My latest book is filled with weddings and photography and relationships and love.
But this is a hard one to write. I’m pulling from my heart, from a lot of the struggles I went through when my first engagement ended. I love this story. I love Maggie, but she is me in a lot of ways, and it’s not easy to spend so much time with her. Not that I don’t like myself, it’s just hard to put myself in her shoes and be back there again, hurting, brokenhearted, lonely, questioning everything, afraid of being hurt again.
I’ve been spending a few hours every night this week working through the first several chapters. And it hurts. Earlier today, when I thought about sitting down to write, I tried to come up with other things I could do instead. I could sort through our vacation photos and choose some for an album. I could edit the maternity photos I took the other day for my friend, Heidi. I could bake a loaf of banana bread. (Mmmmm. That sounds good right now.) I could fold and sort some laundry, maybe go through my clothes and see if there’s anything I want to get rid of. I could binge watch some random television show on Netflix. Anything and everything crossed my mind.
To really fill in Maggie’s story, though, I have to dig deep. But digging up all those old emotions has left my recently opened wounds a little raw. I even thought today that maybe I should just shelve this one, maybe it’s easier to just quit before I get too far into it, too consumed by the pain.
But maybe this is exactly the right time to write this book, when I’ve already been dealing with so much of my past this year and it’s all fresh in my mind. Maybe God will use it to help me heal. I don’t know that I’ll ever be fully healed, but that is part of my journey, just as it is a part of Maggie’s.
I found my happily ever after. Will Maggie find hers? Hmmm … guess you’ll have to wait and see. 😉