Today is the last day of March and I'm sitting here wondering where the month went.

How does one lose an entire month anyway?? I feel like at one point I was in February. I even made it to the last day. There I was... standing on February 28th. Then I took a step forward. Only instead of landing in March, I accidentally tripped straight into a time warp and suddenly it's April and I can't figure out how I got here!

Does that ever happen to anyone else???

No? It's just me then?

Bummer.

:)

But for real. March was packed to the brim with craziness for me. I crashed my husband's snowboarding trip to Colorado to get some writing done and whilst there I broke out of an epic case of writer's block. I had a literal mountaintop experience. My great aunt passed away. She was one of the most beautiful, genuine people I have ever known. She was 102, which is an incredible amount of years to live. But what is even more amazing is that she lived each of those 102 years with constant grace and poise. She is in a much better place now, but she is missed. I threw a baby shower for my sister in law. I celebrated Easter with my side of the family. I got my taxes done. (Which is such an immense project I can't even think about it without hyperventilating.) And I somehow got so behind on life, I'm not sure I'll ever catch up.

I'm a little bit exhausted. And a lot bit relieved to be headed into April.

So what's new since I haven't blogged in... FOREVER?

The Heart is late. If you've missed all of my other announcements... Yep. It's late. I'm working so hard on it! I just haven't fished it yet. I love it so much and I cannot wait to get it to you... but it's going to take me a bit to finish it and get it ready for release. I haven't added a release date yet because basically I don't want to have to change it again. But it's my top priority. It will be done soon!

Love and Decay, Season Three only has four more episodes left!!!!!! Can you believe it?? I cannot. At all. This season has gone by so fast.

If you missed my announcement before, I just wanted to remind you that Love and Decay IS continuing beyond Season Three!!! I am planning for at least two more seasons!!!! Although, Reagan will no longer be the narrator. I'll be giving you more details on what you can expect in the future for L&D once the season ends!!!

The last thing that I wanted to talk about today was Reckless Magic!!!!

Reckless Magic turned four this month!!!!

March, 11th marks my first book birthday ever!!!!!!

I happened to celebrate it by driving from Colorado to Nebraska this year and completely forgot about.. And since then I've been meaning to blog about it every day.

But, ahem, here we are. The last day of the month.

Still, I thought it was at least worth a mention!!!

I cannot believe I've been on this adventure for four years! Part of me feels like I'm still that brand new amateur that has no idea what she's doing. Actually, most of me feels that way. The other part is convinced I've been publishing since the beginning of time.

:)

When I think back over all of my ups and downs, my highs and lows, the incredible learning curve that never seems to plateau, the life-long friends I've made and the impact this writing thing has made on my life, I am overwhelmed.

But in the best way possible.

This job is crazy. It has the absolute highest highs. There is nothing like finishing a book. A whole book. That I wrote on my own! And then when I finally find the courage to publish it and people like it....? Some people even love those books... I mean... I am convinced that is one of the very best things in the entire world. In the entire universe.

It also has some of the lowest lows. I honestly didn't know I could feel this insecure. Or this amount of panic. The emotional battle I fight to create and to keep creating can be, at times, exhausting. It can be debilitating.

I didn't know I could love something this much that wasn't my husband or my kids or a person. And with that fierce emotion comes the greatest fear. Not that I won't make money or that I won't be able to go places with my career. Those things are secondary to the fear of pouring myself into something in an authentic, genuine way that exposes who I am and how I think.

Reckless Magic has been live for four years, but my publishing journey started four years before that. And over these years, I've been on this constant journey of self-discovery. Writing stretches me in ways that I don't always want to be stretched or in ways I don't think I'll be able to stand. It betters me as a person. It makes me feel healthy. As in mentally. My ass would so disagree that writing has any benefits for my body. :)

It has become a pillar of who I am and who I want to be.

Rachel Higginson, who are you? I am a child of God. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am an author.

And that is nearly all there is to me. Not that those facets are simple. They stretch wide and reach deep. They encompass infinity. At least my infinity. I am the sum and they are my parts.

If you would have told me four years ago, when, with trembling hands and tearful eyes, I pressed publish on that first book that this is where I would be today... I would not have believed you.

I truly wouldn't have.

