The Book of my Heart

I have been writing the book of my heart for almost eight years, and I'm about to start querying agents! This little book explores things like chronic illness, death/dying, grief, loss, and generational trauma. But it also explores childhood, friendship, and the deeply personal connection we all have to nature.

I first finished this book when I was 20 years old, and at 28 now, I've truly grown up with the story -- rewriting and revising as my skill and wisdom have deepened. Getting to this point, to allowing people to read it, has been an arduous journey. For a long time I never told the people in my life that I wrote books in my spare time. I couldn't handle letting anyone in, especially to this story. It was as if by reading it, they'd get too close to me, and I was afraid of what they might see. So I kept it hidden for a long time.

Then last year, in my hundredth session to find my voice, my therapist challenged me to explore my confidence. She asked, "what do you do that makes you feel most confident?" My immediate answer was writing. Writing opens me up, it gives me peace, it shows me who I am. By hiding my writing, I am hiding myself. So to live my life fully, to heal, to accept love, I have to let people see my art. And by sharing my art, maybe I can even help others on their quest to do the same. I'll never know if I don't try.

So if you're following along as I attempt to get published, thank you. Coming from the kid that always struggled to let people in, you mean the world to me.