Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog

I have finally gotten away from all of the advice given to writers about craft, publishing, and marketing. Yes, all of that has its place. There is a time to go into those things, but I found that too much of it has stifled my creativity. I needed to detox from it and get back to the pleasure of simply enjoying fiction again. We’re all different, and some authors may find their creativity flourishing when immersed with writing community advice. I am not one of them, apparently. I was surprised to learn that after spending two full months just listening to fiction for fun that my creativity flourished.

For the record, in this blog post, I am talking about traditionally published books. I have trouble finding indie audiobooks that I’m interested in, and while I was using my Kindle to listen to ebooks, I ended up with really bad headaches. My Kindle is an older model. AI voices have gotten better since that Kindle came out. I’m sure the current Kindles being sold would not give me headaches, but I don’t want to buy another Kindle when I have two already. So I signed up for the Libby app from my library and have been using that to listen to audiobooks on my iPhone. Hence the traditionally published content I’ve been consuming after years of only reading indie stuff.

Once in a while an indie author will think I’m talking about their book and email me about it. This is not the case in this post.

That all said, I did gather some thoughts along the way of reading what publishers are okay with, and I thought I’d share them in this post. The cat pic is here just because I love cat pics. 🙂

General Thoughts on Writing

Tension is not supposed to be on every page.

There is one particular trad author I am thinking of on this point. I have actually enjoyed two of her books I’ve listened to so far. I plan to listen to her others, but I need a break from her at the moment. The genre is YA fantasy horror. Given that it’s horror, there’s tension. Overall, she does a great job of building a gothic kind of atmosphere, but there is so much intense dread the main character is feeling all the time that I don’t have a chance to calm down from any of it. Okay, the tension is not literally on every single page, but it’s definitely there a couple of times per chapter. These are like jump scares they throw into scary movies. One is around every corner. Even with the “dum dum!” high-pitch music, you no longer jump. You get desensitized to it. That makes those moments lose their effectiveness. Yesterday when I was listening to her book, I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking, “Someone better be dead this time.” About 80% of the time, nothing is actually happening. It’s false alarm stuff. When the moment delivers, it’s great. When it doesn’t, it’s obnoxious. The author would be better off just dwelling on the subtle feeling of dread for at least half of these “OH NO!” moments. Take things down to a “huh…that’s kind of weird” notch instead. Don’t underestimate the power of being subtle. The subtle stuff is often far more tension-inducing than the quick scares.

To give a romance equivalent, I remember years and years ago when I read a lot of romances. Almost every other page would be the characters’ needs and urges to be with the object of their affection. I don’t think I got through many scenes where a hero didn’t have an erection or the heroine wasn’t getting wet or feeling all tingly down there. It took me out of the romance story completely. I mean, sure, those things are a part of attraction, but people don’t always walk around erect/wet/tingling (and if they did, they should be seeing a doctor). It’s possible to have a conversation with someone without all of those physical urges getting in the way, and you can also kiss a person without wanting to rip their clothes off. And if it’s not the physical stuff in a romance that gets annoying, it’s all the “does he/she or doesn’t he/she love me?” angst thrown at us. Most of the time, that angst stems from the fact that no one is saying what is really on their minds. They’re too busy assuming things about the other person. That whole setup gets old fast, and I stopped reading romance because of it.

So as a writer, I’m thinking that it’s best to be more low-key on the tension, whatever that tension is. Yes, have tension, but have it when it matters to the plot and/or character development. Give your readers some downtime to simply be in the story. Think of tension like your favorite dinner. You don’t want to keep cramming food down your throat. You want to consume the food slowly. That way you don’t get full too fast and end up with a stomach ache, AND you get the pleasure of enjoying each and every flavorful moment of the meal. Those low-key moments help to give your reader time to have some calm before the next tense moment.

Now on the flip side…

Events that Don’t Matter Should Be Removed

I end up not finishing about 70% of the books I start because of things happening that don’t matter to the story. (Hence why I signed up for the library app. I got tired of throwing money away.)

There’s this one book that’s a science fiction horror novel. It started off great. These characters were supposed to partake in an experiment. The setup was awesome. I was on the edge of my seat and listening to every word. Then after chapter four, I realized that the events that were happening in this experiment led to nothing. Chapters 4-10 were pretty much all the same. Just different monsters in different places. It was like the characters were just running in circles. You could have removed those events and still had the story. The author probably thought all of the graphic and horrific events she threw in there were riveting, but they got boring fast. It would have been better if this author had just went through one event and gave the final punchline, which was “there is a psychopath somewhere among you”. I cheated and listened to the last chapter to see what the point of the whole book was, and that was it. And then I realized there was a Book 2. As soon as I saw it was a series, I said, “Nope,” and took the author off my tag list.

