What A Wild Ride

I don't know about you all, but this year has been a wild ride of ups and downs. Just the past two weeks have been like being on the Falcon's Fury at Busch Gardens ( which I have never ridden and wouldn't, but I've seen a video). Life was going pretty well. No one had gotten Covid, I went to two family Thanksgiving dinners, and everything was beautiful, just like the ride up on the Falcon's Fury. And then life took a nosedive, just like the ride. I have to admit that things have slowed down like the ride does right before you hit the pavement. Hopefully, the ride ends soon so we can all get off and throw up.

Before Thanksgiving, I still hoped to get Learning To Love Again published before the end of the year. At one of the Thanksgiving dinners, my oldest granddaughter hugged me and told me she loved me, something she doesn't often do, but I ate it up while enjoying a wonderful visit with in-laws (I should have known better).

Parents, please, please read everything on your kids' phones. I had to step away from the lead role raising my granddaughter last year because she was out of control. It's a long story of how I ended up with her and will make its way into a book, probably one about a pedophile that gets killed. She went to live with her Dad and then her Mom, both of who are recovering addicts who tried to do their best for her, but then, the weekend after Thanksgiving, she got in a car with a pedophile who had been visiting her for several months and went four states away. Just writing this, I can feel my blood pressure rising and am so thankful that I was not involved other than in a supporting role because I would probably be in jail right now. But, that said, the police found her. She is safe at home, has Covid, and has given several members of the family Covid that she got from the piece of roach poop that she took off with.

Sadly, it's going to be a little while before the ride is over, especially for everyone who ended up with Covid. I don't think I got mine from her because I have a foster teenager in the house who got it somewhere else, and I was around him more, but who knows. I'm just praying my 82-year-old father-in-law didn't get it. So that happened, and now I'm dealing with Covid. Thank God and all the powers that be that my case has been mild so far. I lost my sense of taste and smell, which really sucks. Everything tastes awful, even pizza.

It appears that it will be next year before Learning to Love Again is fully ready, although I have not ruled out posting it on Kindle Vella before the end of the year.

Neither of my last two books, Sheltered by Love and Through This Together, have been big sellers, and it's been very depressing. Of course, I published both of them amid this Covid mess. I have to admit, too, that I've been trudging through a rough bout of depression that has made it difficult to be creative.

It's not that I haven't been writing, I've actually written quite a bit, but nothing has set much of a fire under me until I started writing Learning to Love Again. I have high hopes for it. It's got some drama, but, at its core, it's about a woman learning to love herself for who she is and finding romance along the way. And, there might be a few hot sex scenes involved.

I think part of my problem is that my stories are all over the genre spectrum but lean more toward drama than romance. I've tried in vain to recreate the romance of my first book, Suddenly. Maybe I've found that in Learning to Love Again, but with two older women instead of teenagers.

That's another problem I'm running into. I'm finding it hard to write about young adults. Mostly because I don't understand these young people today, and I find that the young adults I write about are way more mature than their contemporaries. But, if another story idea comes along, I'll write it.

I've been leaning a little toward the dark side (well, more dark than normal), and I think I will write a thriller next. {Not the killing the pedophile one, not yet, if something happens, it will look suspicious. ;)} The story will probably have a romance in it, but I don't think that will be the core of the story.

I'm sure my fans don't know what to think or expect from me, and I'm sorry about that; I hope you stick with me.

Hopefully, 2022 will be the year my muse gets her shit together, and I have a lot of stories for you all to read—a little romance, a little drama, a little sex, but always a Happy Ever After.