happy Wednesday!

I'm sure you read the title and thought one of two things:

1) GIVE ME THE UPDATES!!

2) What is UNITED WE FALL?

UNITED WE FALL is book two in the HOW WE RISE trilogy. It is a book very near to me, as I poured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it. It was my emotional outlet, a place to put every emotion attacking me at the time. 

It's my favorite so far of the three books that I've completed. 

And I have some big news regarding this book. 

If you haven't read HOW WE RISE... what are you doing here? go read it! 🤣

While this post does not contain spoilers, if you ever hope to read this book, you'll want to read the first one. 

with that said, let me tell you the news because I've made you wait long enough through my rambling. 

UNITED WE FALL is with my editor and will begin the process of editing through the month of April!!

Publication is becoming a reality for this book and it will be out THIS YEAR!!

I have some ideas for a release date, late August, early September. I don't want to spill any detail about that yet, though, as I won't be confident in releasing the date until I know for sure I can make it happen. That being said, I plan to get UNITED WE FALL up on Netgalley!! 

Which means once it's up there, I will be putting HOW WE RISE on sale!! Ebook will be either $.99 or $1.99 depending on whatever settings I have. (KDP has rules, haha) and the paperback will also go on sale. This will be Amazon only, because changing the price through Ingram Spark for other retailers will be a bit more difficult. 

However, if you really want to support an Indie author and pay the regular price, by all means go ahead, haha. But, if you want the deals (totally get that, I want all the deals, too) Amazon will be the place to get a copy. 

But, again, the big news of today is that my precious book is with my editor and the publication date looms in the not so distant future. Everything else is a goal to attain and hopefully I will meet those goals. 

Also, if anyone is interested in participating in a blog tour/Instagram tour, let me know! I'll do sign ups when that whole thing gets closer to happening, but definitely comment below and I can start making a list! 

sometimes it's just the rain that calms my mind and eases me into peace. the sound of it hitting the pavement, the sight of it as it rolls down the windshield. the dim glow from the street light. 

it's the 4am mornings where I drag myself out of bed for another day at work, washing my face in an effort to wake up. 

it's feeling like breaking apart because there's too much to do and no energy to do it. sadness filling my veins. 

adulting is expensive and hard and no one ever really prepares you for it. you're thrown in before you're ready and told to make your way in this world, to get a job, to go to college, to have your life figured out by the time you're eighteen.

my brain doesn't work that way. I'm quite happy I chose the no school route and went straight to work, but even then I sometimes feel like I'm not ready to be this adult that I'm supposed to be. and I turn 22 this year, so I've been an adult for a while. 

nothing prepares you for getting into two car accidents so close together that you lose your ability to drive or even ride along without panicking. or trying to find a used car and the expense of insurance, gas, car payments, on a paycheck that barely is anything. 

life really has no preparation, it's like suddenly you're this adult who has to function and it's sink or swim and all I feel is drowning deeper and deeper. 

but I know things will get better eventually. I have to remind myself of that, and often times I don't remind myself and thus further in the spiral I go. 

you lose people along the way.

you lose faith along the way.

you lose strength along the way.

but then...

you find people who will stick around.

you find your faith again.

you find strength again in the deepest parts of yourself you didn't know existed.

and then you grow.

and you keep going. 

🖤

Your words are powerful. They mean something to people. We see bestselling authors write and write and write and their words mean things to people. 

And that's something that is beautiful and amazing. 

But lately, I've been struggling with writing. It's been pretty hard. And I had this realization as I was sitting in my room introverting that I am writing for the wrong things. 

My writing does not belong to anyone but me. Yet I'm writing for other people. I'm not writing for me. I put my purpose of writing in other people, other humans, and then when things go awry, it's hard to get the words out. 

Instead, I should be writing not just for me, but for the glory of God. 

God gave me this passion. And I know my writing may not be considered "Christian" and that's okay. I don't want it to be. 

Sometimes characters say bad words. Sometimes my characters do bad things. I write like that because the world is not all sunshine and happy vibes and the world is not all Christian. If the world was all following Jesus, then we'd be in a better place in society. 

So sometimes my writing is darker. But I always write with a theme of hope and light. 

