Category: emotions

Wellness in progress

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

The first half of 2022 has been better for me than the three years. Even despite not writing since January. As the year dawned, I had a thought that turned into action.

This year is going to be my year of wellness.

Everything I didn’t like about myself, I was going to change. And I’m going to give myself lots of time to do so. No pressure. No specific timelines. Nothing like that. To start my year of wellness, I made a list of all the things I didn’t like about my situation.

  • I wasn’t writing, editing, or publishing.
  • I was fat.
  • I had depression.
  • I was not enjoying life.

I began the year with a new job, which felt like a mistake (though there was nothing to indicate it). I was having constant bad thoughts. I was not writing, and I half hated myself for it and half didn’t care. But I wasn’t alone. I was with my lovely husband and two cats.

With his encouragement, I went and got anti-depressants. And wow. It was night and day. These happy pills changed my outlook on life. I look forward to each new day where in the past I hadn’t. I enjoy life now. Everything is improving. I’ve lost weight. I enjoy my job and have fun with the people there. Things that stressed me before do not anymore. I think life is fun and good things are in my future. I plan on spending the rest of the year enjoying life and getting back into writing.

Writing during the Quarantine

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

Time, time, time.

Since March I have all the time in the day to write. For the most part I have spent my time equal parts writing, moaning about not writing, and wondering why my organic self cannot work like a machine. However it has not been a complete waste like I infer. These are the things I have done during quarantine;

  • The Dragon’s Mate: I wrote, edited and self-published this novella in two months.
  • Matt and Rose: A novelette that is just about ready.
  • Those in the Forest: Plan for a supernatural story about an escapee from a recluse cult. Only has a few thousand words have been written. Probably won’t be done for at least a year.

My quarantine story is done.

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I did it. I published my quarantine story.

In the space of four and a half months;

  • I came up with a new story.
  • Wrote the first draft.
  • Did many edits.
  • (had a many more moments of anguish)
  • Created the cover image,
  • And published it.

My journey to this event was both straight forward like I stated above and just as bumpy. Between each step, I had many moments of anguish and worries that I wouldn’t get this done at all. After all, I have many uncompleted manuscripts. But I finished it. This might be my second fastest publication. If I was a lesser person, I might have given up when I got my feedback on the first beta read. But I fixed it rather than throw it away.

How was my mind during this time?

Well, I arrived just on lockdown, and that might have been both a blessing and a curse. I had no distractions, but I found them. I had nobody to talk to, but I might have shied away from them under the guise of writing. I had no job and yet couldn’t make writing my job. I was harder on myself than I should have been. However, I still managed to complete it 🙂

So what happens next?

Well, I have a bunch of other stories I came up with around the same time as The Dragon’s Mate, so I might work on those 🙂

Day 3 of writing

~ stephaniehaggarty ~ Leave a comment

I have done no writing. But at least I thought about my story lol. I have also been taken over by feelings of disappointment because I feel like I should be more successful financial wise. I’ve been writing for years, my skill level is decent, but I have no marketing skills what so ever. Maybe I should go into erotica, I’ve got an idea for a story. That’s a sure fire way to get some cash right? Hahahaha.

I have this scenario in my head that I put out one story and it’s more successful than all my other books combined. That would be hilarious.