Let me tell you about my past year. One of those year in review posts but not as enjoyable as the ones I've read from a lot of you, ha. First of all, the good news! I have a book coming out later this year! From a traditional publisher! Who paid me money! I'll tell you more when I know more, but quickly, it's a fictional story about a true celebrity dog. Yes. A dog… who has over 3M followers on TikTok. It was a lot of fun to work on and proved to me that I can still write after all the last few years has doled out. But the rest of the writing year wasn't as good.

Oh, I did write 20 pages of a Christmas romance screenplay, and that was good enough for the production company to ask for more ideas; they just didn't want that one. I'm on round two or three of loglines, it's hard to keep track, ha, but at least it's a fun creative exercise!

I auditioned/interviewed for a very cool nonfiction ghostwriting gig but it went to someone with more specific experience. Also a fun creative exercise, though it would've been a great project!

I was offered an app licensing deal back in July for which the contract is still in negotiation. It may eventually come to pass, but I really could've used that income last year.

I was presented a two book opportunity from a new venture, about which I was terribly excited, yet when that contract arrived none of the terms were what had been discussed, which made me pretty sad. I'd been looking forward to working with that team.

I took on a part time industry-related job which helped but that has now played out.

With no money to spend on advertising, my backlist catalogue died on the vine.

The rest of this post is about grief, the toll it takes on the brain, trauma as damaging as a physical injury. Not just to writers, but to everyone who experiences it, but if you make your living from worlds you conjure up in your imagination, you understand the impact grief has on your work. Some people quit completely. Some power through. I've fought against quitting. I've tried to power through. I've been writing. Hundreds of thousands of unpublishable words.

Not publishing means no money coming in.

I'm now in the process of reinvention. It makes sense considering I'm not the same writer now that I was before losing Walt. Four months before I lost him, I lost my mother. Six months after I lost him, I lost my father. And then there was the hurricane, the flood. My house is still unfinished. And I'm drowning in the debt of recovery, of reconstruction, of rebuilding a life I don't yet love, living KU page read to KU page read. (If you're in KU, you get it, ha.) I'm flat broke.

HOWEVER, after those same five years, the writing is finally finally FINALLY going well. I wasn't sure I'd ever get back that spark. Not just the creativity, the imagined stories, but the ability to put anything down on the page that made sense. It's frightening to look back and know how much I wrote that I can't do anything with, but I'll keep it. There are a few gems I may unearth.

Even with the money I am making, the events of the last five years have caught up with me. I sold the Mini Cooper Walt bought me. I've sold small appliances I no longer use, furniture I don't need, anything I can think of. We get food from church food banks, pet food donations. There are no more pennies to pinch. I could not try harder to make things work than I have been. If there's a service, a charity, a hand-up to apply for, I have applied. But I've hit a financial wall.

I have new indie books coming out this year, too, but the publishing payment schedule means it'll be three to six months before I'm back on my feet once those are published, and I'm not going to make it without a cushion to get me there. I don't need much, but I do need. It's hard to accept that I've come this far, scrimped at every turn, and now when things are looking up, I'm going to go under and lose what I have left.

I can't make it to the other side without help. So here I am, after doing all I can think of for five years now, asking. This cushion will get me there.

I thank you, so very humbly, from the bottom of my heart.

For more information on grief and brain trauma:

https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/how-tragedy-affects-the-brain/