Another book I read was a book that bordered on general thriller and horror. Overall, it was funny in places, and that is the only thing that kept me listening, but I could put the book down with it playing, come back to it, and not really miss anything. The author is a well-known author who’s won awards. Like, he’s been in bookstores and stuff, you know. So you expect better. I thought this one book was a fluke, so I listened to another one. This was a supernatural dark horror, and that one was so ridiculously repetitive that I was gritting my teeth toward the end. I wanted to know what was causing all the scary events in the town. So I held out, but it was not easy, and I ended up switching to other books to get a break. I wonder if the publisher told that authors that he had to write so many words in order to be published, so he put in a lot of filler into his stories. I borrowed a movie based off of one of his books at the library, and even that one lagged. I want to like this author, but one more book like that, and I think I’m done. I mean, he does have some good ideas. I just wish he’d tighten things up. Like throw out at least 25% of his stories.

Let me give you a real-life example of what those books are like so you get a better idea of what I’m talking about. Let’s say I’m telling you about the time I bought a car. I start the story off by saying I left the house to go to the dealership. Then I say I went to the office store and picked up some paper. When I was done, I made it halfway to the car dealership. But then I realize I needed some paper towels and bananas, so I stopped to get those from the grocery store. After that, I finally got to the car dealership. Right away, I decided instead of looking at cars, I see this random customer (that has nothing to do with anything) and talk about their hair and clothes. Then I talk to a salesperson who’s been gravitating toward me the entire time I fixated on that other customer. I proceeded to look at a couple of cars and take them for a test drive. Finally, you think, we’re getting somewhere. But no, we’re not because for whatever reason, I feel the need to tell you about some random event that happened to my kid last week at school and how I felt about it. (This event had nothing to do with cars, by the way, though I do toss in that the principal has a red one.) After that, I picked a car and sat down to work on the payment plan, like whether I’ll make payments, lease, or buy the thing outright. And just when I got to the part where I made my decision and could proceed to the financial person, I figured I’d stop by a vending machine and compare the snacks because I’ve been at the dealership for half the day (since nothing ever goes fast at a car dealership). By the time I get the key and leave the lot, I doubt anyone gives a crap that I ever bought a car.

That is what those “event” stories are like to me, and it’s why I do not finish them or I will walk away and leave the them playing in hopes they’ll pick up somewhere.

We need to see a line of progression from Point A to Point B to Point C, etc. It needs to go on an upward slope. That slope needs to end at the climax. Sending characters on these wild goose chases are a waste of time.

***

That’s all I got for today. All of these books have been making me think of ways I can make my own better. Yes, there is a lot of advice out there for writers, but some of the best things we can pick up in storytelling is by reading stories for pleasure.

First, I hope everyone is having a great start to 2026! 😀 Happy Be-lated New Year’s.

Okay, I have to dust off my blog here since it’s been a while. I want to discuss my writing before I dive into other topics. I feel like the stories are the most interesting part of my life. They are what keeps me getting up every day, even if I haven’t been able to write more than once or twice a week for the past half year. When I’m not writing, I’m usually thinking about what I will be writing when I get a chance to sit at the computer. I have found that taking more time has been making the stories a lot more fun.

The Books in Progress

I am at the last scene in Masquerade Bride!

After not finishing a book in eons, I’m even more excited than usual to be close to finally getting another one done. There is a sense of accomplishment that follows “The End”. This first draft will probably finish up at about 59,000 words.

The things in this book that didn’t go as planned:

1. Going in, I had no idea who the hero would be. It’s probably going to be obvious to everyone else, but I wasn’t sure when I started. That’s why all but one scene in this book is in the heroine’s point of view. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s say it surprised me when I finally narrowed down who the hero was.

2. Also, I had expected the heroine’s other life to be different than how it turned out, too. I expected her to feel like the “popular girl” she always envisioned herself being. That didn’t play out. She was still the “wallflower”, it was just something only she was aware of. To make the plot work, I had to fall back on others seeing her that way due to the experiment. (So it’s the perception of others that changed, rather than her.)

