2021 has been a rough year and it’s only October 10th!
When the year first began, I was working six days a week. That itself was frustrating and left me with limited time to do much outside of work, eat, sleep, and attend or help with church events. Even general household chores took a backseat, so free time to write on my own was non-existent. My goal at the end of 2020 was to finish my novel in the first few months of 2021, so I could spend the rest of the year editing… That never happened. I honestly hadn’t touched my novel documents until a few days ago when I went to look at the word count.
May 2021, I got to see my dad, who was living in a skilled nursing facility, for the first time since March 2020 due to their ‘no visitor’ policy because of the pandemic. It was a relief to finally see him again, and I was hopeful we’d be back to seeing each other weekly, but just a short time later, I got a call that he was being taken to the ER because he hadn’t been himself for a few days and the staff was concerned with some of his blood work. He spent the month of June in the hospital and they tried everything, but unfortunately his kidneys had failed. This was all new to us in June; we had no indication of his kidneys being a problem, so this was a shock! They moved him back to his skilled nursing facility on hospice in early July and sadly he passed away on July 10th… So now I’ve lost my mom (in 2014) and my dad and that has really impacted me.
I’m grateful for God and the people He’s placed in my life who have supported me through this challenging time. I can’t thank them enough!
The past few months have honestly been up and down, so I’ve been taking it one day at a time. Some days are good, some are great, and others are not so great, but I’m getting there.
In July, I went back to a 5-day work week, so I have my weekends to do what I want and need to do, and I get some traveling in when I can as well!
In November of last year, I began co-hosting a podcast called ‘911: Lone Star Round Up’ a show by fans, for fans, about the TV show ‘911: Lone Star’ that airs on Fox! The girls (Katie & Grace) and I have a blast talking about the show, Tarlos, and it’s sister show 911! It’s now been going almost 11 months and we’re super happy to keep it going! It’s a dream come true to be doing a podcast, and Katie, Grace, and I get along so well and they have become some great friends and sisters to me, so it’s fun being on this journey with them!
In January, another friend and I also began a podcast, one more personal and focused on ways of being our authentic selves, called ‘Behind The Mask’, so podcasting has definitely become a passion of mine, but my first love is writing!
I can’t believe it’s October now, and in the ‘NaNoWriMo’ world, that’s considered ‘Preptober’, aka the month where we plan out the novel that we hope to write or work on during November for National Novel Writer’s Month. I’ve honestly debated if I’m going to do NaNo this year, but after weighing the pros and cons, I’ve decided to go for it! The novel I’ve worked on for the last two Novembers is almost done, and needs maybe 6-10 pages to finish it, so I’m pulling out all the notes and research I’ve done for the other story idea I had a few years ago and will be working on that.
Since I’ve done quite a bit of research and prep for that novel in the past, my current goal is to spend the next few weeks of October working on my previous novel to finish it. Once it’s finished, the last week or so of the month, I’ll start sorting out all of my notes for the next novel, so I can start fresh with it on November 1st!
I’m excited and nervous, and definitely a little worried I won’t reach the 50,000 word count goal for NaNoWriMo, but I’m going to try my best!
I’ll keep the blog updated over the next few months as I work on everything!
Thanks for reading and talk to you soon!