Endings, In-Betweens and New Beginnings

Hi my friends,

This is a long post. If you don’t like to read long posts, it’s okay if you pass on all this – but I wanted to give you a heads-up on where I’m at with my writing career and all it entails.

You’ve not heard from me in a rather long time. I’ve been re-blogging not “me-blogging.”  There have been no newsletters since . . . ah . . . spring of 2017? I’ve had trouble coming up with anything to tell you, or (more precisely) how to say what I’ve thought of to say – and so I end up saying nothing. My usual problem with letter writing,  blogs and social networking; but I need to share some things with you.

I’ve lately been reading and studying a Christian book called Reflecting God and in the section called Nurtured by the Light in the Rhythms of Life the author talks about four places we will find ourselves in life’s changing cycles:

Endings

In-between Times

New Beginnings

Settled Places

For the last three years or so I’ve been in a repeating cycle of endings and in-betweens. Mind you, much of it is stuff that can seem pretty minor when compared to . . . but it’s best not to compare our paths to those of others around us. What one person will find only moderately hard to go through can knock someone else entirely off their feet. This stuff has been things that have been from hard to very hard for me to go through – and yes, even been knocked off my feet a few times.

In the spring of 2015 an editor I didn’t know, not my regular editor and given my manuscript by my publisher, tried to rewrite my second book to be what she wanted it to be, resulting in me having a sort of nervous breakdown. (She was let go and the book as I wrote it is what ended up being published.)

Problems with various aspects of book launches happened. A nearly totally messed up blog tour for book #3 that ended up with all the writing of posts and interviews having to be done in a very short amount of time while I was also doing a bunch of other things for the launch.

My former publisher side-stepping my queries about when he wanted book #4 turned in, with him telling me “don’t worry about it for now” –  to eventually finding out he kept putting me off because he was going out of business. Only, after some awkward issues and me leaving his company, he didn’t close up after all.

Two of our cats passing away about five months apart. Another cat having chronic eye problems including cancer on his right eye’s third eyelid and surgery to remove the third eyelid last December.

My much loved uncle who was helping with some of my book expenses passing away last December and . . .

and . . .

I just found out on April 5th that my dear friend, instructor, writing coach and editor Mary Rosenblum died when something happened (not yet determined) that caused the single-engine plane that she was piloting (her own plane) to crash back on March 11th.

Getting a bear hug.

Many endings. And I’ve been spending a long time in what the author of Reflecting God calls the in-between times that follow endings. The in-between times when, with God’s help, you do your grieving and putting yourself back together.

I haven’t gotten anywhere near the next stage, which is new beginnings, before the next ending would hit and I’ve become weary and numb. And some of this weariness and numbness is why I’ve not done well with getting started on writing book #4 of my cozy mystery series.

I’ve lost my virtual assistant, Tammy, who was being a huge help with posting to social sites for me, and other marketing/social tasks (paying Tammy was the book related expense my uncle was helping with).

But much bigger for me is losing Mary; my friend, coach, editor and major encourager who has been with me ever since I started this journey of being a published author. It’s hard thinking about working on another book without Mary.

Mary Rosenblum and me with my Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for Mystery and Suspense – April 2017. Her editing skills were a huge part of my winning this award.

I have a lot of decisions to make, but I need time to make them.

I will be bringing out an anthology of four short stories entitled Twombly Tales set in my cozy mystery world of Twombly, IL.

It is being formatted right now. This was intended to be the free giveaway for people who signed up for my newsletter. Well – there really isn’t a newsletter, as many of you know by now, and I’m not sure there will be one. The newsletter is one of the decisions I’m needing to make. I will be able to do download links for people to get the Kindle and epub versions of Twombly Tales fairly easily (I hope). I want to also have it available in print on demand, but I’m not sure how to do that. I’ll be looking into it. I want you, and any new readers who will be discovering me and my books, to be able to get Twombly Tales in whatever format you like to read in.

I will be completing the rebranding of my series by getting my three existing books in their new persona of “The Can Be Mysteries” put through all the publishing processes and available on Amazon – I hope by sometime in May. They have all been through a new proof edit and will soon be heading into the formatting stage. You’ve already seen their lovely new covers. 🙂

I want to write and publish book #4.  At this time I’ve not even started writing it. Much of the ideas for it are in place but not written yet. I want to do this for you, my friends and readers. Your enjoyment of my books is what I write for and so many of you have been asking about book #4 – I don’t want to let you down. I also want to do it for my older brother, who made suggestions for the plot, and now I also want to do it for Mary. She very much wanted me to keep writing because she believed in the quality of my writing and my books.

What I don’t know about yet and need to make decisions about is all the social networking, marketing and promotional aspects of the writing business.  It is the biggest burden of all, the most exhausting and anxiety producing, and the stuff I’m least suited for. Basically, if I keep up with all of that in a manner the book writing industry says is what has to be done, I’m never going to be able to have the mental space I need to write book #4. I have got to figure out what I can and can’t do without totally leaving you all in the lurch.

So . . .

As I figure it out I’ll do blog posts and/or Facebook posts about my decisions as I make them. And I’ll try to do more “me-blogging” and less reblogging. Don’t know how often or how consistent, but more than I have been doing. 😉

Thank you so very much for your support of me and my books. You all mean so much to me. 💖😊

Hugs from Pearl.