Posted on Instagram December 11, 2022
Someone asked recently if I’ve experienced any grief since the duology has been released and the story wrapped up. And I have, but the truth is the grief started long before pub.
For months after I finished writing Wildbound, I couldn’t seem to write anything without a voice in the back of my mind asking, but will this sell? Is the concept commercially viable enough? How does this fit within the market?
I hated it. That narrative killed my creativity. I forgot how to write simply because I wanted to, and that was the worst feeling of all—to lose the joy in writing. Suddenly I found myself grieving for the writer I was before, when I spent each day excited to return to a story about a shapeshifting girl, simply for the love of it. I feared I’d lost that version of me forever.
Then, like magic, it returned. The spark. The joy. I can’t say what exactly caused the shift, but finally I was writing again—and loving it completely. That passion and total conviction in the characters and story I was creating? I felt it, and the relief was immense. Trouble is, my conviction wasn’t shared by everyone around me.
There were comments about the new story. Hurtful ones. Made about my writing and my work just as I had finally found the joy in it again. And I’ll be honest: that was hard to work through. How do you cling to your conviction that a thing is worth telling when certain people around you don’t seem to agree? Without knowing if this will be a years-long pursuit in which you triumph or the doubters were right after all? And how do you do it while you’re constantly surrounded by your peers’ successes, as well as your own self-driven reminders that the expectations you have set for yourself and your career have not been met?
I don’t know. I’m still working on the answer to that. But I’m also still writing the book.
And so. As this year draws to a close, I thought I’d give you an honest update as to where I am now. I am writing a book I know to be good. I don’t yet know if you’ll get to read it. That last part is hard, but thank you for being here while I work toward finding out. And regardless of the outcome, it feels so good to be in love with writing again. xx