April 1st

This day is significant for two reasons.

Reason one: My grandmother Jane Diamond would celebrate her birthday today if she were still around. She passed away in 2008. She was and is my hero.

Reason two: On this day in 2021 I stood in what used to be my backyard in Oregon City, OR, staring up at the trees and realizing it was April Fool's Day, and thinking to myself "my life has been one big joke!". The day before I had finally said the words "I want a divorce" after having spent months trying to convince myself it wasn't true, and being brave enough to face it because it was true.

And today, 5 years later, I've published a book! The last time I did this was in 2020, quietly and to no one but myself, because the Covid-19 pandemic had done to me what it had done to so many others across the globe, and stolen our dreams.

So today is significant, because I've spent the morning putting in all the key information for the book I've just spent the last few months writing, so that it will be ready to be read by others.

And it's about divorce.

Although I've written memoirs in the past, this one is my first small fictional novella, but based on a time in my life, that long lost summer of 2021, when I'd had the idea to take my two kids to the coast to stay at an AirBnB for an entire month. My reality was that I had needed space, and time to think. My life was actually getting pretty scary, and I wasn't coping with it well at all.

In my real life the act of booking the trip was enough for me to see that I was unhappy, and simply needed to pull the plug. One of the most terrifying things I've ever done in my life. Truly.

So, a few months ago, as I sat with all these new tools at my disposal, tools that were not readily available when I had first published my books back in 2019, and 2020, I wanted to see how quickly I could write a book and get it published.

I've been sitting on ideas for years, and getting frustrated with myself that I haven't managed to actually produce anything.

I've felt flighty.

Like I can't stick with anything.

I needed a quick project, like the first children's book I had created during the pandemic, simply to see if I could do it! I needed something small like that again.

I have pretty much been asking myself "am I in this, or not?".

I'm in.

It has all finally come together beautifully.

2026 has truly been my year.

This website, and publishing business that I'm starting with my oldest child, Mountaintop Books, and the books I'm working on to leave as my legacy, and helping inspire my family that writing books is actually very attainable!

They have watched me, especially my spouse, write, edit, format, and bang my head against the wall (because some tools are dumb) as I've brought this small book to life.

They each have stories, poems, and words they want to introduce to the world, and I'm so happy to have a space for each of them to do that.

And a method now, to show them how easy it is to do.

Writing a book does not have to take years.

And this little book, although fictional, with characters only based on people in my real life, is deeply personal. It's my "what if". What if I had done it? What if my divorce hadn't been chaotic? What if there was a different way, a cleaner way, to separate?

What if?

It will be available soon on Amazon to start. Amazon is easy. It will be in Print, E-book, and eventually Audio.

Audio is going to be so fun for me! I absolutely want to put my voice to all of my words, past, present, and future. A piece of me that lasts longer than I will.

Here is the cover of my newest book, titled: The Month She Borrowed Her Freedom

More to come as it becomes available.