First off, I need to say that I am excited about Beside Still Waters and can’t wait for everyone to have a chance to read it. I love this series, I love these characters, I’m thrilled that you do, too. I’m sorry that it’s taking so long, but life has been rough and I’ve been picking up the pieces as fast as I can.

Several people have contacted me to ask if I’m okay. Frankly, I’m far from okay but at least I know I’m on the road to getting there now. I don’t think it’s appropriate to overburden people with my problems and so I’ve tried very hard not to. However, some fans have contacted me saying some very hurtful things about how I have “no respect for my fans” because I have not updated my website. At the same time, when I’ve tried to pop onto social media, such as Facebook, just to connect for a moment, others have gotten irate with me that I was trying to reach out to friends and fans instead of working. Thankfully, many people have been very supportive and I thank God for their prayers and their genuine concern for me and love for my books. Here’s my attempt to answer the question, “What’s happened to you?”

For January and the first part of February I spent 5 weeks flat on my back unable to work AT ALL and during that time period I had surgery. For those of you who know how many books I put out in one year you will be horrified when you realize I lost more than a month out of my working year. This put me a month behind in EVERYTHING.

Now, I have 4 different publishers, all of whom are incredibly kind, but who have rigid timelines of their own. I had to scramble to make up for lost time and meet my obligations to them because if I don’t, it throws the work schedules for dozens of people off. I have to fulfill my professional obligations first. In order to do that for the remainder of February through the middle of May I worked 18 hours a day for 7 days a week. I even worked on Easter. Not one day off for 3 months. Oh, and when I wasn’t writing I was cooking and cleaning the house and getting what little sleep I could.

I had just about caught up when my husband broke his arm while we were on a business trip and he ended up having surgery on it nearly a week later. I spent the equivalent of another business week in the emergency room and hospital with him during this time. I did let people know that had happened. What most people don’t know is that my husband has cerebral palsy. He is severely right-handed and he broke his right arm. He couldn’t walk by himself because he couldn’t use the arm to brace himself against walls or furniture and the pain medication they had him on kept him drowsy and sometimes dizzy. He then had a second emergency room trip and hospital stay due to a bad reaction to the medication. For 4 weeks I did not get more than 2 hours of sleep a night, if that. I was working and taking care of him. He had to train himself to use his left arm just to do things like eat on his own and that was no easy task for either of us. I was so exhausted that tears would just roll down my face even though I wasn’t crying. I was writing every moment that I wasn’t helping him. So, 3 months of working 18 hours a day immediately followed by 1 month of working/helping him for 22 hours a day. And then I finally collapsed as my body gave out from exhaustion and stress.

Imagine all that. And I’m not even talking about half of the other things that have happened in those last 4 months to cause amounts of stress so high that I’m getting migraines and chest pains for the first time in my life.

To everyone who has sent prayers, good thoughts, and kind wishes, THANK YOU. Please keep them coming. To everyone who has sent angry letters and hate mail, I’m sorry, at the end of the day making sure my husband has eaten and that he was able to shower were more important to me than updating this website. And, yeah, I kind of figured people would rather I work on the books before spending time here, too. After all, they told me so on Facebook.

Again, I love Beside Still Waters, and I am going to publish it. When I do, I will let everyone know.