UPDATE: The winner is…K Campos!
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Thanks to Delilah for hosting me again!
When I asked for this date, it was because I had planned to have the last book in my Rafferty Ridge series releasing next week, but life had other plans. So many plans. I have always written. I write in my head as I’m driving (wish I could master dictation but somehow it doesn’t work for me), I write in my head as I’m cooking, showering, watching TV. But finding time to write at an actual computer the last month or so has been HARD. My husband had hernia surgery in January and can’t lift anything over ten pounds and with two young kids, a full-time job in healthcare and so much laundry I could probably fill an 18-wheeler, writing kept getting pushed back. The last two years have felt like a juggling act, just trying to keep all the balls in the air with work, family, kids, school, something to keep myself sane like running or quilting. But it ends up feeling like I’m doing everything at a bare minimum, and that’s hard with writing. You want to put your best work forward and when you have limited time and energy, that’s where writing starts to be pushed to the back burner.
But I’m also working on being kinder to myself, we are all struggling right now and as much as I love to write, it shouldn’t be adding to my stress. The book will be finished at some point, but I am not exactly sure when. And that’s okay. In the meanwhile, the first two books in the series, Where the Light Comes In and The Way Back Home, are both available on Amazon and are really fun, quick reads. And I just might leave you scratching your head wondering how I’m going to redeem Sarah in book three (I’m still working on it).
What are some things that you have struggled with during this pandemic? What are some self-care things you have found that helped? Leave a comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon card!
The Way Back Home
EXCERPT from The Way Back Home:
“You’re not going to say anything?”
Teo raised his eyes to hers, and they caught her like a fishhook. A glimpse of that old hurt, of a raw vulnerability that almost took her breath away. “You just sustained a head injury, My. It’s not the time.”
“When is the time? Because the minute you can get rid of me, you will, and I’ll never see you again.” She wished she could keep her voice flat, emotionless, but it cracked on the tail end.
He looked away, at the refrigerator that had started humming. “What difference does it make at this point?”
She stared at him. The protective shell she’d built had been ripped off and it hurt as much as the day he’d left. “What difference does it make? Did I really mean that little to you?” Her voice rose, thickening with emotion and anger.
“Mean that little to me?” For the first time she heard anger in his voice, real emotion that broke through that carefully hardened exterior. His posture changed, no longer languid, his body tensed like was readying for battle. “You were the one…” He trailed off, losing steam, and turned, bracing his hands on the counter. The muscles in his back and shoulders sagged under the thermal shirt.
“I was the one what?” Maya asked, uncertainty edged into her tone. The air had been sucked out of the room at his outburst and she couldn’t breathe.
His voice became flat and emotionless again. She couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders sagged. “You need to rest.”
“I was the one what?” she asked again. Her voice betrayed the tension that was making her headache worse. She wanted him to say it. She was the one who’d gotten pregnant. Who had ruined everything. She was the one.
The silence hung between them, the clatter of the fridge, the harsh sound of her breath in the cold air. And her heart squeezed and ached, still pathetically clinging to a shred of hope.
He didn’t move, didn’t turn, but his words had the impact of a sledgehammer. “You were the one that didn’t want me.”
I bought this little brainstorming tool years ago at some writers’ conference. “Story Cubes” is a brainstorming game. You roll the dice and whatever pictures appear face-up are the ones you use to riff off a story.
