I had really good intentions last year of blogging here at least once a month, but this year has done everything it can to stop me from doing that. As I mentioned in my last post, a family crisis in February took up a lot of my time and energy for several months. Even though that's essentially over, it's taking awhile to get back to normal, or a new normal. Add to that the fact that the book I've been querying for a year and a half now is still languishing in the trenches and the idea of coming back to this blog just wasn't super attractive.
But I think I may have made some headway in my own mental health journey that could get me back to writing more regularly, though I make no promises of blogging regularly. As you might remember, I've been working on a contemporary romance on and off since last March. I'm still less than halfway through. That's super slow compared to the pace at which I've written all of my other books, even Harbor Lightkeep, which took a long time compared to my other three finished manuscripts.
I was super excited when I first got the idea and the first two chapters and a working synopsis came to me pretty quickly. Then I slowed down. Way down. I'd write a paragraph and go weeks without even opening the document. Or I'd open the document every day for a week, only to write one sentence and delete it each time. I talked a good talk about wanting to finish the book. I even participated in #RomComMarch on Twitter this year and joined a Slack for it. But actually doing the writing? That didn't go nearly so well.
What I've realized is that I've spent a very long time thinking of myself as a middle grade writer. I mean, there's a reason the blog has the name it has. I still love Middle Grade books. I still dream of having middle grade books published someday. But because in my head I've been a middle grade writer for so long, I haven't allowed myself to own the idea that I could also be a romance writer. If I actually finish this book and actually start querying it I'll be querying as an adult contemporary romance writer, and that isn't what I thought I was going to be.
Of course, my brain knows that writing this one book, or even multiple books, in a genre and age group I didn't originally think I wanted to write doesn't mean I can never write or publish middle grade. But that's what my heart has been telling me.
I've been trying to get a handle on my own mental health since my family crisis in February, and part of that has included seeing a therapist. One of the things my therapist is teaching me, which isn't super brilliant or groundbreaking but is still really hard for me, is the concept of responding rather than reacting. That is, if someone (usually my husband or one of my kids) says something that pushes my buttons, I need to take some breaths, walk away if necessary, and respond when I'm ready to respond calmly instead of reacting right away with anger that will inevitably hurt people.
I'm still just okay at this. But working on this has helped me realize that my tendency to react rather than responding has bled into my writing life. Rather than respond to the idea that actually finishing and querying this romance would make me something other than the middle grade writer I wanted to be with the logic that the two weren't mutually exclusive, I reacted by actively avoiding finishing the book.
I can't say for sure that having this knowledge will allow me to finish the book in a reasonable manner. I might just find another excuse. But at least now I know why it's taking so long.
I don't have a photo representing what's been going on in my heart and mind, but I hate not including a photo, so here's my gorgeous cat, Daniel Tiger, on one of his favorite perches, the bookshelf that holds my 12yo's graphic novel collection.
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