Okay, so I should probably back up and explain this is a fantasy romance. A woman from the future (about 2500 AD) is seeking a job promotion at work, and Miss Marie Kieker (our heroine) is the subject of the experiment she must run in order to get it. Since the woman is from the future, I decided to name her Tove because that strikes me as a futuristic sounding name. Anyway, Marie is granted the “what if I lived another life?” scenario. I love those in movies, so why not write a book with the same premise? There are no other fantasy aspects. I don’t know if you’d consider it more sci-fi, though, since I did elude to some technology that Tove uses (and Marie views as magic). Regardless, it’s sill primarily a historical romance. So I decided to change the tagline on the cover “What if you could guarantee true love?” That is the heroine’s main conflict. She wants to make sure she marries the right person. Up until the final chapter, I had the tagline “A Fantasy Romance”. I feel the new tagline best reflects the plot.

3. Another surprise for me is that this is a very sweet romance. This is G-rated. You could read this one to a child. You guys know I rarely write these types of romances. But this particular story only called for one kiss. One kiss is all we get. I originally thought there would be one sex scene. That’s why I was surprised. The way it ends is far better, in my opinion. To add any more would be unnecessary and dilute the effectiveness of that single kiss.

The Science of Love

I am going to try to make this a shorter book so it can get finished quicker. Since I don’t have the time to write as much as I used to, the other option I have is to create shorter books. I typically write 60,000 to 70,000-word books. When I am unable to write more than 1,000 words in the book each week, you can see how slow the progress goes. I’d like to get to where I write more like 30,000 to 40,000-word books. To do that, I need to start trimming the excess and focus more on the main plot. There are stories where I’ve gone to other scenes that don’t directly impact the plot, though it helped to flesh out the series. I noticed this book starting to take a turn that could have expanded it to excess, but I’m going to quickly snuff that out before it adds another 15,000 or so words to the book. It doesn’t have to be there, so it won’t be.

I’m close to 20,000 words so far, and we’re just getting to the point where the heroine is going to slip the experimental love potion into the hero’s drink. I am not sure if I can make the 40,000 goal at this pace. If it needs to go over, I’ll let it. I’m not going to rush a book just to get it done.

This book’s heat level is the opposite of Masquerade Bride, but this one needs a high heat level because the heroine’s main problem is that she doesn’t feel sexually desirable. (Her first husband took one look at her naked and annulled the marriage, so obviously, this is an area of uncertainty for her.) One question I hate answering is what kind of romances do I write. I don’t stick to just one type. I go where the story leads. Some characters need a lot of sex. Some need only one scene. And, once in a while, I run across a “kiss will do” scenario. That’s why I started putting this information into my book’s description. That way you can decide if it’s your kind of book or not.

The Preacher’s Wife has been on hold

(I still have not updated the cover, which is why one isn’t shown here.)

I haven’t written anything in it for at least a month, either. I’m sitting at 38,000 words. Technically, it follows The Wilderness Bride, but I have decided to make it a standalone. I have decided I will not do another book in this world. I simply don’t have the time. The plot I was going to use for Book 3 will just have to go into another book in the future. It’ll make a good standalone. I don’t need it to be a part of a series to make that plot work.

I might set this up at a duet series to go with The Wilderness Bride. If I do, I can still use the original cover. But I have time to debate on this.

The Horror Romance Project

I’ve been working on my horror romance in place of this book. That’s why we’re not seeing progress here. I know this is a contradiction, but The Preacher’s Wife is so intense with heavy themes that I had to put it on hold to write the horror romance. The horror romance is definitely intense. Hence the contradiction. I just need to play around with a different genre, and I do enjoy a well-done psychological horror story. This book focuses more on the psychological than any physical stuff, though I will have to start diving into the physical soon. Just last week, the first physical fight erupted. I’m 36,000 words into that one, and I suspect it will be 70,000 or so when it’s all done. I already have idea #2 for a horror romance, but I think that one will be 30,000 words or so.

These horror romances are not suitable for “Ruth Ann Nordin”, but I am finding that playing around in something different has made my “Ruth” books a lot stronger because I’m able to use my creative outlet in another area. I know there are authors that only write one thing and that’s it, but I need variety to stay fresh. This is why my books are all over the place.

Book 3 in Love Under Desert Skies Series

I have finally narrowed down the opening the scene. That’s what held me up from starting it. I didn’t want to start it with the characters leaving Quartzsite. After a lot of debate, I decided to start it when the group finds the woman in Flagstaff who is masquerading as Faye. When I finish up the edits to Masquerade Bride this month, I’ll have to decide whether to try to continue with The Preacher’s Wife or start this one. I haven’t decided that question yet. I still like having three books at a time to work on. Working on just one or two doesn’t work for me. Three is my sweet spot. Other authors will find that they work better with just one (or maybe two). This is totally a personal thing.

