2023, 2024: Recapping & Rolling Forward

Happy New Year! I mean, March! Yikes – where did that come from? Hope this finds you doing well!

It’s been awhile since I posted on the blog, so this will be a longer one. 🙂

Recapping 2023

I feel like I’ve gone through phases of that over the years – posting a lot of about the kids, the cats, the moves, the travels, the writing, etc., and then I kind of tuck in and get quiet.

Last year was mostly a “tuck in” for me – I posted some, but not a lot. Towards the end of the year, and the beginning of 2024, I’ve done a lot of realigning, working through outlines, stories, and schedules with my writing bestie, as we tend to do each year. Hugely helpful, as always, and I’ve been working toward focused goals and feeling good for 2024.

Before I dive into the goals, I wanted to catch you up on things. We spent the first half of the year in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where we were living while my husband attended a year of school.

Our Family’s Happy Place

It was an amazing year for our family. It’s Germany. And it’s Garmisch. It’s our family’s happy place. Garmisch was a great opportunity following our time in Kentucky, where hubs had a pretty tough job and deployment. We relished the schedule there. Even though it was still full, there was an ease to it we hadn’t had in awhile, and we cherished the time together it afforded us.

We definitely took advantage of the outdoors. We hiked, learned to ski, hiked some more, explored, and immersed ourselves back into the German culture. We also just kicked back, listened to our kids laugh, and enjoyed looking at the stunning scenery. I’ll never get tired of that. 🙂

We knew going into the year that there would be a follow on assignment for hubs’ school the following summer. I had done a LOT of prep for our Summer 2022 international move, hoping that it would make the move in Summer 2023 easier. This was move I think number 12 since we’ve been married, so I’ve got my system worked out pretty well. Thankfully, all that work on the front end made the pack-out and move prep much easier, although there was still the stress of back to back international moves and all the unknowns heading our way.

We found out pretty early in 2023 where we would be moving in the summer – Vicenza, Italy. Never in my life had I thought I’d be moving to Italy – I’m sure I could say that about a lot of places, but this one just wasn’t ever even on our radar.

New country, new language, new culture. New opportunities, new excitement, new questions. New towns, new traditions, new MOUNTAINS ❤ New everything, really, including new laws. Like the one that I read about on a military spouse page that basically said spouses couldn’t work in Italy.

Military Spouse Life or at Least a Bit of It

One of the things you probably don’t hear about much unless you’re actually within (or know someone within) the military community is about how it affects spousal employment. It can be difficult, to say the least. One thing that I’ve learned with hubs being in the military now for what . . . 27 years now . . . is that people’s journeys aren’t the same. I’ve had friends who lived in one place for multiple years at a time and hardly ever moved during their spouse’s career. I’ve had friends who moved like clockwork every three years. Others more often than that. Some people have never lived off base. Or on base. Some people never move overseas, while others seem to consistently be stationed there. You just never know, even from one year to the next. I always find it interesting when you meet new people to hear where they’ve come from, where they’ve lived, and what their experiences have been.

One shared experience for many though has been the difficulty with finding employment or maintaining a career as a military spouse. You have certification in one state for instance, and your spouse just got orders to move to another. Can you transfer? Does your certification transfer? Your professional license? Do you have to pay for another? Or do you have to start all over? Should you look into something entirely new? Is there anything even available? And now that you’ve just gotten used to things at the duty station where you live now – hold on, friend – it’s time to move and start all over again.

I’ve hardly ever looked into these questions for myself. I’ve been raising five kids, volunteering, and writing; I wasn’t a doctor, nurse, teacher, therapist, social worker, realtor, other professional, or anything like that, but I listened to friends talk about their hardships and trials over the years. There have definitely been some changes, and help and guidance and opportunities for military spouses has increased, but it still is an issue you’ll read about on spouse pages or hear about over a cup of coffee with friends.

Not gonna lie – after speaking with legal, I was left seriously deflated and disheartened. It was a kick in the gut and left me having a difficult time in the chair. I’d sit, but I was blocked. My characters were there, as they always are, but they were quiet. My stories stalled.

Plan A. Or Better Yet, Plan B.

I turned inward here. There are always a LOT of emotions around each move and this definitely added to them. Sometimes you just have to work through the emotions, right? But then I rallied. After a lifetime as a military brat and spouse, I said, “alright, so plan A isn’t going to work. That’s fine; I’ve got this. Time for plan B.”

If my scenes were stalled, I was going to enrich them, and the ones after them. If Plan A was finishing those drafts and editing like a boss to pump those next books out on schedule, Plan B was turning to something I could somewhat control, do where I was – and hey, bonus points – I could do with my family – and makes my heart truly happy: research. And so I did.

One thing I was quickly thankful to find was how resources became more accessible when we were back in Germany. Things I had been searching for without success, I was able to find, and one resource would often lead to another and then to another. It was gloooooorious 🙂

I found a great balance between family time and creating big, beefy outlines. We rocked our “Months on the Mountains”, until we all piled up in the van and headed south through them to our new home in Italy.

