’t remain abandoned. I’ve been toying with new plot ideas and the possibility of turning it into a novella series. It might be this year. It might not be. But Lindsay, Rex, Harley and the rest of that beloved cast shall return with their rock star shenanigans.
On a final note for 2021: thank you.
For my followers, readers, friends, and family for all of the support and love over the years. Whether I met you back in my Wattpad days, whether we’re in a Discord server together, if we met in a childfree group on Facebook, if we’ve just been Facebook friends for so long we don’t remember how we met, or if you’re one of my cherished offline friends, it doesn’t matter. You’ve all touched my life in various ways and it means the world to me. If you’ve been in the trenches with my mental health with me, whether you’ve been a quiet presence, if we only talk once in a while because of life, or whatever your support has looked like, thank you. It all matters. We all matter. I’ll see you in 2022.
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