I think there’s a good chance I can make this one a 30,000-40,000-word book.

Non-Writing Stuff I Want To Address

I have made my Monthly Newsletter Blog private.

Since I can’t write faster right now, there’s no point in wasting people’s time by making those posts. I would have nothing new to share. If the situation ever changes and I can write more, I’ll put that blog public again. I think this blog and my email list is sufficient for now.

It turns out I’m okay. It was just stress.

I went through a round of testing in December, and all the tests came out negative. So I guess the incident I had was just a case of sleepwalking. I suspect it had to do with the amount of stress I was under. I do remember waking up that morning and feeling overwhelmed by everything I had to do. I was also sleepy and felt like I should go back to sleep. But I made myself start getting ready for the day. After that, things went fuzzy for me.

The incident hasn’t happened again, but I have since taken measures to lessen the stress in my life. This is why I only write 1-2 times a week now, and I only write 500 words per story (so about 3,000 words a week). I have renewed my walking schedule. I had been neglecting that. I listen to audiobooks to just be a reader, and that has helped to feed my creative mind while relaxing me. But I typically listen when I’m walking or cooking.

Cooking is probably the most relaxing hobby I’ve picked up. I went to the library and gathered a lot of cookbooks. I also invested in stuff to help making food prepping faster and easier. I want to use a lot of vegetables in my meals, and all that cutting with a knife can take a toll on the hand, arm, and shoulder. I used to hate cooking, but now I’m finding that love it. Who knew? I guess just because you didn’t like something in the past, it doesn’t mean you should rule it out for the future. I also find that cleaning the house relaxes me, and I can listen to audiobooks while doing that, too. So the time I used to spend writing is now being divided into other places. I do miss writing when I’m not doing it, but I have found I’m enjoying writing a lot more when I do get to it. And the other stuff has greatly lowered my stress. I didn’t realize that writing so much was adding to it.

You can tell yourself all day long that you’re writing what you love and that this is “not” a business, but I think having all of that “business” drilled into you sticks with you. I don’t mind saying that seeing the money not coming in like it used to does depress me, and I don’t have it in me produce more to get it back up. The walking, cooking, cleaning, and listening to books for pleasure, all help to keep me positive. So I focus more on those things than spending more time writing.

I recently stumbled across a YouTube video about how exhausting hustle culture is, and I caught parallels of the hustle culture epidemic and how things are in the writing world.

How many times are authors told that they must run their writing like a business? To run the business, we need to keep up-to-date on the latest improvements in packaging the book, such as formatting beautiful interior files for ebooks and paperbacks because a simple format isn’t good enough. We also need to keep up-to-date on the latest in promotional strategies because if we don’t, we might not get noticed in an oversaturated market. Of course, while juggling all of this, we need to constantly have new books coming out. No matter how much an author does (or has done in the past), the message is often, “It’s not enough.” To add insult to injury, if an author does make a living, there’s the thought that they should make more money. So even tangible success in the form of money does not eliminate the expectation that we should keep on doing more. Whatever you have done, it’s not enough. You will never truly “arrive”, and if you can’t “arrive”, you will never actually succeed. Any accomplishment you do achieve is temporary. There is no peace for one driven by the hustle culture mindset in the writing world.

The end result of this rabbit trail is exhaustion.

We are human beings. We are not machines. There comes a point when you have done all you can, and you can’t do any more. Some writers figure this out sooner than others, and they immediately take measures to balance out their lives. They don’t wait to hit burnout. Worse, they don’t try to push through burnout. They are smart. I wish I was one of them. Unfortunately, I’m not. I gave into the hustle culture mindset.

Every writer is going to be able to handle a different workload. Obviously. You have to figure out where you land on the spectrum of not enough to too much. You need to know where your balance lies. What I’m concerned about is how often a writer will have this gut feeling that it’s time to quit, and how quick other writers are to criticize them for it.

For example, I was in an author Facebook group earlier this month, and the poster was asking, “When is it okay to quit writing?” That was all the person said. We weren’t given any specifics about why they were asking the question. The responses the author received were more noteworthy than what prompted the person to ask the question in the first place because they demonstrate the mindset of the writing community. A small fraction of the authors said that yes, there are valid reasons why it’s okay to quit. Most of the writers, however, were adamant that there is never a good reason to stop writing. Half of them even wrote, “If you quit, you were never a writer to begin with.”

