The image above is from the original Castlevania, which, for the record, I never beat, although I was a master of Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest, misleading dialogue and all. You could say I failed at Castlevania, because at some point, I stopped pressing Continue. I’m not too broken up about it.

Not being able to write, on the other hand…

So it’s been a while since I updated this blog. Or published a book, for that matter. The explanation for the long delays is not terribly exciting: suffice to say I had an idea for a series where the characters worked and the series itself didn’t, to the point where I had to completely junk one finished novel and 30,000 words of its sequel. And then my family obligations increased. I knew I needed a reboot, but reboots take time, and for good portions of this year I didn’t have that time.

And, honestly? I was pretty down for a while. Not being able to write affects my mood at the best of times, and “I wrote a novel that doesn’t work and I need to figure out what would work, but I can’t right now, because I don’t have time, and also my self-confidence has been shaken” is not the best of times. There was more than one occasion where I sternly asked myself if I needed to walk away from this whole romance-author idea, if I hadn’t turned out to bite off more than I could chew.

Fortunately, it was not too late to hit Continue.

I can talk about it now, in past tense. I have rescued the characters from the misbegotten series and started something new. My schedule has cleared up to the point where I can start taking care of things like finally updating this website. (It should look better! Also I have added a page to answer all your questions and one with content warnings for all my books.) It didn’t make sense for me to check in while I was tense and preoccupied; it’s a rare writer who can make writing about not writing interesting. But now that I’m back in the game, as it were, I wanted to let you know what was going on.