Hi everyone! I keep disappearing, and I am sorry for that! I’m making an effort to try harder. Although I haven’t published in forever, I have been writing, I simply end up hating everything once I finish and telling myself that it’s not good enough. I’m sure plenty of creators out there know what I’m talking about.
I’ve also been involved with several other up and coming authors over the last few years, friends and acquaintances that wanted to write and needed encouragement, a push, some help or someone to show them the way. One or two of them just wanted praise, but they’re not part of my group anymore because I am not a compliment vending machine. Rather the opposite actually HA
Long story short, even though I haven’t been publishing, I’ve been busy behind the scenes both with my own projects and other people’s, because it’s a lot less stressful when you help someone else publish a book than it is to publish your own. Between the constant issue of finding a cover and proofreaders, the fact that my books are pirated 75% more than they’re purchased (and that’s only the ones I know about lols) and the stress of waiting for the first review of a book, I needed a break. A long one. I’m still not entirely sure that I’m ready to publish anything again, but part of me craves it. I still stay up at night and slink away to lean over a laptop and get lost in a story, whether I’m describing the predatory look in Calvin’s eyes as he lays his eyes on Duncan again in Spannerdire or the spatter of blood on Kura’s face as she fights back to back with Kyo over a carpet of slain enemies. From Gerstan to the Whichway Expressway, Traichi and yet to be seen Kureshna - I am still there. It’s really just a matter of whether I’m ready to invite anyone else. I kept thinking it was time, but it wasn’t.
Well, then the world sort of stopped for awhile.
Covid did for America what Calvin had done for Duncan: It stopped everything and broke the world. That sudden halt is very jarring for several reasons that I’m sure I don’t have to explain. You’re in it too, or you have been. It’s necessary, and it’s hard. My concerns stretch from my father, who is a diabetic 70 year old with COPD (1000% dead if he catches this shit) to how bad my (only recently manageable, right before COVID) agoraphobia will become by the end of this.
I apologize for getting off track, this post isn’t about COVID19. My email is still being flooded by any business that has ever even heard of an email telling me what they’re doing for this pandemic, even if it’s some abstract company that was closed by the state two months ago. I don’t want to be them.
My point is that it’s stressful, and stressful times are unfortunately when I write the best and the fastest.
The Cat & the Crow was published within 2 months of me having the idea. It was also published while my oldest son (at the time 8) was having a poor reaction to a medication for anxiety. He became suicidal, and made an attempt at school. In order to have him weaned off as quickly as possible, he was placed in a mental hospital for two months. With my (at the time) newborn, I could not visit him myself. I wasn’t allowed to bring a child under two onto the children’s ward, and everyone that could watch my youngest so that I could go were only free during hours that visitation was off limits. When I did rarely get an opportunity to visit my boy, I saw and heard things from those children that will haunt me forever, and my son had to stay with them so that he could get better. He did, by the way~ Now he’s taller than me and is generally a super fun guy, spent two hours today drawing handsome squidward for a biology assignment about mutation. But he and I still remember what happened in there, and although we both agree even now that it necessary, it was harder than we could’ve imagined.
The book was written at a ludicrous speed because I throw myself into creative outlets to channel my stress. I’ve been doing that again, although I am also quite happily dividing my time amongst many friends who are starting up their author career as well. I’m not sure what will come of it, but I realized that when I started having issues with anxiety, I started to publish blog posts and updates less often, then I stopped altogether.
I apologize for it.
I’m back, although I’m not sure what will be published first or specifically when that will be. Maybe I’ll buckle down on that one that’s almost complete from last year. Sadly I hadn’t touched it since about this time in 2019, although I’m sure I have my notes on it. That one is the different one, starring someone who is well adjusted and generally a very happy person for a change. I know, it’s like I didn’t even write it. An adult engaged in a healthy relationship? I swear I haven’t lost my touch! It was just something new and I promise it has some of my typical terrible behavior!
Maybe I’ll dust that off later today.
I mean, I have the cover, I’m really just being a coward at this point, right? There’s a worldwide plague and murder hornets and probably a god damned sharknado climbing up the coast with a rusty bucket of bullshit next, how the hell can the judgement of the internet regarding a book that I wrote possibly compete with that?
Easily. *sigh*
We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m going to have myself an iced coffee and work on the forever awaited PWT3 because sometimes you want to write about a woman unceremoniously breaking someone’s nose for being a jerk and it’s that sort of Tuesday.
As usual anyone who wants to contact me can find me here or on facebook, goodreads also works if anyone wants to have a conversation with me.
Wish me luck :)
S. K. Hart (Not dead.)
