Plenty of updates to go around

Let's kick this post off with a positive.

The next six months are going to be awesome and I can't wait! I want to spill the beans about everything, but a few of those things have to be kept secret, only to be told at the right time.

In my personal life, I have three exciting things happening in the coming months. I'll graduate with my Associates degree and will transfer to a university to continue with my Bachelors in January. And Mary and I are going on a writing retreat/birthday trip in February for my 21st birthday! We're going to be having a blast in Pittsburgh!

Writing-wise, I'm going to start with this crazy fact: between now and January 2015, I'll release SIX books. SIX! So, I sure hope y'all are ready for more. 

Of course, this month is Bracing the Blue Line. Then in October, it's Looking for You, book one in Mary & my new series. The other three Oh Captain, My Captain novels will release one-a-month until the fourth one in January. 

PLUS, my secret WIP *may* come out in January too. So yeah, hope y'all are ready for more because they're coming.

Speaking of that WIP...

While I was writing Don't Panic, I was in the middle of one of my lowest points with my anxiety. The book was giving me panic attacks and it beat up my already broken down mind. The emotions that I was experiencing, combined with those I was writing about, overwhelmed me. There were a lot of moments where I nearly quit. I felt too much with that book. I felt all of it.

And it hurt.

Writing that book drove me as crazy as my anxiety did. The crazy, the anger, the sadness, the panic, all of those were working double time, 24/7. I was on edge all the time and there were moments when I didn't think I could do it. Just thinking about it has brought tears to my eyes. It's still hard to think about.

I don't talk about DP a lot, even to promote, and it's because of that. The book reminds me of my darkest times and I don't like thinking about it. Who would? (This totally goes against the reason I wrote the book, but that's an issue for me to tackle later.)

So what does that have to do with my secret WIP? Well...

I'm bringing up DP now because my WIP deals with similar issues as DP. This WIP is hard to write too. No lie, I cry at some point in almost every single chapter. It's not nearly as difficult as DP because I'm in a way better place now. Still, I've been more up and down with my moods than normal and picked up one of my old nervous habits again. (My leg is constantly bouncing up and down while I'm writing, and sometimes during other parts of my day when I'm not.)

This goes to show that writing and my sanity go hand in hand sometimes.

I've been wanting to write another book where a character deals with a mental disorder for a while, but I've been terrified. The opportunity for this book was unexpected. I didn't plan to write one like this anytime soon, but then I tweaked a thing or two and the idea was practically handed to me on a silver platter.

So, I'm writing it.

There's no way I would even attempt it if I weren't in a good place in my life at the moment. My three and a half years of therapy have done wonders and helped make me strong enough to write this book. While it's affected me somewhat, there's no way I'm going to stop. I can handle whatever is thrown my way, I'm sure of it.

This book needs to be written and I'm going to write it.

For the characters, for who I am now, for the hell I went through and had to crawl back out of, and for every single person who is dealing or has dealt with mental health issues before.

I wasn't intending to share this much, but my life update posts always end up being long. This is just part of what I'm dealing with both in my writing and in my personal life. I've never been one to not post about my anxiety or my other issues, so I felt like I needed to say something about it. And it gives you a little sneak peek to what's to come.

That's it for this post. Thanks for sticking with me to the end! I started this with a positive, and that's how I'll end it.

If you're a person who is struggling with something, anything, keep fighting. Things will get better. I promise.

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