HONESTY

Well… It’s time to be up front with you guys.

Writing has not been that enjoyable lately. Though this blog has been a crucial outlet for me in the past year (and I have no intentions of giving it up), my love of novel writing has come to a screeching halt.

The good news: This blog isn’t going anywhere. One of my favorite things to do is plan these biweekly posts. What’s even more fun: Checking up on your own posts and going through our interactions. I will never get over how many international connections are established through this platform, and that is a beautiful thing.

The bad news: I’m not sure when I’m going to be publishing again. Though I’m very invested in my future as a writer, I have been struggling with the entire process lately. I am more than halfway done with a novel, Church Boy, that I was planning on releasing in June; however, I have lost all interest in the project, and nothing else has captured my attention in the meantime.

Now for some more details on this situation….

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THE BACKSTORY.

I have been addicted to writing books since I was fifteen. As of now I’ve written nineteen completed manuscripts, hashed out many partial ones, and lived to tell the tale. I attribute this to my love of storytelling, and for a while the only way I knew how to tell stories was through novels.

For a while, I assumed I would pick up an agent like magic, strike out rich, and never worry about anything else. This is wishful thinking, but I believe that hard work paves the road for success. While that is true in many areas, there are so many hard-working writers out there who never get “discovered.”

Books are the core to my life. However, my core has expanded recently. (Okay, this is just a weird sentence, and I apologize.) Relationships, school, and everyday stress have left me fatigued in normal life. The hours I once spent hammering out books are now devoted to other interests and activities. Maybe I knew this instinctually as a teenager, that life would come about and leave me with less time to pursue this passion of writing, but I’ve found that I have fewer and fewer stories I want to tell as I grow older.

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HOPE FOR FUTURE.

The quality of the stories I want to tell needs to improve, and I’m not denying that. I’ve admitted to myself that I want my writing to reflect my outlook on the world, and I’m not content to be associated with the writing I’ve been producing lately.

In the past, my outlook was very much centered around how many books I could write, and how many stories I could share with you all in a given setting. Though this taught me how to write effectively, my brain craves a new story that will fulfill what I want to share with you guys, and what I’ve put out in the past few years is not quite up to par.

I’m hopeful that my motivated spirit will return. The truth is that I’ve swallowed a lot of ideas in the past few years, and I know my mind has been chewing through all of it for a while now. That being said, I know the coming years will be some of the hardest of my life, and that’s okay too.

But for now I must be willing to challenge my writing in a personal setting before I return to the self-publishing world.

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WHAT THIS MEANS FOR NEW BOOK, CHURCH BOY

As I’ve posted on this blog a few times, Church Boy is almost done. However, I realized in writing this book that I’m not happy with the story. I’m sick of that feeling of drudgery I get when working on this manuscript, and I have decided to toss it in the slush pile for now.

Who knows if I will finish it. Maybe I’ll come back to it at some point, but for now I want to focus on other matters in my life, and this book is not one of them.

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THANK YOU!!!

Well, that’s what’s been on my heart lately. This blog is not going anywhere, and the twice weekly posts will continue as normal. I have been surprised at how much I’ve been  liking poetry lately, as I once hated it. Also I’ve been rediscovering my love of reading, which is important too.

Thank you guys so much for listening to these rambling posts! More positive energy to come, I promise. ❤ ❤ ❤

Until next time,

-K.

This may be one of the most ridiculous blog cover images of all time… I feel like it exemplifies my sluggishness when it comes to my writing life lately. (Malibu, CA // April 2019)