Most of you have been wondering if I fell off the face of the earth. I'm here to tell you I have not. Unfortunately, life has just gotten in the way. My summer started out promising and then I got the summer flu that turned into bronchitis that lasted, no joke, three weeks. Then as soon as I started feeling better my boyfriend got it for three weeks as well. Once we were germ free, I was excited to start getting back to normal, but then I experienced the worst back pain I have ever felt in my life, causing me to fall to my knees and making me unable to move for over a half hour. I've been dealing with lower back pain since I was 16, but nothing compared to how horrible that pain was. I was unable to move, sweating and crying from the pain and completely alone. Once I managed to crawl to the phone my dad came and rescued me and brought me to the doctor. Turns out I have 2 herniated discs one of which is significant and pushing against the sac and nerves of my spinal cord... As my mom said, I can never do anything small. Go big or go home, right? Now I'm in physical therapy twice a week and even though it's been over two months, I still can't do much.
I never thought I'd actually want to clean, but being unable to vacuum, or to bend over to get the dishes out of the dishwasher, or to do laundry, is driving me insane. I feel useless and it's frustrating. I also can't really sit on my couch because according to my physical therapist, the minute I sit on the couch, I ruin everything she has done for me. The couch is where I write and while I'm getting used to my desk chair, it's still not the same. On top of it all my grandma who is 83 has fallen three times this summer and each time hit her head. She's been in and out of the hospital because of this. Her most recent fall was in a parking lot and her face broke her fall... Needless to say, she looks like the terminator. Her face is completely bruised and she had to have ten stitches. Though, yesterday, she proudly declared to my mom, "I have never had a shiner before. This is my first one!" She's a trooper and she's always been hard headed, but now we know her actual head is hard as a rock. I'm buying her a helmet and she's not allowed to go anywhere with out. She was transferred to a rehab facility yesterday so she's on her way to recovery.
So yeah, my summer has been pretty eventful and not in the way I like. I've been trying to stay active on social media, but with everything that has been going on it's been hard. Hopefully, it'll be back to normal soon.
Writing updates:
I know I have promised you a companion novel to Home is Where You Are that will tell Katie and Seth's story. Trust me, it is still very much on my mind. I was hoping to have it ready and available to you all by this fall, but I hate to say that is not going to happen. I will write their book. It is something I've always wanted to do. Even when I was writing Home is Where You Are, Katie's voice was so strong and there is so much more to her story than what you got to see in Home. I just want to do her story justice. She deserves that. She's complicated and has many layers which is not something I can bang out in a month. So yes, their story is coming, I just don't know when.
I also am in the middle of rewrites for my agent. This is a book that I wrote in 2011-2012 and is one of my favorites. It is very different from my norm. It has a bit of a time travel aspect where the main character goes from present day back to 1925. If you know me, you know I am a huge history buff, and the twenties is one of my favorite eras. I just took a trip to Newport, Rhode Island, despite my bad back, because that is where the book takes place and I wanted to do a little more research. So this book is taking up a bit of my time and is something that I don't plan on self pubbing. I will continue to fill you in on all the details as they slowly develop.
Brett's book. I can't tell you how excited I am to jump back into the Beds series world. I spoke with Cassie recently about this and we are definitely writing his book. We just have to see how our schedules go. She has so many awesome books she's working on right now and I'm excited for all of them! Our goal for Brett is to write it in 2016.
I also have a few other books I am working on, but they're all in the beginning stages and can't really discuss anything until I'm a little more into them. Just know that I am working and I hope to have something new for you guys soon!
Now I want to know how your summer was? Please tell me it was better than mine!