And I'm realizing I cannot write for other people. Other people will see my work. Other people will either love it or they'll hate it. If I put my worth in my writing in what other people think, I am building a shaky foundation because the moment someone hates what I'm writing is the moment I will fall apart and give up because it will be meaningless if everyone doesn't like it. 

Sometimes we may think we're writing for a specific group of people or a specific person and we think it will be okay to put the worth in those words that way. 

You cannot write for anyone but yourself. It can be difficult. It's hard because that means you have to explore the deepest parts of you that you're trying to keep buried. It means you have to go into your mind and find meaning. 

It means you have to love what you're doing and find worth in yourself. 

And that's the thing... I struggle with feeling worthy in myself, in my abilities, in my writing. I need validation. 

And I don't want to be that way anymore. 

So if you struggle with writing sometimes, if it feels like a never ending drought... write for yourself. 

Write something you'd never show the world. You may surprise yourself. You may choose to show the world. 

Or, you can start a novel, the novel of your dreams, the one you think no one would want. Start it. Write it. Fall in love with it. And if you want to share about it, do it! just don't let anyone else's words define the worth you put in your own words. 

No matter how close a person is to you, they are still human and they will still fail at times just as you fail. 

So when you write, write for yourself. Edit for yourself. Make the book the one YOU needed when you were younger. 

If you're a Christian, write for the glory of God. That doesn't mean overly preachy themes. It means write with a purpose of hope and light and that good wins in the end. Give yourself something to be happy about. 

That's really all I have to say. I know this is a bit different from usual writing advice posts, but this is my type of advice. I want to share the things I've learned about writing in my time as a writer and author. 

I hope this helps you go forth and write all the words that matter to you.

The amount of WIPs I have started is quite a scandal but you won't be hearing about this one because I'm writing it for myself at this point in time. Even my critique partner/best friend/partner in crime isn't seeing everything because I want it to be for me. I'm writing it at my pace and making it what I want it to be. I'm not focused on genre or word count. 

Just me and the words and rediscovering who I am as a writer. 

I feel like I lost that knowledge along the way of publishing. You see these authors publish novel after novel and here I stand feeling kind of stranded. 

Book one didn't get the attention I hoped it would. And even when I published, I didn't feel like I was an author. I didn't feel like I had done anything with my writing. 

I didn't feel like I had sent my book to an editor, or formatted the book, or hired a cover designer. Everything didn't feel real, and not in a good way.

For a while, I stared at HOW WE RISE as it sat on my shelves, and I felt disconnected. My name was on the front, but was it really me? Was this really mine?

When a person I knew asked for signed copies, I didn't know how to react, how to behave, how to feel. When neighbors asked how the book was going, I didn't know how to say it wasn't really selling and I have no clue how to market myself because I don't like attention on me. 

How do you say any of these things? 

I still look at my book with some disconnect and don't feel like its truly my book. And I think maybe I'm not alone in this. 

Which leads me into updates about UNITED WE FALL. 

This book is taking a long time. It's written. If you've read HOW WE RISE, you know I made little time stamps of the date the characters were living in as page breaks or in the chapter headings... and I just need to go through and add that in. Then it can go to my editor. 

But I'm struggling. 

I'm struggling because part of me is feeling unmotivated to keep going with any of this. (Don't worry, for those of you who are waiting for the sequel, you are GOING TO GET a sequel. I would never leave this unfinished.)

I think once I publish the third book, ON WE ASCEND, I'll take a break. I won't stress over when I publish next. I'll just write. And whatever comes next is what comes next. Because right now the stress of publishing a trilogy is real. 

If I could offer a piece of advice to a young writer on the road to publishing, start with a standalone unless you've got perfectly written drafts completed for a series because otherwise, it is stressful.

I often feel like I'm letting people down. In two months, HOW WE RISE will be a year old, and the second book will need to be up for preorder soon after. 

I don't know if I'll make all my goals at this point. But I'm working hard and that's all I can do. 

thank you for listening to this long winded update about my books. I know I'll find my love of writing again. It just takes time. 

to anyone struggling with writing, it's okay to take breaks. You don't have to be perfect and write every day. Read some books. Get into something else for a bit. Find a show to binge watch and analyze. Then come back to your writing when you are ready.