I know I'm in my own way but I feel stuck.

I've been looking for inspiration in many places these days. Trying to get back to writing. Sometimes just combing through the #writingprompt tag on twitter works to move me. Today the one that jumped was "Write about what is getting in your way."

Honestly I am in my own way. In my writing career, in my life in gerneral. I just have no idea what to do about it. Blaming my dad and the regular self esteem slaps or my fibro is easy and even truth in a way but honestly it comes down to fear. Fear of failing at writing, at being a wife and mom. Fear of the unknown. Fear of pushing my body into another setback. Fear of letting those I love down even more. Fear of my dreams being permanently taken.

It sucks to realize I am held by fear.

Mind numbing fear and the blessings that come with it.

Lately a few of our fellow bloggers and real life friends have been having health fun. Health issues are never fun or easy. Some talk about it and some don't. Both ways are fine. Watching people i care about struggle has brought up some memories and so I thought to share some feelings as a show of support and a reminder than even when it feels overwhelming you are never alone in your fear.

When we first moved here my amazing guy decided it was time to push me to really figure out my health. I was tired all the time, bruises took days or even weeks to heal, I looked just plain sickly sometimes even though my weight stayed the same and higher than I would like even though I ate little. Nevada is a specialist state. The rate of lawsuits here are so high that your primary doc handles little stuff and passes you on for big stuff so she sent me to a hematologist. He discovered something odd. While my white blood cells are in the normal to sometimes low count range the percentage of them that are lymphocyte cells are very elevated. He tested again and again and always got the same results. Elevated lymphocytes. Well this can be a fluke or it can be a big deal. Two big deal options were cancer. One would kill me very fast and one may never kill me at all. So while we waited for some very extensive testing results and time between tests to check for accuracy I felt like my life was in this horrible holding pattern. 6 weeks of wondering about my life, my future, my children and their future. I have never been so freaking scared. I rarely slept. Every bruise was a new reason to worry. Every time I had a migraine I was terrified. I researched until I was blue in the face.

Then the results came back. Not cancer but no clue why you have the abnormality. My bruising was chalked up to being so fair. So it was on to more tests, this time to the endocrinologist. I was tested for everything he could think of. More waiting and worrying. Luckily most of his tests wouldn't result in a fatal diagnosis.

Once again I was healthy. I was the healthiest sick person they had ever seen. Sure my blood had weird oddities but nothing that pointed to a specific diagnosis. Then came the rheumatologist. The guy was a complete jerk but was sure it was FMS. And so I had an answer.

Of course sometimes answers don't feel like comfort. The answers can be scary and life altering. They can feel like an awful weight pressing down on our world and forever changing things. I tend to be grateful for answers even when they suck because I would rather know what battle to wage than stand on that bleak precipice and hope I jump the right direction to flee the demons chasing me. It truly is in how you look at it.

So if you are facing challenges please remember that you are not alone, you are loved, and the worst result you can ever get is "Inconclusive". Test on. Push on, fight on. Get your answers and know that whatever the outcome you won't face it alone.

Awwweeee..... Do I gotta?

Today I embark on that most dreaded of quests. School clothes shopping with a 9 year old girl, a group of teenagers, a two year old, and my brother in law. I am not sure which terrifies me more. If I don't come back alive I'll miss you all.

AC DOWN!!! ........ and other stuff.

So I want to write. I always want to write but I am fabulous at putting it off for whatever reason I can. I think the current theme has been not wanting to stay up since it has to be done after Monkey goes to bed plus not wanting to approach a pretty violent but necessary scene. I am approaching this book again on the basis that my heroine is not a ninny. I kind of created her to be originally. She took long standing physical and emotional abuse and it wasn't until she became pregnant and her father died that she found the courage to leave. Now I am not coming down on abused women. Before I met and married my guy I had a pretty ugly relationship. It happens. It can happen to very smart very confident women and it can take them by surprise. I just don't want to write that story. I think a lot of the reason for the change in how I view her has come as I have gained more confidence in myself as a woman. My awesome guy has always been 100% supportive. He has always had confidence in me, found me beautiful, and pushed me to be more. He married a wuss. I honestly was a wall flower and in certain ways still am. I hate confrontation and often stayed quiet even if it meant allowing myself to be hurt. That has changed over recent years and as that has changed the view of the women I want to write has changed.


I knew I needed re-writes for this book. If any of you have been to my website and read my rough work you can see what I mean. This book, so far titled "Kat's Escape", has a great plot. I love the theme. But before I run the gauntlet again of agents, especially after my horrible last experience, I want to do some re-writing. I plan to pull in the POV aspects. In the first chunk of the book I jump to other characters POV (point-of-view) and away from the hero and heroine and villian(s?). I also want Kat to be stronger. Signs of her husband's junk will have been there but the actual physical fight is going to be the catalyst. Being hit and her father's death is what makes her leave. So I am on that scene. Husband has finally snapped his carefully contained leash and beaten her to a pulp and raped her. I have to write that. I plan to skirt the rape. More of a fade to black as he undoes his pants and approaches type thing. I don't have the stomach for that despite the fact it is needed for my story line to go as I need it to. I mean she does have a pregnancy to contend with after all.


So I am avoiding. Avoiding because of the violence which is hard for me to write on a few levels even though I write romantic suspense which typically has some violence for the reason of overcoming it. I am avoiding because I don't want to give up sleep though my husband would understand and even be thrilled over it. At the root I am avoiding because my confidence as a writer is still shaky. The agent debacle totally tore my confidence up and getting back into the grove has been rough. In a way blogging helps because it releases some of the tension but I need to get back to my stories. I have a whole series for youth that needs written and all the other stories that pop through my head. They need telling and I need to just stop letting fear rule. Uggg.........


Oh and to top it off the AC is down. In the desert. With temps hitting 108 at the house. Poor hubby has had it hit 112 at work. Yuck.

The hard truth....

Tonight I was watching a movie I had never seen. Based on a well known teen book series it falls into the category of husband will never watch with me. One of the characters was dying. As she lay under the stars discussing this with a friend she said something that struck home for me. She said that it wasn't death that scared her but more that she would not be able to become who she was supposed to be or that she would miss so much. I have always been afraid of death and I think this explains it better. It is not that I lack faith in what lays beyond this life but that once this life is over I will not have become what I was meant to be or that I will miss things in the lives of people I love. I think that is why I worry so much about death and keeping it at bay. I strive to be the best mother and wife that I can be. I put my heart and soul into all I do for my girls and all the life that I live. I make sure that every moment of every day my husband knows that I love him, that I have always loved him, and that my love for him grows richer and fuller with each breath we take together. I am devoted to my family, to Gracie and Maggy, to being all I can for them. My greatest fear is not the dying but that I will not have fulfilled something for those that I love that I should have. I know that all of my life is in the hands of a higher power, I trust that all will be as it should, I just hope that as it should be is after a long life of seeing my girls grown and happy and of having my marriage continuing to thrive and grow as each year passes.