5 years...

Five years ago today, I sat down and began to write.  Eighteen days later, Here to Stay was born.  With the help of my friend and fellow author, Laramie Briscoe, the first novel in the Hidden Springs series made its debut two months later, and my life changed in ways I'd never imagined possible.

I've befriended people from around the country - and the world - who have since become family to me.  I've written seventeen stories and published fourteen books (Seasons of Love is a collection of four short stories).  I've attended author events in cities around the US that I otherwise would've never visited, and I've hosted two of my own.  I've expanded my vocabulary, brushed up on my punctuation and grammar skills (though I heartily recommend Grammarly as an additional tool), and photographed models for some of my covers.  I've counseled other authors in their moments of doubt and been blessed with the same from them during mine.  I've laughed, cried, and cursed; at times, swearing that I was never writing another word, only to turn around the next day and pound out four thousand of them on my keyboard.

I've received emails and messages from people who've cheered on my characters as they faced life's challenges; for a time, enjoying the escape from their own.  One reader (who's become a dear, dear friend) pestered me until I turned a stand-alone story, By Dawn's Early Light, into a trilogy because she wanted to read more about the town of Celebration and its inhabitants.  You're welcome, Barbara.

I've left my comfort zone in the dust and embraced new challenges (most of the time), have spoken up and asked for what I want; no longer afraid to hear the word 'no'.  I've grown as an author and as a person, and, most of the time, am proud of what I've accomplished.

Still, five years ago, when I envisioned what this day would look like, it wasn't this.  I've fallen short of almost every goal I've set for myself, sometimes due to personal reasons (surgery and the issues leading up to it sidelined me for close to a year) and sometimes due to my own lack of experience and motivation.  Sadly, time is the one thing I can't get back, and I've wasted more than my share over the past sixty months.  Wow, when I put it that way...

I'd like to say that I'll not waste a moment going forward, but I know that's not true.  I'll grow uninspired, frustrated, melancholy from time to time over lack of sales or missing a deadline and opt to binge watch a Netflix original rather than suck it up and write, but - and this is a very big but - I WILL NOT GIVE UP!!!  For better or worse, I'm an author.  Writing is in my blood.  It's in my breath and sweat and tears, and I'm going to achieve my version of success if it kills me!

So, here's to another five years.  Sixty months.  Two hundred and sixty point seven weeks (have to account for those extra 'leap year' days).  New goals.  New achievements.

Never giving up!