Hey everyone, I know it is been a very long time since the last update and all of you are wondering what happened why the preorder was canceled, and what the status of the next Alexis Carew book is.
TL; DR It’s not done and I don’t know when it will be, but I’m going to stop trying to predict when it will be an stop giving time frames for it.
the longer answer is more complex and pretty personal.
So first, you’re going to see quite a few typos in this post. That’s because a couple weeks ago, just before I thought I had the energy to make this post, I broke a finger. At first I didn’t think it was broken I thought it was just bruised it swelled up and turned purple while the very tip — just the tip — swelled up and turned purple. So I figured it was bruised went about my business — I got a splint that I wore sometimes, because it hurt if it got bumped and I just wanted to protect it.
Well, as it started feeling better I started using it, and it didn’t really hurt. But I noticed typing with it was sort of like typing with a gummy bear. It… Flexed. Very disconcerting.
So I went to the clinic, the doctor took an x-ray, although she said it was just to be safe, because if it was broken it would’ve hurt a lot and I know.
Anyway, that’s the delay in this post explaining things, and I’m using DragonDictate which introduces a few errors, but at least I’m not using the base Windows 11 dictation software, which flocking sucks.
And neither of the flocking things will let me swear. Just George Carlin’s seven dirty words you can’t say on television, results in asterisks in the Windows 11 dictation software and Dragon just says: ship test flock can’t Cox sucker mother Fokker and hits.
Anyway back to the real reason for the post.
Things have not been right with me for a while. It took me a while to realize it, accept it, and realize that I couldn’t do anything about it on my own
it started back in 2020. When Cove it happened and we went into the lockdown, I thought at least one bright side of it would be that by working from home I’d have more time to write. I went into 20/20 in the lockdown thinking I was going to get three books done that year.
Well, I didn’t.
It started getting more and more difficult for me to do anything, really. Very little energy, very little ambition, and a certain fuzzy headedness where I really couldn’t keep things straight sometimes. That got progressively worse as time went on. I front tried to fight my way out of it, and I’d succeed for a few days, but I couldn’t get any traction with sustainably doing more and feeling better.
Some people close to me when I described the symptoms I was having told me I was depressed. Which really passed me off, because I honestly have a great life I’m I’m very happy with it I have nothing to be depressed about — but that’s not what depression is.
Then in 2022, my situation at my day job change dramatically. Management decided to do a bunch of work that everybody in the development department had been saying we should do since 2005 — but they decided to do it all at once basically in six months from May to December. I wound up having to run six development projects with 12 people reporting to me nine of them being contractors who were not known quantities, meaning they needed a lot of handholding and a lot of oversight to make sure that they were doing things right… Or in a couple cases doing anything at all.
That really wiped me out. I had no energy going into the year and definitely no energy during that time.
At the same time, starting in early 2022, I had to deal with the medical issue with my wife.
So in 2022 as well as suffering from depression, I was working virtually every day. For about six months the only actual time off I had, was the days I took off to take my wife her medical care.
When we got to the end of 2022 I thought I’ll have time to write next year — and I set up the preorder to give myself a deadline because that’s worked in the past for me.
It didn’t work.
Again, I’d have a day or a weekend or a week even where I felt better start writing, and sometimes post an update that said things are on track, because I thought they’d get on track.
It wasn’t until a couple months ago that I realized and accepted that even though I could do things to get me out of this for a day or a week, it wasn’t sustainable on my own.
So now I’m on meds. 🙂
Then there working, I do feel more like my pre-2020 self. Not entirely, but they’ve definitely helped.
I’m being open about this, because what I went through with having to accept that it was a problem and that I needed help, I hope that if even one of my readers one of you, is experiencing something similar and having similar struggles, please don’t feel that it’s a failure to seek help.
The difference I felt within a week of starting the meds, was night and flocking day.
So now I’m on the path, the journey, to get fully back from where I was to where I’m supposed to be.
I don’t know how long it’s gonna take, I don’t know when I’ll be able to start writing again (although, I hope I don’t jinx it by saying that I have been writing consistently the last few days).
I apologize to all of you who’ve been waiting for the next bit of Alexis’s story, and especially to those of you who ordered the preorder and then had it canceled and have been wondering what was going on.
I’m doing my best, trying to feel better, and trying to tell the stories that I desperately want to again.
