I Have Two Books Launching Today!
In January of this year, Emily Hurricane told me about an idea she had for a project: get a bunch of writers together and put together a romance anthology. We’d all write a story and then Emily could teach of bunch of writer friends not super experienced in self-publishing the ins and outs of the process.
We ended up deciding to do two anthologies: one romance and one erotica. Most of us contributed stories to both, but a couple people only did one or the other.
For the past year, we worked on writing the stories, beta reading for each other, planned out the marketing blast, and just generally cheered each other on and worked to put these books together. It was such a good time and it was exactly what I needed this year.
2020/2021 was not a good year for me. My 11 year relationship nearly ended. I quit my teaching job and went back to retail. My mental health was absolutely horrible and I spent a lot of time fixating on the idea of suicide and wishing I was brave enough to just end everything.
Keeping busy was exactly what I needed. I’m so thankful that Emily asked me to come aboard and work on this project, because having projects to work on-projects that I care about-does more to improve my mental health than anything else.
I’m happy to report that at this point in time, I’m feeling much happier. I think I might be happier than I ever have been. It took me a bit to get here. It wasn’t a linear thing. It was a bunch of ups and downs before I hit a solid plateau.
My marriage is in a better place than it ever has been. I also found a nice balance with work. We tried me being a stay-at-home wife for a while and that made my mental health a lot worse. Then I tried working full-time; that left me stressed out and exhausted. Now I’m working about 25 hours a week and it’s a great balance of getting out of the house and also having plenty of time to cook dinner every night, keep the house clean, and work on my writing projects. I realize I’m privileged as fuck. I wouldn’t have such a nice life if it wasn’t for my husband being so hard-working and successful in his career. He got his new job (a job that was a major difference in income) exactly one year ago. It coincided with us briefly separating and seriously considering splitting up. I didn’t want to move with him into this whole new lifestyle. Our relationship had been so rocky for so long and it just made more sense to me for us to split up: with his new income he could easily find another partner-probably someone prettier and younger and easier to be around. That’s something that I said to him a bunch of times. We were both on the same page for a vert shot period: we were both in agreement that we should separate. Even though I thought that’s what I wanted, it was a really difficult time emotionally. I kept bursting into tears at work. I was so deeply depressed I was having trouble with basic daily functioning. I felt like there was no good solution. Door A was stay in this relationship that had been platonic for years and go on knowing that I would never have romance. I’d never have regular intimacy. Feel sexy. Feel wanted. I’d stay in this platonic relationship with a man I cared about, but one that left me feeling very ugly and unwanted. It meant knowing that I would never have romance or intimacy again. That I’d keep on living the way I’d been living for years. Door B was end the relationship and go out and find someone and have that romance that I wanted so much. But that door meant severing a relationship with someone I cared about so much. It meant leaving someone I loved deeply. It meant not having my best friend anymore. Because in all our problems, and even in the years everything was platonic, he was never mean, we always got along.
Door A and Door B were both so so bad. And I’d tried for so long to make Door C happen (fix my existing relationship) that it didn’t seem like an option anymore. How many times could I cry and say that this wasn’t working for me? After 8 years of that, I’d given up. I’d realized it was what it was. I had to accept that or move on; those were the only two options.
But in the end, Door C was possible. I think it took me actually going apartment hunting for him to realize Door A wasn’t okay with me anymore. And we finally were able to talk everything through and work on the problems.
It wasn’t an easy road though.
So, yeah, this year was rough. It was really rough.
And having these projects to work on when I was feeling really low helped a lot.
Anyway, these books mean a lot to me.
And we already got some arc reviews in 
Anyone who is having a rough time of it, I highly recommend finding some projects to get involved with. Writing is something that I find deeply fulfilling and it’s what I focus my energy on most when I’m not doing so well.
You can’t have no goals, no structure, no passion, and expect to be happy.
Something else that I think people need to consider is that life is suffering. If we expect to suffer, we feel less hopeless when it happens. We also need useful ways to contextualize suffering. For me, I have my writing: when I suffer, it’s fodder for stories. For others, it is religion, or it is building character, or it’s for a greater good. You can’t suffer without meaning. Life is intrinsically meaningless, but if you ever want to feel better, you have to contextualize your suffering in way that gives the illusion of meaning. Otherwise, you won’t ever feel any better. Contextualize your suffering, have goals, find your purpose 
Anyway, buy this romance book if you want to:
And the erotica book
And in just a couple of hours, I’ll be hosting a launch party for Love at First Sip! This project means so much to me. I hope to see some of you there. Just join The Writer’s Block discord server. The party starts at 1pm EST.
