Friends, have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you decided to take a little break, only to wake up one day and realize you put something you love on the back burner for three whole years?
Hello. My name is Kat, and I never intended to stop writing for so long.
But sometimes life gets in the way of good intentions.
Back in 2016, I gave birth to my second daughter. I also had a severe hemorrhage and had to be rushed to the operating room to stop me from bleeding to death. The hospital staff were amazing and helped me quickly, but I lost so much blood that I was badly anemic for a long time after. It was months before I had the strength to leave my house. Months before I could follow a simple conversation. I had good days that would convince me I was all better, and then bad days when I felt drugged and could barely cuddle my kids, much less get out of bed.
For the first year, my focus shifted to my physical recovery. I had to slowly rebuild my strength. Then came reintegrating in my work. And, of course, through all this time I was spending as much time as possible with my little ones, the youngest of whom kept waking up every few hours FOR THREE WHOLE YEARS.
Fam, I was exhausted, sucked dry of every ounce of creativity. I gave everything to all these other crucial parts of my life, and I had nothing left for fiction.
But I missed it. I missed creating my own stories. And I miss you guys. Really, really missed the conversations about books and life that I’ve enjoyed with so many readers and writers over the years.
So I asked my boss if I could take a sabbatical, and she very kindly agreed.
Right now, I’m in the middle of my sabbatical, and my creativity is EXPLODING. This is both good and bad.
Good: I’m writing every day. Every. Single. Day. My head is full of stories. All kinds of stories. I even wrote about the Tower of Babel for my friend’s latest art exhibition. He turned my writing into panels using watercolor pencils.
Artwork by Julio Pastor
Bad: I’m finding it hard to focus on what to prioritize. I’m working on four different books in four different genres (contemporary romance, middle grade, historical fiction, and short stories — not really a genre, but whatever).
Also bad: There are days anxiety gets the better of me. It tells me I can’t write a good book. It tells me that the last scene I wrote is terrible and I should delete it and start over. Those four books in four genres? I’ve written the beginning of those stories in about ten different ways. So even though my sabbatical is half over and I’ve been working my bumkins off, I still won’t have a book out for a while.
But I am back. And I’m writing again. And I’m ready to start connecting with you all again.
Because you guys are the best. Seriously, some of you sent me emails checking in to see how I was doing over the past few years, and I can’t tell you what an encouragement that is. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
