It’s been a few years since I tread these boards. Blogging took a back burner to pretty much everything else for awhile, including writing. Consider this the mother of all round-up posts, because we have almost five years to cover.

2015:

  • Became editor-in-chief of Birthing Magazine, a position I still hold today. We publish three times a year, with a focus on serving pregnant people and parents of children under two. It’s a great magazine, and I love flexing my editorial muscles.
  • Started writing a new novel! Untitled at the time, it began to shape itself into a paranormal mystery concerning past lives, present-day murders and what it means to be family. More on this later.
  • Adopted my best friend, a 15lb orange tabby named Oliver Venkman. There has never been a better cat.
  • Travelled to Wales, England and Scotland. Many shenanigans ensued.
  • Depression. Womp womp. Stopped writing.

2016:

  • Travelled to Costa Rica, and then a few months later solo to Copenhagen.
  • Recovering from depression. Still not writing, but making plans to start again.

2017:

  • Paid off my mortgage, quit one of three jobs I was holding. Depression starts to lift.
  • Start writing again in February, on the same mystery I abandoned in 2015.
  • Travelled to Wales and Cornwall, discover that Cornwall is the first place I’ve ever been to that feels like home. While I’m gone, my house almost burns down and we have to move out until repairs are completed.
  • In July I take a one-week getaway to Galiano Island and write over 20,000 words of the book that still doesn’t have a name. Finish shortly after, spend some time editing and on a whim, decide to pitch it during the #DVPit pitch party on twitter. Get several requests for full manuscripts! Settle on calling this book Past Presence.
  • In December, receive an offer to publish from one of the presses that requested my full, Literary Wanderlust. Accept–I’m going to be an author!

2018:

  • Just so much editing.
  • Also New Zealand, and a very quick trip to London for the Miss and I for her birthday.
  • Pub date is set for April 1, 2019.
  • I’m off anti-anxiety meds for the first time since my mid-20s. It’s a lot of work to keep myself safe and healthy, but worth it to not be so numb all the time.
  • Complicating that is a diagnosis of ADHD, but I have a good team of mental health professionals who are working with me to learn the skills I need to be at my best.
  • Start writing a new novel, called Moving On. It’s a speculative YA story about Bree Banks, a 17-year-old girl who dies unexpectedly. She finds herself recruited to be an Attendant, a supernatural being who helps guide people from the living into death, a job which she neither wants nor feels she’s well-suited for. It’s full of heartbreak, sassy dialogue and #ownvoices moments for the neurodiverse. I’m having a blast writing it.

2019:

  • Thailand in January with six friends. Japan in February with my family. This is a very big lot of travelling. I vow to stay home for a good long while.
  • April 1, 2019. Past Presence is available worldwide!

I think that pretty much catches us up! This blog will now return to its regularly scheduled programming of writing life, tips and tricks, typewriters (oh, I have some new lovelies) and interviews with fellow writers.

tl;dr: The last four years have been upsy-downy but now I have a book out and I went a lot of places.