Let’s focus on that because this is why there is so much overwhelm and stress in the writing community. “If you quit, you were never a writer to begin with.”

Just how many books does a writer need to write to satisfy the definition of being a writer? One? Two? Ten? Twenty? How about 100? Is 100 enough to call it a day and stop writing? Why is writing the one venture where people are told they are failures if they quit writing, even though they have successfully finished and published book(s)? What other profession can you think of where someone is told they failed because they decided not to do it anymore? People quit other jobs all the time to do something else, and I don’t see them being shamed the way writers are.

With that aside, maybe you’re on the fence about whether or not you should quit. Here are some ideas on how to tackle this scenario.

1. Do you want to keep writing? If not, that is fine. It is not illegal to stop writing. Even if you wrote one thing that never got published, you are a writer. A writer doesn’t exist only when they are writing. The act of having written a story makes you a writer. We never tell an actor that they are no longer an actor when they are done making movies. We never tell a painter that they are no longer a painter when they are done with their canvas. Once your name is on that story, you are a writer. No one can take that accomplishment from you. (Now, to be a “published” writer, you obviously need to have at least one story published.)

2. Can you afford to keep writing? Are you sacrificing time spent with loved ones that you’ll never get back to produce more books? There has to be a balance. If you’re able to spend time with them and write, then you’re good to go. However, if you get no time with loved ones because you have to “crank out” the next book, then you might want to reconsider. Once that time is gone with loved ones, you’ll never get it back. (We aren’t guaranteed that we’ll have them around until they’re almost 100. So keep that in mind.) Also, can you balance your job and the writing? You have to pay the bills. If you can’t do both, then the job has to come first. (If the writing is paying the bills, then that’s a whole other source of stress to deal with, but for the sake of this post, we’ll say that you’re not reliant on your writing income.) The last area I’ll touch on is the emotional and physical toll writing can take on your life. Are you able to handle the stress that comes with trying to sell books? It is not easy to stay relevant in a world that is constantly changing. Writing income can be erratic. Can you emotionally deal with the uncertainty of it? Are you able to meet your physical needs and write? We can go for some time without exercise, but we aren’t meant to sit all day forever. We have to be mindful to keep moving or our bodies won’t work like they’re supposed to.

3. Do you need to adjust how you’ve been writing? Maybe you do want to keep writing, but you might have to find your balance. This might require you to slow things down. Maybe you have to relax and allow yourself time to rest. It’s better to do that than to end up sick. Don’t forget your health. Your body is just as important as your mind. How you feel will impact how, or if, you’re able to write. If you don’t make enough time to rest, your body will make you. (I know because it’s making me rest now.) I know that this is especially difficult for people driven to achieve things. I have found that cooking new recipes and doing more cleaning around the house has helped to offset the restlessness I feel if I just sit. I need to keep busy with something. I just had to replace the writing aspect because, whether other people realize it or not, writing is an active process that requires a lot from a mental standpoint. That mental work can’t be done nonstop. We aren’t machines. We need periods of rest to regain our creativity.

4. What do you want most out of life? This is more of a general question, but it’s one that is worth thinking through. Most of us will probably think, “I want to write. That’s why I’m a writer.” Let’s go beyond that. Let’s think more abstract. What overall thing would you like most in your life? For example, do you want more “peace”? Do you want more “focus”? Do you want more “meaning”? Do you want more “joy”? What is it that really means something to you deep down in your gut? What is the snapshot view of your life that would make you satisfied with the years you spent on this earth?

5. Once you figure out the answer to 4, then how can you go about getting it? What actions do you need to take to get that thing you want most? For example, say you’re always busy. Maybe you feel like you’re always being pulled in multiple directions. This has led you to feeling like your life is one chaotic mess. As a result, you want more “peace” in your life. What are things you need to let go of in order to ease that stress on your life? Granted, you can’t eliminate all sources of stress, but which ones can you remove? While you’re removing things, look at things you can add to replace the things you are removing. For example, if you’re the parent of a young child, you can’t remove the child. But maybe you need to spend less time on social media marketing your book. You can replace this with a relaxing activity you enjoy. If you love to walk, you can take the child on the walk with you. If you like to veg out on the couch and watch TV, you can do that with your child, too. In my personal life, my kids are now adults, so the young child thing no longer keeps me busy. But I am finding it necessary to remove some writing time because I can’t handle that workload anymore. I have had to replace it with cooking (which I recently found I actually enjoy; who knew?), and I also give myself 2-3 hours every day to unwind by watching a movie or some favorite TV shows. I know some would say that 2-3 hours spent on the TV is a waste of time. A few years ago, I would have been saying that, too. But given the current status of my physical and mental health, I need this time to decompress from the day so I can sleep better at night. That sleep allows me to heal in a lot of ways. Sorry to go on with my life, but I couldn’t think of anything else to help demonstrate my point on removing some stuff to gain more peace. Because my thing is “peace”. (Oh, I also stay away from arguments as much as possible. So if you find that you are stressed out by negativity, pulling yourself away from negative stuff is something I recommend. Insert stuff that is calming and positive instead.) I do believe it’s important to replace something when you take away something. That way we are intentional with our time.

