I'm so Excited to Share with You What I've Been up to!

I can’t believe that summer is almost over and another year is on its way to being finished. Where does the time go? It’s just crazy how fast life is flying by.

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve updated my blog but it’s been a fun but crazy busy season.

If you don’t already know, I’m officially living in Honduras now. Yeah…I didn’t expect that either but God has plans sometimes that we can’t see ahead of time. But I’m happier than I’ve been in quite some time since starting this grief journey. I’ve seen Him do the miraculous in big and small ways, all along never moving from my side.

It’s been a year of ups and downs, joy and sorrow but I’m still standing and I’m so proud of myself for the new life that I’ve forged for myself. I have never lived on my own, having married while still in high school so this journey has had me face my loneliness, my anxieties and fears, my dreams and my hopes for my future.

Some days I’m a rock star. Other days, I don’t get out of bed and that’s as brutally honest as I can be. But I’ve learned that there are lessons to be learned in both spectrums. It’s ok to not be ok. It’s also ok to be a warrior. I can be both and still accomplish what God has in store for me.

I’ve gotten as far as I can on my 2nd book, Rediscovering Mary, but I felt like there wasn’t more in me to write yet. I know when the time is right, I’ll finish that book for sure. Maybe it’s because I still have so much more to discover. In the meantime, I’ve been finding ways to make some of my dreams come true like snorkeling in deep water without help, exploring the Amalfi Coast of Italy with my sister and continuing to find ways to settle into my new life outside of the US, all on own.

Part of what I’ve been spending my time on the last 8 months is what I wanted to share with you today.

The week before Thanksgiving 2023, I wanted to play around with the idea for a romance novel. So late one Friday night, I started storyboarding. You read in my last blog about my love of Turkish shows, Erkenci Kus in particular, and found there were a lot of fan fiction books on different platforms.

But I wanted to write an AU version of that story where the female protagonist was a young widow, rediscovering herself in her new life, one she didn’t feel ready for.

Nineteen days later, Unexpected Love was written!

Yeah..you read that right.

I wrote a full fledged, 88,000 word novel in nineteen days. It flowed out of me so easily and from such a deep place inside me, that I cried for days after I was finished. And that act of putting one foot in front of the other was the missing piece of my healing. You see, I starting writing my first novel back in high school but never finished it. And one of my big dreams was to do just that. And with the help of God and the support of my girl tribe, I did it!

Four months later, I had written 2 more novels. The morning after I posted my very first chapter of Unexpected Love back in November, I had 8 readers. As of this week, I have over 100,000 readers and that first novel, Unexpected Love, has been nominated for a new author’s award.

To say that I’m over the moon is an understatement. Besides navigating my new life abroad, going on adventures around the world, finding a ministry that brings me so much fulfillment, I have found my life’s work.

So with the help of a friend, I’ve been editing Unexpected Love for mainstream publishing and I’m almost done. I’ve sent in a few chapters to an agent who gave lots of great feedback, most of which was the need for an editor. I had a lot to learn about the mechanics of writing a novel but they loved the story and want me to resubmit it to be shown to Christian publishers once I’m done.

But first I want to get it on Amazon Kindle for self publishing. It’s something that I want to do for myself before sending it off to see if there’s any interest elsewhere.

So…sometime this fall, I will be announcing that Unexpected Love will be ready for purchase as a self published online novel on Amazon and I would love your prayers and support as I attempt to find a way to monetize this gift of writing. I can tell you that I have poured myself out into the pages of these novels and pray the words bring inspiration, love and hope to all who read it, much like my devotional.

I can’t wait to make the formal announcement and I’m so so close to being done. Some days I want to throw my laptop out of the window or just scrap the story and start over but I’ve learned that all writers feel that way. This last round of editing is by far the hardest so say a prayer for my sanity!

Oh and want to guess where that photo at the top is from? Yup. Trevi Fountain in Rome! My sister and I made that dream come true. The hopeless romantic in me had to see it and so many other iconic sights from all my favorite movies, including Roman Holiday. It was a trip I was to take with Bud and having pizza in Naples for him was hard but I wouldn’t trade the experience with Martha for anything in this world. We had a blast and made memories of a lifetime.