"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

Since my traumatic brain injury in 2009, I see things as very black and white and I struggle sometimes to find the balance. For instance, I’m either obsessed with something (at the moment, “Bridgerton” – so I’m watching every YouTube link related to the series or the actors and I’m on my 3rd go of watching the entire series on Netflix, I love it so much) or over it and don’t want to hear about it.

So the other day I hated my book and couldn’t stand to look at it. My whole world had fallen in and I wasn’t going to be an Author at all, I was going to be a miserable person of no value whatsoever.

But today guys, I’m back on board.

I’m finding that as an Author (look at me go, sounding so Literary!), I think about my book ALL THE TIME. I think about it in the shower, as I brush my teeth, as I go about my job, when I’m with my friends, when I’m scrolling social media and especially when I’m on public transport.

I was hating the way I’d written my very first chapter and that put a stop to any other chapters being developed. It was awful. But last night, I thought of new angles to come at it from and this morning I re-wrote what I think is a STELLAR chapter.

YUSS!!!

Now the rest of my book will develop the way I want because the introduction is looking STRONG. I love it. SO excited, you guys.

But I’m not just writing one book, NO. I’m also writing a fictional romance. It’s mostly for my friends, they have grown to love “Hayley” and “Rajesh” so much, it’s so sweet to see how much they care about these characters. I’ve never written a fictional story before so I didn’t know that I carry Hayley and Rajesh around in my heart as if they are real people. I know how Rajesh sounds when he talks, how he smells lemony and fresh. I hear Hayley’s laugh in my heart as I go about my day and I know what she’d order if we went to a café together. They’re characters that exist on paper, but they’re also finding their way into my life and I ‘hear’ them all the time. I think about them the way I think about my real-life friends. I worry about them.

I was thinking I’d publish my chapters on Hayley and Rajesh as a book, too. Maybe a Fiction Publishers would like a refreshing story on an overweight, awkward girl in her 30’s who isn’t perfect and a guy who isn’t a billionaire that doesn’t want to tie her to things and perform weird sexual acts on her? Maybe they’d be interested in a story where the girl does the saving and they guy is goofy and loveable rather than “manly” and “stoic”?

So…two books on the go, a full time job…and hardly any rest.

Sigh.