In 2025, I hit a breaking point with my writing. It was like I took a giant, unintentional leap into quicksand with only a sliver of hope to drag me out. Looking around at what I was doing with my writing business, I realized that while I was slowly moving in the right direction, especially by centering on my genre, I was also drifting recklessly in another.
My problem was simple: I was focusing so much time on social media and not on the actual writing.
In 2011, I grabbed my laptop and wrote my first novel. It was a dark women’s fiction story that included a lot of material that would need trigger warnings. Obviously, that one didn’t get published. In 2013, I did it again. What would eventually become Shattered Yesterdays was drafted, and I spent the next seven years editing, publishing, editing again, re-publishing, and debating whether it needed one more polish before I finally decided in 2025 that it was a book meant to stay in my past.
In 2024, I wrote what became my first official novel, Chasing Time, and it was a slight success. I received a few solid reviews, landed myself in the public library, and even made the front page of the Thief River Falls Times newspaper. But then, by the middle of 2025, everything dried up. The money I was investing in things like The Fussy Librarian, BookBub, and Facebook boosts was putting me in the red. Such an ugly color.
Like I said, I hit my breaking point. I realized I needed to make a significant change. In November, two months before I planned to, I deleted all of my social media. I even deactivated my personal Facebook page. I needed a break. It was then that I decided that in 2026, I was going to write silently and work quietly to figure out how I wanted to move forward with my author business.
Since the start of the new year 23 days ago, I’ve been incredibly busy, and in a lot of good ways. I can’t wait to share more in 2027, and I plan to continue blogging now and then to help break up the silence.
If you’re reading this and wondered what happened, I’m here. I’m okay. And most importantly of all, new stories are coming your way soon.
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