Dani Hart's Blog
October 27, 2023
RELEASE DAY IS SO MUCH MORE FOR ME!
This is my brother and today is his birthday. He would have been 48. The is also my first book release in 3.5 years. I chose his birthday for this release because his death is the reason I disappeared 2.5 years ago and he is the reason why I'm back. I was ready to release this book before he was killed and over the past 6 months something inside me was telling me I needed to get this book out there. With an all new perspective on the grief process I did an overhaul and in the process found myself healing. I miss my brother so f*cking much and it kills me every day knowing he's gone because of a reckless distracted boat driver who nearly killed his son, too. I'm so grateful that my nephew is still here, but so incredibly heartbroken for him because he's without a mother and father now.
My brother was the silly uncle and the supportive brother. He was adventurous and always the life of the party. We shared many of the same insecurities, but he found a way to rise above his. He worked too hard and life beat him down unfairly throughout his life, but to the very end, his son was the most important thing to him and he died with his son by his side. We were all there and I'm so glad he was not alone. The only thing positive I will ever see in that day. We were all together.
We all have our own grief journeys and without writing, I'm not sure if I would have come out of the depths when I did. I journaled throughout the whole process. I need to share MY story and so much of it is interwoven in Chasing Waves. I craved connection with other grief survivors during my process and the lack of fiction books that I could find made this book even more important for me to get it out there.
Thank you so much for listening and being here and supporting the success of Chasing Waves. Thank you for seeing me after all these years. This one is for my brother. Happy Birthday, David. ❤️🩹
My brother was the silly uncle and the supportive brother. He was adventurous and always the life of the party. We shared many of the same insecurities, but he found a way to rise above his. He worked too hard and life beat him down unfairly throughout his life, but to the very end, his son was the most important thing to him and he died with his son by his side. We were all there and I'm so glad he was not alone. The only thing positive I will ever see in that day. We were all together.
We all have our own grief journeys and without writing, I'm not sure if I would have come out of the depths when I did. I journaled throughout the whole process. I need to share MY story and so much of it is interwoven in Chasing Waves. I craved connection with other grief survivors during my process and the lack of fiction books that I could find made this book even more important for me to get it out there.
Thank you so much for listening and being here and supporting the success of Chasing Waves. Thank you for seeing me after all these years. This one is for my brother. Happy Birthday, David. ❤️🩹
September 30, 2023
September 26, 2023
...Ready For It?
Cue T-Swift
I'm back! It's been over 2 years and below I'm going to fill you in as to why. It's sad and, if I'm being completely honest, it's tragic, but I'm on the other side of it now and I have a new release coming October 27th!!!
THE REASON
If you follow me on IG, then you know that I lost my brother a few years back to a boating accident when our whole side of the family was vacationing together. I was emotionally and psychologically paralyzed for pretty much two years. How people process grief is very different and there are no timelines and while I wish I could have found a way to carry it better sooner, I was not in control of that.
So if you read my posts on IG, when my brother was killed I was almost finished writing a contemporary romance that I was all set to release in the summer of 2021. The last day I worked on it was the morning of the day my brother died. I didn't open that document until a month ago. It's hard to summarize everything here, but if you want to know more you can pop over to IG. I cleared my IG right after he died because I couldn't stand to look at anything that brought me joy. It felt wrong, so I'm just starting to post again.
THE BOOK
Chasing Waves - The story behind the story - Part 1
I can't remember what initially inspired me to write Chasing Waves because I have forgotten a lot of random details of my life surrounding my brother's death, but I can tell you what inspired me to finish it and maybe that's even more important.
The last day I worked on this story before my brother died was on the day he died. Being that this story was a grief journey and involved a huge water element, which was connected to the way my brother was killed, it seemed near impossible that I would ever finish Chasing Waves. However, two years later, the grief journey my MC goes through is what made me want to finish it. Once my mind started to work better again, I wanted to read everything I could about grief and how people moved forward after a traumatic loss. It was hard to find much fiction tagged as such, so I relied heavily on nonfiction. I honestly just needed to see people making it out of the thick of grief and onto the other side of it living and not just surviving. It might sound weird to some, but maybe this resonates with others that are carrying grief. It's really hard to see through grief, and for me, maybe because I'm bipolar, I don't know, but it was soul-crushing for a very long time. I didn't know if I could truly live with any sort of joy again. I had so much processing to do and reading about others, fiction or nonfiction, going through the same thing made me feel less alone in my journey. Maybe there are a million fiction books out there that are based around a grief journey, but damn if I couldn't find them when I needed them most. Anyway, writing this has also helped me process my grief and learning better how to carry it while still allowing myself to feel some joy, too. There's a lot of hope within the pages of Chasing Waves and in my own life now, too.
Thanks for being here and listening to my journey after loss.
GIVEAWAY COMING SOON
You can add this book now!
Chasing Waves
I'm back! It's been over 2 years and below I'm going to fill you in as to why. It's sad and, if I'm being completely honest, it's tragic, but I'm on the other side of it now and I have a new release coming October 27th!!!
THE REASON
If you follow me on IG, then you know that I lost my brother a few years back to a boating accident when our whole side of the family was vacationing together. I was emotionally and psychologically paralyzed for pretty much two years. How people process grief is very different and there are no timelines and while I wish I could have found a way to carry it better sooner, I was not in control of that.
So if you read my posts on IG, when my brother was killed I was almost finished writing a contemporary romance that I was all set to release in the summer of 2021. The last day I worked on it was the morning of the day my brother died. I didn't open that document until a month ago. It's hard to summarize everything here, but if you want to know more you can pop over to IG. I cleared my IG right after he died because I couldn't stand to look at anything that brought me joy. It felt wrong, so I'm just starting to post again.
THE BOOK
Chasing Waves - The story behind the story - Part 1
I can't remember what initially inspired me to write Chasing Waves because I have forgotten a lot of random details of my life surrounding my brother's death, but I can tell you what inspired me to finish it and maybe that's even more important.
The last day I worked on this story before my brother died was on the day he died. Being that this story was a grief journey and involved a huge water element, which was connected to the way my brother was killed, it seemed near impossible that I would ever finish Chasing Waves. However, two years later, the grief journey my MC goes through is what made me want to finish it. Once my mind started to work better again, I wanted to read everything I could about grief and how people moved forward after a traumatic loss. It was hard to find much fiction tagged as such, so I relied heavily on nonfiction. I honestly just needed to see people making it out of the thick of grief and onto the other side of it living and not just surviving. It might sound weird to some, but maybe this resonates with others that are carrying grief. It's really hard to see through grief, and for me, maybe because I'm bipolar, I don't know, but it was soul-crushing for a very long time. I didn't know if I could truly live with any sort of joy again. I had so much processing to do and reading about others, fiction or nonfiction, going through the same thing made me feel less alone in my journey. Maybe there are a million fiction books out there that are based around a grief journey, but damn if I couldn't find them when I needed them most. Anyway, writing this has also helped me process my grief and learning better how to carry it while still allowing myself to feel some joy, too. There's a lot of hope within the pages of Chasing Waves and in my own life now, too.
Thanks for being here and listening to my journey after loss.
GIVEAWAY COMING SOON
You can add this book now!
Chasing Waves
