Losing My Mojo and Health

Hi :)

I'm back. I've tried to be back before, but, 2013 saw the start of my writing mojo drain, partly from health and partly from stress. I had an editor tell me, and tear my work apart for 40 pages then tell me to figure the rest out on my own and they weren't going to edit the rest, that unrelated clauses were comma splices. I spent hours and hours searching and never found any sites that said it that were independent from this person. I felt stupid, but I learned about comma splices, fused sentences, and run ons like you wouldn't believe. (For the record, a comma splice is ONLY one thing: Two INDEPENDENT CLAUSES, related or not, that are joined by only a comma. Period. There is no other comma splices. You run into kissing cousins of fused sentences (two complete sentences with no punctuation) or run ons (two sentences with a conjunction word but no comma), but there is only one comma splice.). However, that feeling that maybe I'm stupid stayed with me. The stresses and drama kept going.

Then, on top of that, my health declined. I nearly died June 26, 2013 from my asthma and allergies from living where we were. I started finding a way to leave the house for 4 hours a day, nearly every day, and made it through the summer of 2014 without getting that ill. However, in January of 2015, after leaving that house for good, I'm still fighting chest issues from living there. It makes me slow, tired, can be cranky, etc. I do have a doctor's appointment in February (move caused me to need a new clinic so had to wait.). I can't wait. In the meantime, I'm still waaayy better than I had been before, despite the sore throat and tight chest that sets off my asthma rather easily.

I work on being positive, and for the most part, I manage on my social media and even at home. I am painting more, doing more crafts, and yes, even writing more. Not where I used to be, but, in the midst of the years of illness, I found solace in editing. Maybe I couldn't find the imagination to write like I used to, but at least I was helping others.

Now, I've pulled eleven of my books from the old publisher. I've re-released The Ulfric's Mate, the first in my War of the Weres series, the second will be re-released next month, my only 3some erotic sort of book will be re-released under a new name, Luck of the Draw, also next month. I always hated the title of the old one, but love that it's been changed :D I am in edits for my Epic Fantasy, Cerisa's Quest, to be out in March, and I'm working on new stuff. I am absolutely thrilled with this. The writing is still slow, and I'm still fighting the procrastination temptation that stems from me "not being good enough" that has been instilled in me elsewhere. I can logically tell myself that I was right, that it doesn't matter, but fact is, it did and does. My success with Ulfric's re-release, though not breaking any records, is a big comfort. It has a full newly done scene, and has been re-edited, so no one should be disappointed if they buy the new one. I've added over 1k words and done a re-edit on The Midwife's Moon as well. We've also added a glossary of terms and places and peoples for the series. I'm so excited!! Again, stuff not available in the old versions. Plus, I'll be doing a War of the Weres Chronicles series. First off will be the story formally only available in an anthology, Barely There. It will be number one. I'm still writing number 2, Moriah and Kamiakin's story, but have number three finished, and number four mostly finished. I have book three of the full lengths (55k+) at 30k and cooking. So this series is about to pop!

My art is going well, and people are buying it. I have multiple collectors now, which blows my mind!
Here's a recent finished painting:

And another one (Both are Scotland :D My obsession...):

On the home front, the new schools seem to be really good for my kids. My son earned a citizenship award today! I'm so proud. :D Another son is well liked by the administration at his school, which is a relief. I've lost my grandpa. Though I haven't seen him in years due to money, I'm still distraught about it. He has my happy memories from a child before I was adopted. I had others not so bad, but he was the clearest. The other memories revolved around abuse (one family member, but the rest were from our neighborhood) so this has been a big deal for me.

Last February, I hurt my leg. I messed up my knee and shins. I'm still having pain, but feel it is finally getting better. I'm going to ask for an xray at that doctor's appointment. Last night, my husband sliced his thumb pretty badly. My son's been in a car accident, but he's fine now.

^^ a lot of that may sound bad, er, and is, but we are doing way better than before, and the future is looking good! I hope that with my renewed health that I'll be back to writing blogs like I did before. Thank you to all of you who have stayed with me while I desperately held on with both hands to my writing through sickness and depression. Things are looking up,  I'm getting published, I'm selling my art, and I'm very much excited for the future. I hope to give you more blogs and less promotional blogs in the coming year.

Thank you guys for sticking it in!! Big hugs and Happy New Year! :D

Leona

She's alive!

Now, usually, I use that to mean I only fell off the ends of the earth, or had a really hard time I've recently come back from.

Nope, not this time. This time, it's literal. My daughter is alive. Why is that a big deal? Here's the story...

Out of the blue, I get a real live phone call from my text loving, zillion words a second, daughter. I already know something is up. So, then, in that voice that means she knows I'm not going to like what she says, she says, "How are you mom? How's everyone?"

If you're a parent, or close to a child, that voice combined with that non-sequitor is bad. Very bad. But, I play along. Sort of.

"We're all fine. What's up?" I ask her. Then she starts with the hemming and hawing. "I'm fine, we're fine, um, yes, but I'm fine."

Now my mother's heart is going OH SH**. I'm trying to let her tell me her way, but it is hard.

"When we left the roads were fine," she finally gets out. Silence on my end. I knew it wasn't good.

"We were going to his (bf) mom's house for holiday things, you know. And, well, um..." I decide to help her when she stalls again.

"Where does his mom live again?"

"Spokane. So we, like, um,"

Okay, I have to tell you, she uses um to usually mean I'm being an idiot, or to stall giving me really bad news. Notice the ums? And I'm editing for clarity...

"We, um, the roads looked fine. But, um, we hit black ice. We went off the left side into the ditch. And um,"

Now, I'm ready to burst in with questions, but she had to go add the 'and, um' to her story. I'm positively speechless. There's more?

"See, Justin (bf name) told me to get out of the car. I know the cops usually say to stay in your car, but I got out." her words are rushing now. And she's still using this tone of voice that I haven't heard from her in years.

"And all of the sudden a truck is heading towards us. It smashed into the passenger side of the car, right where I was sitting!"

OMG let me tell you, my heart is no longer beating a staccato, it is frozen in my throat.

"You're lucky you weren't hit anyway," I finally choke out.

"We started running as fast as we could in the snow. So, yeah. I've had my holiday excitement for the year."

"I guess so! I'm glad you're okay. Where are you?"

"Spokane, we were just past..." names an exit close to Spokane.

"I'm glad you're okay," I say.

And as she starts to speak, her phone dies.

My daughter, she should go to law school. She loves to argue semantics. I don't know how much arguing she actually did with him. But the point is, she got out first. Probably saved her life. For sure saved her body from grievous injury.

Whatever happens from this point on, she's had her Christmas Miracle.

I was so relieved that she was okay that I spent the night editing little bits, and playing twitter big bits :D I'm back to editing, and already tired :( Need sleep, and caffeine. But I'm happy with how the editing is going. Still have over 100 pages to go on current page count. Probably be closer to another 150 before I'm finished. Sigh.

Funny thing is, before I broke my glasses, I liked editing. Now it's harder than it used to be. :) Well, back to the editing process and trying to be a good mom and alpha female...