I have talked with my doctor about the incident a couple weeks ago, and just in case anyone has an experience like that (where they seem to be dreaming with a partial awareness of the waking world around them), it’s a good idea to go to the Emergency Room of a hospital so they can run a scan of your brain to see what’s happening. Of course, you won’t drive yourself there. Someone else will drive you. So just let a loved one know this is the protocol if it happens to you. Also, if you know someone who suddenly acts strange for no known reason, it’s a good idea to get them to the ER as well.

On my end, I’ll be doing a CT Scan tomorrow and will also see a neurologist in February to rule out anything serious. I haven’t had an incident since, so it’s possible this won’t happen again, but I’d rather be safe and get tested. We didn’t test my mom early on, and she ended up needing a lung transplant. My father-in-law didn’t get his annual prostate exams and ended up finding the cancer when it was in stage 4. By then, it was too late to help either my mom or him. So I’ve learned to be proactive. This doesn’t eliminate bad things from happening, of course, but I think it increases your chances of having a better outcome in the long run.

Now, the annual physical did reveal a low white blood cell count on my end, so the doctor ran that again, and it’s still low. I will be seeing a Hematologist to see if we can find out what is going on there. From my initial look into things, this situation could stem from a wide range of issues, so I’m not even going to venture a guess on the root cause here. It could be related to what happened a couple of weeks ago, or it could be a separate issue.

I managed to write in two stories one time last week. That put me at 1,000 words total since I do 500 per story. My mind just doesn’t come up with much content like it does with some writers. Some writers can sit and write 5,000 words a day in just one story. I need more time to think of what happens next. I have rushed out stories, and I think I do my best work when I take it slow. But considering all the other stuff I have going on, I have to lower my expectations anyway. There are other things at play in my life, too. I have the deaf son who pretty much needs more support than my other kids who are independent at this point. I help them out when I can. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to turn the “mom” gene off no matter how old they get. Now I understand the sitcoms where the adult son has his mom bringing him chicken noodle soup when he’s sick. And, of course, I have my husband. A relationship needs to be watered in order to thrive. When I start publishing books, my kids weren’t even potty trained yet. I used to think when they were adults, I would have more time to write. That has not turned out to be true. The health stuff has propped up, and when your sons want to talk to you for a while to tell you what’s going on in their lives, you want to listen because you know it’s only a matter of time before they get married and will be busy. I am hoping I’ll get to spend time with grandchildren when they come along. I guess life is always busy in one way or another. It’s just the stage of busy-ness that we all find ourselves. Writing is still something I enjoy, but the older I get, the more I value the time with family and margin the house a home. Writing was a “job” for a good decade for me. Now I’m finding it has become more of a hobby again. As grateful as I am that I actually did make a living with the writing thing (something that was my dream back when I was 13), I am more grateful that I’ve been a wife and mother. God has greatly blessed me. Not to be morbid, but if I were to die tomorrow, my life would be complete. I have no regrets.

On a more uplifting note, I am going to post an update on where I am with my books, but I would like to make a little more progress in them first. 🙂

Yesterday morning, I lost three hours of awareness. I thought I was sleeping. I have a vague recollection of what I was doing. From my viewpoint, I was dreaming. But I was talking and walking all over the house. I only have fragments of what my husband was telling me. I have nothing at all from what one of my sons was telling me, and I don’t remember eating a breakfast bar (an unhealthy one I would never eat under any other circumstance because I am trying to take care of my body). What I remember is waking up at 5am, thinking I was unusually tired but had to get up, so I took care of my eyes with the damp warm cloth (because I have dry eye).

