I have to admit, if I believed in curses, I would think something, or someone put the whammy on me. Let me explain. The beginning of 2025 was very exciting for me. I had two books I wanted to write plus a short story I was going to write in between. I had a plan. I had an outline for book one, a beginning of an outline for book two and a great idea for the short story I was going to flesh out while editing book one. After I got a few chapters in something hit me. A dark depressing something.
January
I’ve written and published four books up to this point and the people who have read them have had nothing but good things to say about them. The problem is that most of them have been friends and family with a handful of actual strangers who have found my work, and they liked it too. To say my books aren’t selling like I’d like them to is an understatement. I understand marketing and promoting your work is tough, but this is soul crushing. While I was writing book five, a tiny voice in my head asked why I am even bothering. Why should I put myself through the pain of sitting in front of a computer screen and typing out a novel if it’s only going to be seen by 10’s of people? I let that voice worm its way in and I stopped writing.
February
Even though I had let the voice in I still continued to sit in front of my computer but now I was just staring at it. And with the fact that it’s winter and cold season I got the flu, and it knocked me down for about ten days. Normally I wouldn’t care. Colds and flus are commonplace, and I’ve dealt with them and moved on. But this year I got something extra. The nerve in my left eye decided to stop working and it caused me to have double vision. Nothing I did helped and after going to the doctor they said it would fix itself, in about 1 to 3 months. The only course of action I could take to help was to wear an eye patch. While you can still legally drive like this, I didn’t feel comfortable and hung up my keys, for now.
March
They say bad things come in three and I hope they’re right. I don’t know if I could keep going if every month this year held a dark surprise for me. This month’s contribution was a call from my sister letting me know our dad had passed away. We knew his health was fading, but he went from optimistic to slipped away rather quickly. My family packed up and we went to my sister’s so she and I could get his affairs in order. We stayed for a week and came home. The empty feeling I had back in January was growing bigger and I couldn’t see a way to stop it. Everything I thought I wanted to do now seemed meaningless. But I think things are coming around. Kinda.
Still March
Since I got home from my not so fun vacation, I’ve had a few new ideas pop up and I even worked on getting two of them done. The problem is that voice is still at it. It’s still telling me that my ideas are worthless, and no one will want to see or read them. I want so desperately to put them out into the world, but I know, or so the voice tells me, these will be received as well as my other stuff. They won’t be. So, I’m going to try something bold. I’m going to ignore the voice and push forward. Honestly, I don’t know if what I created will be well received or people will give it a glancing look and walk past forgetting they even saw it. I’m hoping for the former, but the voice is telling me to expect the latter. We’ll see who comes out on top.
Enough of my problems. I’m hoping you’re having a great year and you’re creating things that people can’t get enough of.
stephenhudler.com 
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