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"Where have you been?" Good question.
I finished and released my last book last summer. Then I seemingly...disappeared. Only two-thirds of the way through my Trilogy too.
For the most part of where I've been, it's usually referred to as "First World Problems." Not really any "good" reasons to leave my readers hanging for so long. So I apologize. And I will let you in on what has kept me from completing my work.
For the most part, I overworked myself. I'd gotten advice that I needed to write and release quickly in this world of binge watching and reading, which turned out to be too much for me with what's already on my plate. I have a young family to take care of while being married to an active duty service member whose schedule and time home is unpredictable. I have volunteer obligations. And when I wasn't dealing with any of that, I was writing, marketing, and on social media. It got to the point where all of my time was spent working in one form or another. Even when it looked like I was having relaxing downtime, I was actually researching, marketing, or fleshing out ideas for books, story lines, and characters. Basically, I burned myself out.
When summer rolled around and my children were home from school for the summer, I found them too distracting to write, especially while already burned out. And since the weather was nice and my children were on vacation, family came to visit. As a military family, we don't live near our extended families, so visits occur when my kids are on vacation from school. It felt like visitors came one after another that summer. And I had to prepare for their visits, entertain them while they were here, and put my house back together once they left. Even my husband takes leave from work when his own families visit.
While all this was going on, we were also trying to sell a house we owned in another state. We'd been renting it out for over a decade after the housing bubble burst and we had to move on to my husband's next duty station. We held onto it until prices rose enough for us to at least break even (the Gulf Oil Spill was another set back to our southern house value), but it sat empty while on the market for sale. We struggled to essentially pay a double mortgage while paying for repairs and utilities and yard maintenance and a bunch of other things until it sold. For months, one thing after another went wrong. We had two offers we were thrilled with, but as soon as we accepted, the buyers backed out for "personal" reasons. When we didn't have amazing offers, we were lowballed. Things kept breaking or it took longer than expected to get people in to fix them since we lived too far to fix them ourselves [we're actually quite handy]. Even our realtor hadn't seen anything like our situation in the twenty-two years she'd been in the business. She was convinced someone had put "bad juju" on our house and contemplated burying a cross or something in the yard to combat it.
I figured the summer off would be enough "down time" and prepared to get back to work after we finally sold the house, our last summer visitor had left, and my kids were back in school. Only that time came and my husband was promoted. With this promotion came weeks of initiation that is unique to that one promotion in his military branch. The initiation was stressful for the entire family. We never knew when my husband would be home and when he was, it was usually only for a few hours of sleep. I had to be ready to run to the store to get him supplies and try to keep meals ready for his few chances to eat. Thank goodness my oldest now helps with the laundry because there was so much laundry. So. Much. I was too stressed and tired in an unusual situation to write.
Yes, there are military spouses that can do all this and work full time.
And I applaud them. I just don't happen to be one of those that can.
Once the initiation completed culminating in a special ceremony and a later ball, the holidays were quickly approaching. I tried to juggle it all but was unsuccessful. So my writing suffered, but we were lucky enough to travel to family for Christmas and even make a short stop in New York City. Oh, the torture, right?
Oh, yeah. I'm not sure how I was able to since it's been so consuming, but I forgot this part. As soon as my husband made rank, they started telling us to be ready to move at a moment's notice to...anywhere. I had no idea when we would move or where, but I was supposed to prepare for it. I did, a little, but mostly I stressed about it. And I dealt with my kids stressing about it since we had to prepare them to possibly move with very short notice.
After months of waiting and worrying, my husband finally got orders after the New Year to move our family this summer. We'll be moving about half a day's drive from our current home, which is the shortest move we've ever had. So while moving sucks, this one won't be that bad. Great news!
I have been kind of decompressing, living with guilt and anxiety for leaving my readers hanging for so long, and trying to get my act back together ever since he got his orders. Then my husband left on a work assignment for about a month and left me alone with the kids for the first time in a couple of years, which our youngest struggled with. Oh, and I started prepping for our impending move by finding areas we should look for homes that are safe with good schools for our kids, arranging for places to stay during house hunting leave and during the move while the movers have our things, and starting to downsize so we stay within the weight allowance of household items the military will pay to move for us. Things will only pile on as the move gets closer until we've completed the transition to a new home with my kids set up in new schools with new doctors and dentists and anything else that needs setting up.
Here we finally are, in April, almost a year from the release of my first book, and I am finally releasing the continuation of my story. The one I'm writing, not the one I'm living. Although, the one I'm living is probably crazy enough to be written as a book of its own at some point. At least I'm able to say my life is rarely boring. If you'd like glimses of the highlights and our travels, check out my Instagram.
Anyway, I have high hopes of finishing the Trilogy before our move this summer. Wish me luck that I didn't just further jinx myself.