My goal in self-publishing was to have my books cover one of our expenses. I was a stay at home mom of three small children at the time and I thought, if I could just cover one bill, if I could just make our lives easier with just this one small thing, that would be enough for me.

And yet? Here we are.

I am blessed beyond words. I am blessed beyond thoughts and emotions and whatever other ways there are to think and feel. I am daily blown away that my books, these pieces of me, these portions of my soul and pictures of my imagination, have readers and people that love them. People that want more of them.

People that care about them as much as I do.

Thank you for giving me that. Thank you for turning my dream into a reality. Thank you for falling in love with my characters and thinking of them as people worth loving.    

When people ask me if this is my dream job, I tell them it's the dream job of my dream job. It's so far beyond my dream job that I don't even know how to explain it. Is this my dream job? Absolutely. But dreams are inadequate to describe how much this means to me or how badly I wanted it. How badly I still want it.

It's not easy. Not by any means.

In fact, it's the hardest thing I've ever done.

But the best things in life take the most work and I have come to love and respect that.

I actually keep expecting it to get easier. At the same time, I'm learning that is a foolish expectation and I should just give up on it. :) And that's okay. I would get bored if this wasn't a challenge. Or if it didn't keep pushing me, forcing me to grow and mature.

Something has to!

This year was the hardest yet, so I'm a little nervous to go into my fifth year!

I faced hard lessons this year. I learned that I cannot just write whatever I want whenever I want. Sometimes my life gets in the way and puts me behind schedule. Sometimes it's my brain that gets in the way.

I learned that I might always always always be late with deadlines. It's the thing that bothers me the most, I think. I always want to get to that one point where I can get ahead, where I won't be behind on every single thing in my writing world and in my life world. I set goals for myself that I fail. I block out time that comes and goes and I didn't nearly reach the impossible deadline that I set for myself. I get writer's block so thick and jarring that I think I'll never write again. (That happened to me this year after I finished 5 Stages.) Sometimes, not nearly enough, but sometimes I realize that having a job that allows me to stay home with my kids means that I probably shouldn't ignore those same kids I work so hard to stay home for. I remembered that I would rather make beautiful words instead of rushed sentences, complex plots instead of easy ones, impacting stories instead of forgettable ones.

I am my biggest enemy when it comes to my career. I think that was the hardest lesson of all. I get in my own way. I am the only one holding back when it's time to push publish and my fears are so blinding that I can't make myself click the silly button. I can self-destruct as easy as I can celebrate. I can flail and fall as quickly as I can rise and soar.

But that's okay.

Like I said, if this job was easy, I would have moved on to the next thing already. The challenge is part of the drive. The competition I feel with myself is part of the joy.

And this year I accomplished more and have more to be proud of than ever.

I published four full-length books this year. Which is about my max. I published Season Two and most of Season Three of Love and Decay. I co-authored a book. I wrote The Five Stages of Falling in Love, which is by far the hardest, most emotional book I've ever taken on. I overcame some serious writer's block. And I've kept up with Love and Decay this season!! Not one episode has been late.

Later in the day maybe... but not after the day.

But the most important thing to me is that I can stand beside all of the books that I've published and be proud of them. Each book turned out like I wanted it to. Each book became something beyond my vision and imagination. It became real.

They became something lasting.

This year I have learned more about myself than I wanted to know. :) I've felt my wings flex and stretch. I've let go of my some of my attachment to adverbs and the passive voice. I've tried not to bore you with descriptions and have every male character smirk from beginning to end. I've written "I love you" at least fifty different ways and at least a hundred different make-out scenes. I've created characters you love and characters you hate and even some that you both love and hate! I've fine-tuned some genres and entered into all new ones. I've used words I've never used before and I even wrote my very first sex scene. (Let's just never talk about it in real life. Ever.)

I've grown. I've learned. And I've had so much fun.

I say I'm scared of Year Five. But I'm also excited. I cannot wait to see what this year brings and where it will take me.

Thank you for sticking with me over the years and through the years to come!!! I would not be here without you and your support.

I would be someone else completely.

Last year, I wrote my out my journey into publishing and the long road it took me to get to Reckless Magic. If you're interested in that, you can check it out HERE!!!