So I’ve been away from this site for a while now, since last summer. A lot has happened since then.
The main reason I’ve been away is that I’ve had a lot of health issues. In July 2022 I had what the doctors think was a heart attack, but they cannot really tell so I just called it a “heart incident”. I had to stop taking my ADHD medication for a while and this severely impacted my ability to write or draw, or pretty much exist. I still managed to get some writing done in spite of this but I found myself not being as prolific as I would have liked. I decided on focusing on taking care of myself.
On top of this, I had been struggling with severe sleep issues for about a year or so. I’ve always had sleep disturbances but this was so much more hard-core sleep problem. I found out I had severe sleep apnea in May 2022, I was having over 100 incidents an hour!!!! So I thought I would feel better after having a sleep machine, but I didn’t. I started sleeping almost all day except for when I had to take care of my son, my husband really stepped up and took over much of the household activities because I could not stay awake. So I had to have another sleep study, my third of 2022. But it was worth it because I learned I have narcolepsy which is, like the sleep apnea, very severe. At one point it was so bad I stayed in bed sleeping for nearly three days straight. I found myself unable to drive or leave the house much or even take care of myself I was so tired. But I am finally on medication in the past month and I am currently having success with the second medication that I have tried, but let me tell you…I’m still very tired. Narcolepsy can’t be cured, only managed so each day is different.
I had some other health problems as well, most of 2022 was just me getting ill over and over again. It was very annoying but I remained in decent spirits considering all that was happening, but I would say my mental health wasn’t as great as the year previous. I might make a blog post about this sometime soon.
In October 2022 I released my second poetry book Spectral Heart. (You can buy it HERE) I am proud that I managed to release this even with everything going on. The book is mostly new poems, but also some short stories I’m republishing, so you OG people may have read them already. I will most likely not be putting out a book this year so this is all I got!
The reason I probably won’t be releasing anything is that I’m working on longer projects. One of those projects is a YA novel (albeit a mature one) about growing up online. This project is currently in draft two, it really needs a lot of work before I even have a beta reader, and I’m sorry it’s taking so long, a lot of people have reached out to me about it and I’m so honored that it’s exciting to them…I just want it to be a little closer to perfect before letting it see the light of day. But I’m planning on working on this more hardcore in the Spring and Summer of this year. More updates on this soon. It’s a really long book, so it’s taking a lot of time.
Another project that I’ve been chipping away at is a dark academia “thriller” (?) that is currently not finished and sitting at about 65,000 words. I think I am about halfway done with the first draft though. It’s an extremely taxing project for me mentally to write, but it’s also fun. This was my Nano 2021 Project that I mentioned before.
I have a few other things I write part time, a Sci-fi short story collection and another YA novel that is very early in drafting. And poetry of course, always poetry. I’m hoping now that I am on more medication again I will be well enough to write as much as I did in 2021 this year. My goal for the year writing wise is to finish one of the novels to a point where I feel comfortable getting Betas.
I always take the first three months of the year to do something different than writing, some sort of new creative project from one of my other creative hobbies. Last year it was a music album, this year it’s a YouTube channel. January is very cold and annoying where I live so I find that this helps break the tedium of this time of year. I’ve been making videos about my interests and having a lot of fun with it. I’ve got two video’s done and they aren’t amazing, but I’m happy to have something tangible. I am planning on launching the YouTube channel on or around March 6th. The channel will mostly deal with media topics like comics or movies, but I may branch out into other areas. The cool thing about trying to fight my need for perfection, or trying to make everything into content is that I find I’m doing these video’s just for fun which is refreshing. I’ll bring more information to this blog in the coming month about the channel, but so far I’m excited and I’m enjoying myself.
It’s Valentines’s Day, my favorite holiday. I’m a year older it seems. I hope everyone out there is having a great day, and I’ll try to be a bit better about writing consistently on here from now on.