After that, the dreams started for me. It was like I was primarily in a dream but there was the outside voice of my husband that wasn’t getting through. I was saying all kinds of stuff that had to do with the dreams. The outside voice coming from my husband made no sense, and I kept saying, “What?” I was also saying, “Jesus Christ is Lord” and “my dad had schizophrenia” over and over. Then I was intermittently crying and laughing. I was pacing around the bedroom. I have no memory of this. I only remember snippets of my husband saying, “You have a mammogram tomorrow.” “You don’t talk to her anymore.” “We’ve been married for 25 years, do you remember that?” Apparently, I even forgot I had children. Then he left for work and asked one of my sons to watch over me. He said I was just sitting in the chair when he left with my eyes open. I was just staring off into space when he had to leave.

I don’t remember coming down the stairs. I do remember seeing my son in the living room chair and him asking me if I wanted to go for a walk. We will go on our 3-5 mile walks a couple times a week. I said yes, and I remember thinking exercise would help me. My son said from there, I spent 45 minutes walking from the kitchen to the living room to the laundry room and back. And I even ate that breakfast bar. At this point everything is a complete blank. I wasn’t in “dream mode” like I was upstairs. Apparently, I kept asking about the library books I got on Saturday. He eventually hid them because I was fixated on them. I was also telling him, “my dad had schizophrenia” over and over, too. All I remember is coming down at 9:00am, agreeing to the walk, and getting in the car. But the clock in living room did say 9:00am, and the car said 9:45am when I got in. So I know I lost time. The walk did help, but I don’t remember getting down there, and I don’t remember half of the walk. Things came into “focus” at the halfway point, and from that point on, I was fully engaged and aware of everything going on around me. I did cry on and off throughout the day because this episode scared me. I had trouble sleeping last night because I worried I’d wake up like that again.

I just had a physical two weeks ago, and I’m due to go in on December 3 for a follow up for more blood work on my white blood count. I am going to tell my doctor about this (and any other episodes) I have. My dad did have schizophrenia, and I remember my mom saying he was doing similar stuff. This was before I was old enough to remember it. He was resistant to getting help, but back then, you could make someone get treatment if they needed it. Now you can only make someone get treatment if they are a threat to themselves or others. I’m glad I wasn’t a threat to anyone. But I am also willing to go in to get tested. I guess having a degree in Psychology has paid off after all. I know that getting help does not mean someone is stupid or that someone is a loser. I am aware that Psychology is one of those fields that still has some stigma attached to it, though it’s not as bad as it used to be. My dad was able to have a normal and productive life because my mom caught what was going on and he took the right medicine. The sooner you can catch this, the better. I want to get help if I need it, but in order to figure out what’s going on, I’ll need to have the proper tests done.

I’ve watched my mom go through a lung and heart transplant, which her body rejected, when she was 48. I watched my dad deal with schizophrenia and emphysema. He died from the emphysema. I saw him with the breath thing they use (sorry, I don’t remember the term for the machine) and the oxygen tank he needed. I promised myself I would do everything possible to take care of my health so that I never ended up like that. I can think of plenty of other places I’d rather be than a hospital. Now I’ll have to address the mental side of things. It’s possible there is a physical explanation for what happened yesterday. Or maybe it will be mental issue. Whatever it is, I will go with the doctors’ advice. So I’m optimistic about the path forward.

In the meantime, I am going to start teaching Eric (the son who said he would take over my books when I can no longer do it) the ins and outs of what I do with these books. I will consult an intellectual property lawyer about handing over copyright of my books to him so that he can prove to Amazon, Google, Draft2Digital, etc that he has full rights to them. I’ll also arrange for him to be on my business account for finances so he can get the money. I figure since he’ll run the business, he should get the benefit from it. No one else is interested, and it’s not like I’m making a lot of money so no one in the house is arguing over “their share”. I finally did set up investments last year and arranged for everyone to be taken care of when I can no longer do it myself. I’m going to have a power of attorney set up with my husband so he can handle things for me just in case I am unable to make decisions.

I know all of that sounds extreme. People have told me I’m morbid. But I want to make sure my loved ones are taken care of, and I want to be able to do all of this while I’m able to mentally do so. Maybe this was a fluke. Maybe I’ll be fine from here on out. I don’t know what the future will bring. I’d just rather be proactive. I’ve watched too many people die and leave their loved ones in a state of confusion. My dad was proactive, and that made everything easier to deal with. I had been prepared for his death. When he got emphysema, we knew he didn’t have a long time left. We had the time to grieve in advance. My mom was a bigger shock, but given how bad her lungs were, we knew we might have to grieve her, too, and we did in the year it took for the transplant to happen. When the call came that she died, I already knew she was no longer alive. No one calls before the sun rises to give you good news. Death is morbid, but it’s also a reality. I would rather have my family missing “me” than wondering what investment accounts I have or what to do with my books because they never ran a business.

