If you have somehow managed to evade my social media spamming, then it may come as news to you that my first novel releases next week on April 21st! This is a big deal for me, especially since I’ve been gradually crawling my way out of what I consider to be a quarter-life crisis. I’ve wanted to publish this book for a very long time. I don’t dare say how long or else my readers might think I’ll never release anything again. Don’t worry though! I am committed to releasing more books in a timely and predictable manner, but you may want to hear my story.

When I graduated college in 2017, I felt like I hit a metaphorical brick wall. I was so burnt out from dedicating all my time to school that I allowed myself a well-earned break. The problem was, this break turned from weeks, to months, to even years, and once you get settled into a lazy lifestyle it’s very difficult to get out of it. I had no motivation to pull myself up and do something with my life. I didn’t need the money because my husband worked, and my own negative self-perception told me that I wasn’t really cut out to be an author despite an underlying desire to do just that.

So what changed? If I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure. I just got to thinking more and more about where I would be five years from now, ten years from now, or twenty years from now. And then I looked back on the last five years and realized I’d done nothing. Was my life really going to be filled only with YouTube and video games? That seemed like it would only lead to regret, and honestly that lifestyle already had resulted in regret. Whether I liked it or not, I finally forced myself to get up and get to work. Long story short, I’ve now put in enough work to release my first book. So what’s next?

This summer I will be working on another standalone book. Without giving away too many details, the book will be about a teen boy who, after committing suicide, races to prevent his own death from occurring in the first place by confronting the personification of Death himself. The working title for this book is Misfits of Oblivion, and will highlight struggles that some spirits have in accepting their own deaths and moving on. It will be more ambitious than To Haunt or Be Lost, but I am very excited about it. I tentatively anticipate it will release around January 2023. The goal for all my future releases is quality over quantity, but I hope to release a book every eight to nine months (and my family and friends better hold me to it).

For this blog post I really felt I needed to call out my past self, verbalize my goals, and officially sever ties with the version of me that quit on life. This is my renewal. No more procrastination and no more excuses. It’s happening, and it’s happening now. I hope you all will join me on my journey, and I hope that if you’re experiencing your own quarter-life crisis or mid-life crisis that you’ll be able to find the motivation to make a needed change in your life as well.

In less than three weeks, my debut novel To Haunt or Be Lost will be releasing as an ebook and paperback, and in honor of the special occasion I thought I should answer the question: Do I believe in ghosts? In my debut novel, the main character, Lori, tends to lean heavily to the side of fact and reason. She needs proof—real evidence—not just speculation. If something can be explained logically, it’s not ghosts. This is juxtaposed against her cousin, Agatha, who believes in ghosts one hundred percent. She claims to see them, even talk to them, and she desperately tries to push Lori into believing in them, too. The problem is, Agatha has taken her beliefs to extreme and even dangerous levels, leaving Lori afraid to participate in Agatha’s witchcraft.

But where does that leave me? Well, there’s not really a straightforward answer. I would say I lean more towards logic and reason, much like Lori. Any time I’ve heard a strange noise there’s always a perfectly reasonable explanation. It could be the wind, or the house settling, and that door that creaked open was because the vents turned on and the air pressure changed. However, all this really means is that I haven’t experienced anything paranormal personally. I haven’t seen it, so I find it harder to believe, but there are plenty of sound-minded people out there who have been turned into believers as soon as they experienced something that their mind couldn’t explain. So, I think there’s a chance there’s ghosts, and they could be lurking around with me right now. I mean, why else would my cat stare at the ceiling like that? 

When I was a teen I was obsessed with ghost hunting TV shows. There were a lot of these shows, too. I don’t know if these sort of shows still exist, since I haven’t had live TV in years, but I do remember being completely captivated. What horrors would the hosts experience next? My obsession with these shows died out quickly though when I realized that shows like these often faked their paranormal encounters (no one wants to watch people explore a haunted abandoned hospital just to have nothing happen). And this isn’t even a new sort of hoax. Back in the day, many con artists used the technique of double exposing photographs to make it seem they caught a real ghost on camera. And don’t even get me started on Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster! If there are real photos and footage of ghosts out there, it gets buried among all the fakes.

Some people out there flip their position on this question. And I must admit that when I’m in a dark, spooky place that I become way more open minded. Why is that? I get this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and my adrenaline starts pumping, even if there’s no hint of danger. It must be my survival instincts kicking in, or at least that’s what logic would tell me. But survive…what, exactly? I could be in a dark empty room and still have this feeling to get out now. It’s unsettling. I get this eerie sense that I’m not alone. I have to remind myself that it’s all in my head. It’s psychological, it’s natural to have fear, even if I don’t know what I’m scared of in that moment.

I now pass the question off to you. Do you believe in ghosts? Maybe you have a healthy level of skepticism like I do. Maybe you once were a skeptic, but changed your beliefs after a ghost encounter. Or maybe you always believed, because you’re very in tune with your spirituality. No matter the case, I want to hear your stories and your experiences. Make a believer of me…or not. I’m ready to hear your stories.