In which I tell you I'm a freakin' nutcase

I know I've done this before and then I went back to not blogging. And who's to say this is any different? It might not be. It feels different, though.

Crap, this is hard.

There's so much I want to say, but ironically, I don't know how.

Well, I guess I'll start with the truth. I've mentioned this before, but never in any detail. I get depression. Very frequently. Actually, this past year it's been pretty constant. I pushed for something for so long, blogging every day (or at least more frequently than this), making contacts, building a presence, and then I crashed.

I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to and no one could make me. I didn't see the point. Because that's kinda what depression does to you. It makes you feel like you're a worthless piece of crap, that you've done everything wrong, and why the hell are you going to bore people with your little "anecdotes?"

I tried to force myself back into it, but it made me sick. Physically and spiritually.

So then I went to the bare minimum, and I did that for a while. But eventually, I couldn't even make myself do that anymore. Because it's hard to pretend when you have to write something in 500 words. When you have to make something interesting.

It's easier to pretend on facebook where all you have to do is like something or post pictures or come up with a witty phrase you might have heard on a movie.

So what made me spiral into this cold, dark place? A lot of things. But basically, I started feeling like everything I'd ever done was wrong. I'd worked so hard for the wrong thing. And it sucked. I was drained.

Elemental came out last year and I was ecstatic. One of the greatest high points of my life. It was a dream come true. I even helped design the cover. It was all completed with my say-so. And I loved it. It was beautiful.

And it was beautiful. But it was a lie. Because the cover is like me. A pretty pink and sparkly exterior, hiding what's going on in the inside. And it got shitty reviews. Because people were expecting paranormal romance and what they got was the inside of me--the dark stuff. And I felt rejected. Like people couldn't like me for me. And I know that's not it at all, but that's what happened. Believe me, I've tried to convince myself that some people just didn't like it because they were expecting something else, but it doesn't work. I kept wondering why they couldn't just like it anyway. I didn't understand at the time that the cover was a lie. But when I did, I started feeling like I was a lie.

I was putting off this image and I started wondering if you guys would like the me on the inside. I didn't know how I could pretend anymore.

So I ran away. I didn't want to pretend, but I didn't want to be rejected either.

Something happened last summer (an epiphany of sorts) and it's taken me this long to start really doing it. I realized I did absolutely make some wrong decisions. Not bad ones. Just wrong ones, for me. They were the absolutely right decisions for someone else. But not me.

I realized that I needed to stop hiding myself. And I realized that I needed to go at it my way. That's why I decided to start self-publishing. But it hasn't worked yet because I'm still hiding. The book I put out last December was 100% me, but my presence online was still the superficial outer layer.

If I was going to do this, I needed to do it all the way. A few months ago, I contacted my editor at Spencer Hill Press. We did a lot of talking and I requested to be released from them. Not because I didn't love working with them (quite the opposite actually), but because I needed to go all in with my plan. I needed to build my new platform and it needed to be all me. She was wonderful and graciously agreed to everything. We worked the details out and soon I'll have all my rights back. Seriously, everyone there has been amazing. She told me I was still part of the family (and I nearly cried because that meant so much to me) and recently made a different offer for a completely different position in the company.

I'll be re-releasing Elemental this Fall with a new cover and some extra content. I'm excited and scared. I feel like I'm getting over the hump of my depression. I'm starting to see some sunshine at the end of this dark tunnel.

And I hope you'll stick with me through it all.