Do you ever look back on something you did and think to yourself how much sooner you could've accomplished it if you would've been better organized, more disciplined? Same. The journey to finishing Awakened Power was a long one (haha, that's what she said!) full of twists and turns, triumphs and setbacks. Grab some tea and get settled… It was a dark and stormy night… No, that's not right. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times… Okay, that's a little more accurate. I started my book mid-2020, when COVID was the ONLY thing on the news, and I couldn't even go to the grocery store for toothpaste, much less the bookstore or library. Boredom set in really quickly. Luckily, I worked remotely, which gave me plenty of time at home, occasionally avoiding actual work and goofing off instead. (Shhh…. don't tell my boss!) To be fair, my position was really new, and no one quite knew what to do with me. And I tend to grind really hard to get my to do list done so I have more time to goof off. I mean, enjoy other hobbies. Anyhoo, based on a dream I had one night, I started writing a book. I didn't know it would be a book I mostly just wrote about my dream because it haunted me (I was reading a lot of Nora Roberts at the time). Every few days or weeks I would add a little something to it, but not much and not consistently. Over the next few years, I continued to play around with it, but in 2024 I decided at 70,000 words and counting I actually had a book, and I got serious. Even at my most serious I still only got a couple thousand words in here and there, but after my husband had a pretty serious surgery and my life ground to a halt, I used writing as an escape, as a fun little diversion from the worry. One of my first biggest cheerleaders was my sister-in-law, Susie. (Hi Susie!) When I told her about my book, she got so excited, asked me questions about it whenever we talked, and generally rizzed me up (that's cool kid code for making me feel like a rockstar. I think. I looked it up on Urban Dictionary and that is decidedly not their definition.). Susie worked on creating a website for me, and we had weekly meetings discussing my progress on the book and the next steps. Finally, I made myself an actual ironclad schedule (that I followed about as well as any enforced rule… :-)). But it helped me focus and eventually I banged out (again with The Office jokes…) the rest of the book. The first person I sent my first draft to was my friend Sam, so she could be a Beta reader for me (not that I knew that's what it was called at the time). Meanwhile, I paid a developmental editor to edit it for me. I wish I would've read my book through a few more times before I sent it. In all seriousness, when you are writing something, it's hard to see the gaps or holes in your story because you're so close to it. After I got it back from Claire, my editor, I realized, based on her feedback, that I had a lot more work ahead of me. After a few more months of a big overhaul and bushwhacking it down from 100,000 words to 70,000, I reread it again, maybe a hundred more times, then sent it back to Claire. That was ten days ago. No, I'm definitely not biting my nails and pacing nervously… The moral of this very long-winded story for the two people still reading is that I finally got my sh*t together and put in the work to write an actual book! I'm working on my second one now, part of a three book (so far) cozy mystery/romance series that is completely different from my first book. I can't wait to have them published and to show them off to the one or two people that might pick them up by accident…. :-)