My first Beta readers

     Chapters 1-11 of Blinded (Book 1 of the Sun Damaged Series) have made their way to my first Beta readers. Eeek!! It's both thrilling and nerve wracking, to be frank about it. A group of friends has heard Chapters 1 & 2 aloud, and a music producer has begun reading as well. The further I progress, the more REAL it begins to feel. I've uploaded the book to my own Kindle and as I read before bed each night I tingle in anticipation. I wrote a book. I WROTE A BOOK!!
     Now, to write more LOL. To finish the lyrics that swim in my mind. To start on the book trailer. To get the editing finished. And a cover done! SO much to do still, yet the biggest hurdle for myself is done. I wrote and now I am sharing. It's a spectacular feeling :)

Emotions running high

     As I continue to write I feel emotions building up and spilling out of me. Hurt from the past finds new places within me to wound with it's acid sting. I tried ignoring it, I tried medicating it, I tried talking it out of me. Now, time to try something new. Accepting it. 

     Feelings hurt and some old wounds never truly heal. And maybe that's okay. Taking the pain and transforming into the fuel of a fire instead of trying to smother it...maybe that is what I'm supposed to be doing. Be authentic in my story though it's full of fiction and mythology. Perhaps the rest of the story is buried somewhere there in the pain and I have to relive it to get to what lies beneath. So, that's what I'm doing. FEELING. And it hurts. But it also means I'm alive, and soon my characters will be too. 

Those that carry you along your way

     When I first started to write, I hid myself away from the world. Writing was my escape. A new reality within the confines of my mind and and now my laptop. As I gained confidence that this passion was where I needed to spend more of my time, I let my worlds slowly blend into one. Writing was my new reality, not just the world I had created.
     Little by little I began to share my passion, my work, my new world. I let it bleed into the everyday norm. I broke down the walls I had built around me and a miraculous thing occurred. Support happened.
     My friends became supporters and sometimes more. An editor emerged. Then another. Beta readers came out of the shadows. Musicians and a producer I admire believed enough in me and my process to become a part of it. To enter my world and let me in theirs. I found family.
     There are days when this still surprises me, and others were it terrifies me. My project is now something more. Its not my hiding place, or my solace. It's my life. To share so much of myself with these incredible people, these people who have blind faith in what I aim to accomplish...it's sheer madness. How I came to be part of something so great, to share in something bigger than me, it both amazes me and sometimes makes me want to build the wall back up. These people won't let me though. They haven't given up on me when I got scared and they won't let me fail myself. I'm so very lucky to have found them, to have taken a risk and let them in only to find myself leaning on them later and shocked when they carry me on this journey that I thought was just my own.