FEARLESS FRIDAY
My senior year of high school we were all required to choose a quote to go beside our picture in the yearbook. It seemed a momentous decision. At that stage in my life, I was dancing at the edge of my small town’s accepted society and staring into the mists of the future with no clue what would happen next. Heck, I wasn’t even sure I was going to graduate.
And it was more than lacking a plan for after I left those hated halls. In a fit of teenaged angst, I’d moved from home at sixteen and fallen into an alternate lifestyle. To look back on it now with a writer’s eye, I cringe at how well it fit the “good girl falls for the bad boy and has a self-awakening” trope. Spoiler, that chapter of my life didn’t have a happy ending and went on for way too long.
But be that as it may, an inkling of my awareness-to-come echoed in the Janis Joplin quote I ultimately chose:
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
To this day, I still get an unsettled feeling when Bobby McGee pops up on Spotify. A resonance in my soul. Ethereal fingers strumming the golden tethers of what matters in my life. My family, husband, and children. A roof over my head. Not having to rob Peter to pay Paul every time a bill comes due.
I have things to lose.
Yet, those same things I eschewed until my twenty-somethings now define and strengthen me.
They also terrify me.
The fear of “what now” has been replaced with anxiety over “what if.” And you know, I have to laugh sometimes. My kids think I’m the most boring person ever. That I never take a risk, always am thinking about the consequences, avoiding danger. “Who cares if you don’t know what the parking situation is?” and “Do you really have to wait for me outside the bathroom?”
I care, and yes, I do.
When you love something, I think it’s ingrained in our DNA to hold on, to protect. You want to keep it safe, to succumb to this primal urge to lock out all the potential ugly. The issue then becomes your daughter leaving the house in a fit a teenaged angst when she’s sixteen.
And yes, I’ve apologized for that. My parents handled the situation with more grace than I would have been able to. Them letting go when I didn’t want to be held allowed me the freedom to discover what truly matters when you have nothing left to lose.
Letting go. There’s freedom in that, too, but it’s terrifying to give into the winds of fate, allowing them to buffet you. Especially when it’s something you care deeply about…but that axiom about it coming back if it’s meant to be?
I’m a believer.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be an author. So, several years ago, I made an intentional choice to pursue my dream seriously. I took the classes, followed the rules. Checked all the boxes— And got nowhere.
My frustration was palatable. I didn’t want to mess it up by not following the formula…but when had my life not been messy? It might sound odd, but the realization that I’d found myself in a cage of my own making, once again, with nothing left to lose, was liberating.
And pulling myself up by my bootstraps is kind of my thing.
This time, instead of packing my bags, I opened a blank document. The words that had been self-censored after months of academia flowed. I laughed, teared up, and was satisfied when I typed “The End.”
I didn’t think that manuscript would amount to anything aside from cathartic release, but I let it go, out into the world where all the ugly was waiting for it. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
And ultimately, it returned to me with a publishing contract.
To say I was taken aback would be an understatement. That those fearless words I’d put on the page, the ones that sounded just like me, were wanted. Again, I’m laughing. Flame & Shadow, my urban fantasy born of my angst, of my truth, allowed me to achieve my dream.
Nothing left to lose had once again given me my freedom, and opened the door to all the “what ifs.” And as I begin the next chapter in my life, I put pen to page with a new certainty. Freedom is more than nothing less to lose. Freedom is to be fearless in your uncertainty. To believe, and to own your truth.
***
Hit with a steep learning curve, Envy discovers everyone
has an ulterior motive, including the prehistoric Fae that’s been secreted away
in her chest as part of an elaborate game. Her only guide is Brennan, the
Dae-licious tutor her father, Silas, has hired to make her into a Fae lady, but
Brennan’s contract isn’t just with him, and he’d do anything to break it.
When he’s suspected of reneging, Envy is forced to eat
some serious crow to save his life, but she’s not particularly wired for
self-sacrifice, and there’s no way she’s doing it quietly, Bambi-onesie be
damned—
Yeah, that happened. Stupid Fae games…
Whatever. Midsummer’s Eve is rapidly approaching, and
that prehistoric pace-maker holds the cards to stopping a plot to screw over
normals and Fae alike. She’ll talk, as soon as Envy agrees to let the Fae wear
her like a suit.
That’s not happening, but when the moon begins to rise,
Envy finds herself a game piece again, and out of options. Pushed to her limit
by a squid, schnitzel, and a golden ball, she’s determined to figure out how to
win on her terms, no matter how the deck is stacked against her.
Flame & Shadow releases November 13th, 2023 BUT YOU CAN PREORDER NOW.
You can read the prequel, One Night in Bliss, free: One Night in Bliss
***
You can find her on her website
or follow her on her sadly neglected Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds.
What a wonderful story, AK. I really enjoyed getting to know you even just a little bit .Thank you for sharing and showing such determination. You've worked so hard for your success. Wishing you loads of it!! Perhaps now you can frame those bootstraps and hang them in a place of honor :)
ReplyDeleteBarbara, so nice of you to come by and comment. I hope AK checks in to read.
Delete