(Written in 2015. Part 1 of 4.)

You know how sometimes things stick with you? Whether you want them to or not?

We go the long way around town to avoid where we once had an accident.

We refuse to go to that restaurant where we once got sick on the way home?

I came up on a feeling like that this past weekend. Only it was something completely out of my control.

Would it happen again? Same weekend a year a part? Hardly. But still… it nudged at me.

The thought flashed through my mind once… maybe twice while traveling.

See, this time last year I was in a heap of something I-don’t-know-what.

I was writing “How To Catch A Prince” but the story wasn’t landing with me.

I couldn’t find the plot. So I started over. Bad idea.

I wrote nearly 200 pages and the Hero and Heroine had not met!

In love stories, that’s a big no-no! They have to meet in the first two chapters if not sooner.

So I took a few days to hunker down in one of the Teen Missions cabins. I wrote for three and a half days without interruptions. Well, not many.

TM doesn’t have internet in their cabins so I was safe from that distraction!

My deadline was tight but when I drove home that Friday morning, I felt good about the story.

This was my first book with my new editor and while I wanted to do my best, I felt my history with the publishing group would lend me a hand or two if this book took a few extra days.

That night at church, we had a guest worship leader in from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Alisha Powell.

I was looking forward to worshipping and visiting with Alisha. Looking forward to forgetting about the book for the weekend.

Worship was wonderful. But at the end, I was really tired. But it’d been a long week.

On the drive home we talked of pizza for dinner. The tiredness sunk deeper. I felt through-the-wall-tired. And… weird.

My skin was hot, prickly and crawling. Was I getting sick?

A slice of pizza and a good night’s sleep and I’d be good as new. I woke up at 2:30 am. Went to the bathroom.

That’s when I heard, “You don’t have enough time.”

Subtle. Slick. Like a snake. It grabbed me. Panic. I’ve had plenty of anxious moments writing books and usually they come in the middle of the night.

Ain’t that the way?

But I breathe deep, pray, get my bearings and remember I have the story in command. Not this night. I was locked. I couldn’t get out of the panic. I felt like my breathing was slowing down.

Then I passed out in the bathroom.

Husband came a running as I fell over the bath tub. Angels were watching me because there were several places where I could’ve smacked my head hard.

“Tell me what’s going on?”

I didn’t know. “I feel like I’m dying.”

He made me lay down on the carpet and immediately started praying over me.

Within seconds, the panic feeling lifted and I felt more like myself. But the “skimming skin” sensation remained. And the prickles around my head.

I concluded I was just having a bad night. Nothing like that had ever happened to me.

I went back to bed and slept, but the weekend was waves of the same sensation.

By the beginning of the week, I felt better, more like myself. I had a good writing time, which I needed since I had lots of words to cover to meet my deadline.

But then the shakes started happening at night. I’d start to shiver and quiver. This led to a new level of stress. The old “what if’s” came around.

“What if I don’t get done on time?”

“What if panic hits again?”

“What if I can’t do it?”

My publisher had invited to my first ever sales meeting in March and I did not want to miss it! But at this rate, I wasn’t sure I could get on a plane.

I’ve flown in the face of adversity several times, but physically and emotionally, I was not me. I was out-of-it. No joy. No peace.

I wanted to quit. But when I imagined calling my publisher to tell her, I had no peace. Then I knew. I simply had to walk through whatever this was…

When I’d sit at my desk to write, I could feel something coursing through my body. My courage and hope drained. My appetite shrunk. Nothing tasted good. I remember gagging down a piece of grilled chicken.

I went melancholy. I thought nothing in life would ever be right again, never mind the novel I was trying to write.

My goal had to be 5000 words a day. No, not goal, my NEED was 5000 words a day.

So feeling like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of some crazy-life shoe, I sat and wrote, and tried not to cry.

I had no idea if any of the story was publishable. But I pushed through.

Today my editor read me two reviews from Goodreads…

“This book DESTROYED my heart…This book was every bit amazing.”

And…

“Excellent book, fans of Christian fiction will love this one. This book wasn’t as light and fluffy as the other two in the series, but that was a good thing. Regret and forgiveness aren’t easy topics. I loved both Stephen and Corina even though Stephen was a jerk at times. The author did a great job of showing why he was that way, so he was more of a wounded hero than someone who didn’t deserve Corina.”

Sigh…

How beautiful is God?

I came up from a very dry wilderness leaning on my Beloved to write this book.

And it makes me smile that readers are connecting.

Stay tuned for the rest of the journey…

 

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