One Van. Five Kids. Two Cats. Couple of Suitcases. 800 Passports, Papers, and Pillows. Everything, Sadly, but that Epic Coffee Pot. (Looking Back, I Should’ve Just Rode with It on My Lap Lol)

It was kind of apropos in a way: we were doing the opposite trek that my main characters, Matthias and Avelina, do in THE KING’S SWORD. While they were headed north, we were headed south, but I felt like I saw them at points dotted along the way. Waving hello from within the trees. Saying “we’re still with you – when you’re ready for us.” Now that we’ve driven that path a few times, I can tell you without hesitation that it is a stunning drive. There is so much to see along the way, as you are quickly in Austria, then Italy, working your way through Tyrol and through the Dolomites.

It was exciting when we started seeing signs with names we recognized. Milano. Verona. Venezia. Vicenza. We arrived in Vicenza in a storm. Between the fog and the rain, we could hardly see anything, but over the next few weeks, we started to see new things. The landscape. The trees, especially the beautiful blooming ones. The statues. The style of houses. The barns. Some things familiar, others not, but we were excited to embrace all this change.

One such change that was completely unexpected was the day I started seeing posts on the military community page talking about an “exchange of letters”. That after 80-some years of how the SOFA agreement was between our countries – and just months ago I’d been basically told not to expect any change on this at all – something had indeed changed. I’m not a lawyer and I won’t pretend to know exactly what an exchange of letters is, but in essence it now allowed telework for spouses of military members stationed here in Italy.

I was blown away. I will fully admit – after being so disheartened before, there were tears. There are still some complications – it’s always interesting living in another country – but it left me feeling encouraged. Hopeful. Ready to move on to Plan C.

Aha! Moments

My mom and I always agree that even if the answer isn’t clear for awhile, (and sometimes it can take longer than others lol) that wherever the Army sends us, wherever God leads us, that it was exactly where we were supposed to go. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, especially since she just mentioned it again to me a few days ago, as I was updating this post that I started with the intent to publish that first week of January, and it hit me.

I’m here, we are here, to find balance.

And just as I’m typing that, I realize that I feel I’ve found it here in Italy.

I’ve felt like I was holding onto one those hanging balance scales for a while. My family is riding on it. Five kids jumping up and down. Hubs smiling at me. Cats everywhere lol. My “you’re in your mid, wait, I mean late (yikes) 40’s, so let’s figure this all out and regroup and work on our health” goals. My writing goals. All the big things, with all sorts of things dangling off the sides of the pans. Those pans weren’t feeling leveled – they were more or less swinging or tipping over while I was hopping on one foot.

School started. Hubs’ work started. Our family returned to the madness of an up-tempo schedule and those pans started to flip over. I quickly took a step back and looked at everything as a whole. I planted both feet firmly down, made the decisions, and moved forward. My kids are getting older and their needs are growing exponentially – so I pulled back on a few things to make sure that I’m here for them and for all of it. Extremely bittersweet to do, but it was time, and it afforded me extra time with my sweet kiddos ❤

My writing time is now fully back within school hours, with the occasional day out to explore Italy with friends. We moved into our house about two months after we got here in the late summer. I set up a writing room, which in a house constantly bustling and bursting with people and all the things, makes my heart happy as a little inspirational refuge. I enjoy my quiet time in there. I also reorganized how I use my writing time, my priorities, my notes, my outlines, my chapters drafts, and went back to basics. Basics, like just maintaining momentum, however that may look that day, and knowing that’s ok.

I also continue to enjoy checking in with my writing bestie and writing friends – for brainstorming and cheerleading, goal setting and check-ins, etc. They’re truly the best – part support system, part therapy, and definitely cherished friendships. I’m incredibly blessed to be surrounded by supportive writing friends that I’ve met throughout my writing journey.

What Am I Writing?

What am I writing? What are Matthias and Avelina and Metzlingen up to?

If Plan B was research and free-writing, Plan C is putting it all back together.

The sequel, THE LOCKED LETTERS. All the research has been completed. There are a lot of moving parts to this one, so there’s been a lot to look into (which I have LOVED). I’ve been merging my outlines. Drafting scenes. And as I don’t write linearly, I’ve been piecing it all together, connecting and tightening the threads of the story. My characters are still spilling their secrets. Opening doors to settings . . . conversations I hadn’t heard before. The latest, Lilith, really surprised me, as she usually pushes back against me with a fiery fierceness. Now that it’s mostly pulled together, the rewriting and hardcore editing has also started.

Prequel, working title Birth of Brotherhood, and Novellas, untitled. These exploded, when I finally just let myself free write. Not how I usually write – I’m definitely more of a plotter / planner these days than not – but I’m embracing these stories just as much. I’m not 100% sure where they’re going. Will they be released as novellas? A series of stories within the same novel? Not sure. All I know is they’re there and the characters had a lot to say when I sat back down. Every family has a story and their voices are swirling about for sure 🙂

I’m also heavily involved with the Historical Novel Society 2024 UK Conference and their First Chapters Competition. I’ve been doing author interviews and promotion for them for awhile, but signed up for this as a way to continue to learn and challenge myself and put myself out there. Gotta push past those scary boundaries, right? Keep going, keep growing.

There are other story ideas and outlines in a folder on my desktop. Some offshoots from the Metzlingen Saga. Some inspired by the landscape and history right around here too. Some completely different that I’ve brainstormed with my writing bestie.

One day at a time.

I’m thrilled to be attending the HNS Conference at Dartington Hall in September, along with my oldest, who is coming along to volunteer. It’s going to be an extraordinary event. Hoping to have a LOT done by then. I’ll do a separate post on that later and update here as things progress. My next post is on our “Months in the Mountains” 🙂

Thank you for checking in!