An Unintentional Hiatus

It has been a while.

A Deal With the Untethered was released on April 30th, and since then, I have had a very sporadic online presence. If I’m being honest, that release was one of the most difficult releases since my first. Not because of the work I had to put into it (though it was a lot of work), but because I wasn’t mentally in a good place to put something out, and I had to claw my way through all the things that had to be done. It was an exhausting process, and it was one that deflated me when my release didn’t go as well as I wanted/expected.

Womp! Womp!

No worries, I’m not going to throw myself a pity party. The world is on fire… reading isn’t super high on everyone’s lists. Hell, even I have been struggling to dive into books lately. That being said, this has been my first release where I have felt kind of okay with all but disappearing from the social space. Usually I fight to stay visible and relevant, but typical burnout sloppily iced with grief made a cake I just couldn’t have and eat too. My posts have gone from daily to weekly, to none at all, and I just don’t have the spoons to even be upset about it.

Being an author is a long game, and I do get that. There is a certain delusion that comes with being in book spaces like Bookstagram and BookTok. Popularity feeds the algorithm, and it’s very easy to get swept up in the belief that “if it can happen for them, it can happen for me” thing. But all too quickly, I realized how much work goes into being seen by such a small number of readers. I can’t even imagine what goes into having the amount of success I’ve seen and was made to believe would be easy. There were so many factors in the publishing scene I didn’t know existed, and now, 14 books in, I have plateaued.

Alas, here we are. At the intersection of Pause and Breathe. Against my will. So is life. I did a lot in a small amount of time, and I probably would have just kept going, running on nothing but fumes, if not for an unexpected loss that completely debilitated me.

And so comes the post’s title: an unintentional hiatus. This is the first time since I started writing in my preteens that I have absolutely nothing on the page. No little poems, no notebook full of ideas. No quotes I will put in a book one day. There’s just not a single word in my creative brain. Has that helped this nonstop blue feeling I’ve been swimming in? You bet your sweet ass it hasn’t.

*Whisper from my inner voice* ‘We weren’t doing the pity party thing, remember?

Ah. Right. Sorry, I got a tad carried away. Anywho, back on track now. My burners are completely empty and I have not a damn thing cooking. Does that mean I am permanently putting down the pen? F**k, I hope not. But, I know it’s going to take me more time than I’m comfortable with to get my shhht together.

I will still be attending the Indie Book Fusion in Toronto in November, but outside of that, I don’t think I will be writing any new books right now. Sorry to disappoint, but if you really want something, feel free to look through my back catalogue and see if there is something there that piques your interest.

Ta Ta for now.