Ok… I finally read the last book from the Never After series, hooked.

So it was much easier to read than the last one, Scarred. I liked it kind of. I mean I read it faster, it was less of a chore.

Things I personally didn’t like was the breath play, call me traumatised but that doesn’t sound like a risk worth taking, how easily it can go wrong. But also, Hook treats her so badly. doesn’t make any true, realistic, authentic apology to her, it all gets rug swept and there is no consequences at all for locking her in a basement.

I don’t know why but not only is that a whole parade of red flags but a bunch of deal breakers, and yet it’s expected to be lapped up in the dark romance section. I have to ask, are you all ok? Do you need some therapy? Like you deserve healing and healthy relationships.

I don’t know why but I would love to know if there is something out there where the bad stuff happens, damage is done massively to their relationship they get therapy and realise that the “love” they have doesn’t out weigh the damage and they go on to become healthier versions of themselves so that their next relationship doesn’t look like absolute trainwreck material? Like the true romance in it winds up being that they find a love for themselves? A touch of self worth? I don’t know.

I know I am not the only one that struggles with staying continuously motivated. That’s not to mean that I don’t want to achieve my goals, it just feels like sometimes they are so massive, there is so much to do and to achieve on the path to getting there.

For example this book series, I know I have actually objectively achieved a fair wack of it. If I were to give myself credit for the things I have done so far like:

• Planned books 1-3 enough that they can be written with less continuity errors.
• Outlined books 4-9 with enough wiggle room for inspiration and character developments.
• Written a first draft for book 1.
• Created Character profiles.
• Created location set ups (mental visuals).
• Designed some of the inner art for the characters.
• Edited book 1 multiple times
• Created synopsis for the series and for book 1.
• Began applying to agents.
• Decided to re edit the book while applying to agents because I am an idiot and glutton for punishment.

I look at the above and think yeah that’s not bad, until I look at the next steps that I want to do:

• Write books 2-9
• Edit books 2-9
• Get the bloody thing published.
• Feel damn proud that its done!

Ok that looks shorter because I grouped 2-9 together but if it was singular it’s really not a shorter list at all.

I get why people say that achieving your dreams can be hard. I get that I could self publish it instead of trying to trad. publish it, I do. I just I really want to try for this one. I have the other’s I self published, but none of them hold my heart as much as this particular story.

Somewhere between trying to achieve my dreams and getting that to do list done my brain leaves the building, the dopamine drops or I get busy in the real world and the first thing I sacrifice is my time. But I get that in doing so I am being unfair to myself. I need to get a schedule going, some time where it is protected writing time, and rather than coming here to whinge about it actually do the writing. Maybe I might start using this as an accountability log, at the end of the session come on here and write about it, maybe in time I might look back on this and see how far I have progressed and stop beating myself up and cut myself some slack.

Ok I’ll strike a deal with myself, I will come here at the end of each writing session/editing session/planning session and hold myself accountable even if its a hundred words or more just saying hey today I did xyz got this much done or this many words. Just something. But not just that, I will keep reading the books outside my comfort zone, keep reading my TBR pile that is taunting me with how much to do and I will keep giving my unasked for opinions on them because that is also holding me accountable and getting me to keep persevering with slowly simmering down my TBR.

Two missions. Read books. Write books.

(And realise it is too late to stay sane… because that ship has sailed.)

Scarred from the Never After series, literally took over a month to read. I tried to keep reminding myself to pick it up but it just like a majority of the series couldn’t grab my attention.

Hence why it’s been so long since I last posted. I kept trying my best to get on with reading it.

It wasn’t necessarily bad, it just isn’t my cup of tea and I am starting to accept that Dark Romance retellings of sorts just don’t hold my attention long enough. That’s ok. I am starting to forgive myself. It doesn’t have to be my cup of tea to be someone else’s.

