First of all, the main reason I’d decided to finally write the novel I’d always wanted to write (at the age of 32), was because I couldn’t seem to get pregnant. So I wrote that book, and then got an agent. And then I wrote another book. Started getting recognition from big name (unpublished) writing contests. Then started book three. It might seem like three years for all that to happen would feel like a blessing, but all I could think about was getting traditionally published. No more babies on the brain. They have been replaced by my two manuscripts and all of the ones in my heart I needed to write.
And then I got pregnant. And six months later, I got my three book contract. So I had two books release in 2014, and had a baby. Had another book release in 2015, and got pregnant again. Wrote another book while pregnant, had a baby and that book release in 2016. We also moved into a fixer-upper farmhouse which my husband basically had to devote all of his spare time to. And my laptop died the same day my last book released.
By the middle of 2016, I was beginning to have a revelation.
Novel writing, being a stay-at-home-mom for multiple babies, having ADD, a fixer upper house and dead laptop was a pretty awful mix.
Most of these things were blessings, of course, but I felt like God was making it impossible for me to write.
It literally was becoming impossible. And it sucked.
But I kept fighting it. Getting mad, because it wasn’t fair. I was an author now. I needed to write books!
My publisher wanted another book by the end of 2016. But I couldn’t.
And everyone kept saying the same things—just love your baby boys, they’ll only be this little for a short time.
So, finally, I did. It only took a few months of fighting with God about it, but I did let it go. I had to. It was either that or continue to drive myself crazy wishing I had time to even think about another story to write.
I basically gave up writing for a year. Right in the middle of books releasing and my publisher and readers wanting more. But you know what? A year later, I don’t regret it.
I was sane again. I brainstormed up ideas in my very limited spare time, but I didn’t write. And now, with a 4 1/2 year old and 2 year old, it’s easier, though I had to learn a completely new way of writing in little spurts (which I am still far from mastering!).
Now that my break is over, I have another release coming out in October! Enchanting Nicholette is a short story to finish my Everstone Chronicles series. It’s been 2 years since the release of my last book, but now that I’m right in the middle of getting back into things, my break doesn’t seem to have been as bad as I’d thought it would be. I’ve found that my readers have been waiting patiently and are getting excited about reading something new from me. I’m so glad I took a break, because really—my kids are more important than my popularity and effiency as an author. And readers and author friends told me left and right during the last two years how they admired my decision. It was hard. It was so hard! But it was worth everything from the last year being so much better than if I hadn’t.
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Here’s more about Enchanting Nicholette!
Young, widowed, and newly out of mourning, Nicholette Everstone is an heiress yearning to know true love. She’d been fortunate her parents had arranged for her to marry her loving late husband, but the marriage ended tragically on her wedding day. Bereft and alone, she returns home to Boston after being away for two years, to find there’s someone new to her set of friends and family she can’t help but fall for. But when she learns of the danger and sacrifices this man takes on for the safety of others, will her heart be strong enough to keep her fears of “what if” at bay?
Enchanting Nicholette will be available October 9, 2018 wherever books are sold.
Dawn Crandall’s debut Gilded Age Victorian romance, The Hesitant Heiress, was a 2015 ACFW Carol award finalist in the debut category and received the 2015 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, the 2015 Write Touch Reader's Choice Award and the 2015 Romancing the Novel Reader's Choice Award. Her follow-up novel, The Bound Heart, received the 2016 Laurel Award from Clash of the Titles.
Dawn earned a BA in Christian Education from Taylor University. She’s been balancing books and babies lately as her two sons were both born as the first four books of her popular Everstone Chronicles series were being released from Whitaker House between 2014 and 2016. Dawn lives with her husband and two young sons on a hobby farm in her hometown in northeast Indiana. More at www.dawncrandall.blogspot.com.
