A lot can happen in two years.
I look back at what life looked like two years ago versus what it looks like now and I can hardly believe how much has changed. Let’s do a rundown:
- In September, 2016, I reconnected with Lacy, a gal I’ve known for years but had fallen out of touch with. We started dating immediately.
- In January, 2017 I went to Montana to meet Lacy’s parents and spend some time on their farm.
- In April, 2017, I returned to Savannah with my sister; a last trip as siblings before one of us presumably gets married. It was just as wonderful a trip as the first, and it bums me out that I wasn’t able to return this year for a third consecutive time.
- In July, 2017, I returned to Montana with Lacy and surreptitiously had a conversation with her parents about my intent to marry her.
- In September, 2017, the day before our one-year anniversary of dating, I proposed to Lacy. She said yes!
- Two and a half months later, in December, we married in Hastings, MN. It was the perfect day, surrounded by friends and family.
- I became a stepdad to two girls, aged 8 and 5.
- I moved into Lacy’s townhouse with her, the girls, a cat and a dog.
- I got promoted at work to a senior-level position.
- My wife had surgery for endometriosis and I had surgery to repair a deviated septum.
I’m sure there’s more big events I’m forgetting, but as you can see, it’s been quite the whirlwind. So you’ll forgive me if it’s taken me two years to get back around to writing on this blog again. I know some, maybe most, people assumed that my novel is dead, and I can understand that assumption. There were times when I wondered the very same. I still write every time I fly, and here and there on occasion. But life has gone from a more relaxed pace, one where I could spirit away to my favorite coffee shop for a night of writing, to a more, well…. strenuous pace, where I’d love to be able to spend an evening simply working on writing. Now, my evenings involve trying to get two girls to spend less than two hours eating dinner and down at a reasonable hour for bedtime with minimal amounts of tears. Writing time is very hard to come by.
During the numerous trips we’ve taken driving to Montana, I’ve had plenty of time in the car with Lacy, part of which I’ve spent reading my novel to her. Hearing her feedback is very encouraging; it’s a unique feeling to have someone you deeply care about respond so positively to something you’ve created. I haven’t spoiled anything about how the rest of the story goes to her, and I don’t intend to, but she’s very invested in hearing the rest of the story.
I have every intention of finishing the rest of that story. It will just take longer than I would have originally hoped. So bear with me.
And heck, maybe I’ll start writing in here again. Or maybe it’ll be another two years. Either way, if something big happens with the book, it will end up here. Of that you can be certain.
–J.
The Hammer of Thor 