What happened with writing

I think I need to put this out in the world somewhere, in the hopes of getting past it, and this seems like as good a place as any.

After a lot of work at trying to do this writer thing, I finally got a fabulous agent, who sold my beloved, quirky, personal YA novel to a small press.

That small press started having some problems, leading to publication delays, and their way of handling those delays entailed a level of ambiguity I could not handle, so I had my agent cancel the deal.

Soon after, (1) a huge family drama ate up all my time for months, (2) both my computers and my backup drive broke,* and (3) I moved to an apartment where the layout meant my desk had to be in the living room, right beside my delightful, chatty husband who works from home. Then 2020 happened.

I feel like The World's Most Failed Writer, even though I know that's silly. I lost all my writing habits and abandoned all my writing friends in my embarrassment. Now the world has turned into a stress machine.

But I've just set up a desk in the bedroom, and I got a new laptop. I don't really ever get any alone time (we're still staying inside) but I could probably work on something if I had any hope or goals or confidence or anything to say.

I'm not looking for sympathy (though I don't mind it either), I just need to admit somewhere what happened with the book deal, and why I stopped talking to everyone. I don't know if I can find my way back, if I should, how to tell, or how to start with any of it.

But I do like typing on this computer. That's something.



* writing was all saved in various cloud services, so was recovered fine. Not sure that's a win tbh