It’s been almost two years since I published a book. During that hiatus in publishing I’ve written 6.5 books. They are all in various stages of readiness, some of them need some serious work. Some I thought were ready to publish, though, not under Cassandra Logan, but upon further thought I decided they just weren’t there yet.

I toyed with launching two different pen names. I love writing Sci-Fi romance, but I’d also love to write just Sci-Fi and Paranormal romance and Urban Fantasy and, oh yeah, Paranormal Cozy Mysteries. I am not wanting for ideas. In fact, my ideas folder and notebooks are positively bursting and if I could learn how to not need sleep I just might be golden.

When I started publishing, way back in 2012, I had zero kids. I now have two. Two young children are a lot of work. They’re also emotionally and mentally taxing. My time to write shrunk from whenever I wasn’t working my “real” job to stealing minutes whenever the kids were distracted.

That worked surprisingly well when I just had one, but with two it has been much more difficult. I found myself overwhelmed with depression and anxiety, often not able to do much outside of taking care of my kids, and that not as well as I would like. After breaking down, I finally took the advice I’m quick to give to people and I sought help.

It’s been about nine months of working on my mental health and I’m finally feeling able to do everything that I once did. However, I’ve learned some things along the way.

My husband is an amazing man and a great father, and I need to utilize his skills more often and not try to take on everything without help. Help is good. Help makes life manageable.

I need to make sure I’m taking time off for me. This is a difficult one, even if you don’t have kids. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in working, then taking care of your home, and taking care of your friends and family. All of that is fine and good, but I can’t let it push me to the point where I break because I haven’t been looking after myself.

This is all advice that’s already out there. Advice I’ve read from several people I respect, but apparently it was a lesson I had to learn the hard way.

Anyway…lol

Writing update! I should be finishing my rough draft for the first book in my new series, Course for Adventure, this week!!! Then I’ll take a couple passes in editing, then ship it off to an actual professional editor. While they’re working on it I will start the next book. My hope is to be ready to publish on August 5^th, 2019. We’ll see how long editing goes, though.

I’ve been watching the newest season of Lucifer on Netflix and holy shit it’s really good. I love the shorter episode count cause it means they’ve been flying through things and each episode has more of an impact.

I read the J.D. Robb book Leverage in Death and its mind boggling to me that almost fifty books into the series and I still love it. Roberts has got some serious skill and I am envious.

Last, but not least, I am still playing Civilization VI. I’m actually feeling pretty happy because I beat my first immortal game. Next stop deity! Probably not anytime soon though.