I’ll keep you updated on what happens. I figure this is going to take some time to figure out. In the meantime, I’ll keep on watching my health the best I can and write more books since I still love writing them.

Today as I wrote in my horror romance, I realized why I have been stuck in a certain scene for the past week. I’m glad it didn’t take me longer to figure that out because it took me two full months to finally get unstuck in The Preacher’s Wife. In the case of The Preacher’s Wife, I had to transition the couple from having a platonic marriage to going over that hurdle. I knew the mechanics of what to do, but honestly, a sex scene is not just a sex scene. There are so many nuances involved in it. How does the relationship change? What do the characters learn about themselves? What do they learn about each other? How does this advance the plot? I’m learning that some need more description than others.

In The Preacher’s Wife, that scene is so emotion-heavy that I gloss over the actual physical aspects of it. Right now someone is probably wondering what this has to do with my horror romance. The part that had me stuck in this horror romance was that I was at the “first time the couple is in bed” scene. The circumstances are different. I am not writing The Preacher’s Wife this time. But I still had to figure out how to best go about writing it for this particular couple.

The way I approached this scene pretty much sets up the groundwork for what kind of horror romance writer I’m going to be. That probably sounds crazy since I’m at 28,000 words and have focused so much on the psychological horror vibes up to now. No one has died yet. It’s coming, but it can’t happen yet. I have to lay down the foundation first. There has to be motive when the hero starts killing people. (He kills to protect the heroine.) Before the hero can step out to protect her, he has to fall in love with her. That’s why their first time matters. It has to be there.

I have read quite a few dark romances, gothic romances, paranormal romances, urban fantasy romances, and horror books by now. I have been processing what makes them different and what makes them similar. I have been trying to figure out where I fit in with this pen name. I already figured out who I am with my general romances, though I recall that taking a couple of years to nail down. Given my experience, figuring out where I land in horror romance is easier. I came into this thinking I was going to have a completely different “voice”, but the more I wrote the story, the more I went back to rewrite scenes since I didn’t like how abrasive the characters were coming across.

The other day, Rami Ungar wrote a blog post about The Shining by Stephen King. I remember years ago when I learned that Stephen King didn’t like the way Stanley Kubrick directed it. Later on, there was a TV miniseries made for The Shining that was more in line with Stephen King’s vision for the book. While reading Rami’s blog post, I kept thinking about how a story can come off differently depending on how a person’s interpretation of it goes. Kubrick did amass praise for his vision. I actually enjoyed King’s vision more. The father was more relatable. The descent he took into madness was far more tragic in King’s version. King wasn’t as “abrasive” I guess with his approach to the father. Considering my taste as a reader, that makes sense.

Now, I am not writing a story like The Shining. But while I was writing in the horror romance today, I had to ask myself, “Which approach is best served for me as the writer? What is the voice that best suits me? I can’t approach this book as just the author. I need to look at it as someone who wants to read this story, too. This approach, by the way, is the opposite of writing to market. Writing the market is all about being the author who is delivering a story for a specific audience. You, the writer, do not need to agree with the vision in order to please the reader. If are you writing for passion, though, you are your own audience.

Once I removed the vision I had for what a dark romance reader seems to want, the scene came un-stuck. So I would say my book does not fall into “dark romance”. Those romances are more abrasive than what I like. They are like Kubrick’s version. And that doesn’t resonate with me like King’s version. I want more gentleness. More of a “conscience” I guess. I don’t want such a morally grey hero or heroine. I want there to be more of a sense of right and wrong, and I want the characters to struggle. I don’t want the hero to just go out and kill people. I want him to be cornered into a place where he has no choice. He eventually becomes a “monster”, but he’s also the good guy. I want people to be rooting for him. So he’s a sympathetic villain, maybe.

I wish there was an actual “Horror Romance” category, because this is what the story really is. I am learning how to blend horror and romance together. It’s been a lot of fun. I can feel the creative muscles working as I play around with different ways to go about the story. After a while of writing the same genre, a writer can feel stuck. By venturing into new territory, you get to come back to that same genre with fresh new eyes. I have found that taking on this horror romance has sparked my excitement for regular old historical romance. While lousy advice for writing-to-market authors, I think playing around with different types of stories is great advice for writing-for-passion authors. It’s fun where there’s something new to learn.