I mean I often find myself wondering how these people are so accepting of the beyond morally grey murderers that they seem to can’t help but fall madly in love with. Like I know it tickles some peoples pickles but a murderer who harms/kills/maims your friends/family/occasionally yourself. I don’t get it.

But other than that, I got the lion king vibes, actually rooted for the bad guy to win, because that’s what it set out to make me do, it wasn’t half bad. It just took over a month to keep my attention enough to finish it. I think I preferred the wizard of oz retelling so far. Got one more in the series left to read, Hooked.

I don’t think I have kept a diary since my early teens. Even then it wasn’t used habitually. If anything I’ve avoided consistent use of them.

Don’t get me wrong I love stationary and notebooks, the cuter the better, but the only notebook I have ever written in daily for months at a time was early days in the trenches when my kiddo was first born. It was the best and easiest way to keep track.

There is no writing ritual for journaling regularly for me. I either forget, or do it once in a moon or two. I guess that’s ok. I don’t feel great about it sometimes because of all the pressure to be a writer I must be writing, I must be creating at all hours of the day, that just isn’t the case for me. Living is important to.

So while many find real use in the journaling process, real healing, it is something I struggle with.

Make it make sense.

I love writing, I will happily write stories that work through some of the things that journaling might help with, that counselling would definitely help with. But to work on it so directly? That seems a little self indulgent for me. I know where it stems from. I know that growing up there never really felt like a safe space anywhere but inside a book or on the rare occasion inside my head.

I mean it is entirely possible that something claws at my brain, something I was told as a child. “Never put things on paper.”

Not for any good reason I assure you. I was basically told to keep anything inside good or bad so that there is no evidence, nothing in black and white that I ever thought that way it couldn’t be used against me. Who could have told me that? Mother dearest. Not a pearl of wisdom and nothing to be proud of.

Lets face it, it took years and years before I found my voice.

I’m still finding it. Still learning how to assert boundaries, learning how to deal with emotions. Learning what some emotions are. It sucks, being in your thirties and still learning something as basic as some feelings. Hell my toddler is probably more emotionally aware and intelligent than I am, I wont begrudge her that but it would be nice to have been allowed feelings, to feel safe expressing them.

I digress.

The whole point is to say if journaling works for you, that’s great, you do you. I will find some kind of way to sort through the things in my head.

Doctor recommended. That was the big scary wake up call. My health has been declining for years and now I have to do it. The weird part is there are some days where I look at myself and I don’t see the weight I put on straight away, sometimes I don’t recognise myself at all. The joys of dysmorphia. “Is that what I really look like?” my sense of self, what I expect to see in the mirror is wildly inconsistent.

Yes and no about being mad about the first go to response of the Doctor. I guess. Yes I am mad about it being the first solution and step. No because I understand why. With the flare ups in my health, pain and mental health I understand I have massively put on weight, I am ashamed to say.

But I have to do something about it, I can’t keep how I was living up, my body will crap out completely. So now I am fighting tooth and nail.

There are days where I look back at the body I had in my twenties and think “how the F did I think I was fat?” I would love to have that body now. It’s like that smaller version of me is still here trapped inside my body and it changed and altered, I had a kid, I don’t recognise my body at all now. I don’t suddenly expect to loose my mum pooch from walking a bit more and drinking more water, but it is a step in the right direction to building some stamina and energy.

The biggest motivation for loosing weight? I want to be a good mum, I want to be able to run around and play with my kid, I want her to have good memories. I want to build a better relationship with food to have a good example. I’m not asking to change the world, just maybe mine, and hers.

I want to be a good example, no longer eating to self harm. I want to not be the leading path for her to see first hand the disordered eating, I’ve never had a good relationship with food but it feels more important than ever to work on that. We both deserve that.

So, while I reconcile that I won’t have the body I had say ten years ago, I don’t even have all the organs I had, so it would be wildly unrealistic. It does feel like sometimes I can feel that shadow of myself yelling to get out.

I just have to keep reminding myself to take my time.