Mostly because I have ADD, and I cannot do both.
And here is why: I had taken medication for this from the time I was 17 until I got married and wanted to start trying for kids. I’ve always LOOVED writing for school and always wanted to someday write a novel, but when I started taking the medication, it completely cut off all my creativity. I got drastically better grades, and I then graduated from Taylor University, but I didn’t write. I didn’t even think about writing. When I got married a few years later, I’d been taking the medication for ten years. And at that point I stopped taking it, hoping to get pregnant. After years of not getting pregnant, my husband told me to stay home and write the book I’d always wanted to write. So I wrote The Hesitant Heiress, The Bound Heart and some of The Captive Imposter pre-pregnancy/babies... and then they were contracted and the babies came... and the chaos began.
I didn’t want to take the ADD meds because I still wanted to write... and I did. I wrote The Cautious Maiden while pregnant with son #2 and then Enchanting Nicholette when they were 3 and 1. But being an ADD mom of little boys and not taking the meds... was driving everyone insane. Everyone. And it wasn’t pretty. So I had to make a choice, and it was something God had been trying to get through to me for months by the time I finally gave in. I just had to be okay with not writing books for a while. These little boys needed to have all of their mom, and that meant no deadlines or proposals or finishing of manuscripts. It meant I needed to take the medication that would cut my creativity drastically. It meant that I needed to put my family first, and not my desire to create story.
Even a year later it’s a hard choice. Because writing story is my thing. My favorite ME thing. But I know these little days, even as crazy as they are even while taking ADD medication, are fleeting. And I want to soak them up, to enjoy every single day—and not be too distracted and tired from trying to focus so hard on my made up people. I have my real little boys, and they are so much more important.
So... I’m sorry I’m not here very much, and that I won’t have anything new for you to enjoy for years to come. I think about how much I’m not here all the time. But I will write books again, don’t worry. I write sporadically, but at the rate I’m going my current WIP is going to take YEARS to finish. Just please sit tight, and try not to forget about me? When these boys grow up and decide they don’t need so much of me (heartbreak!), I will again have the time to throw myself into creating story. And until then, I suppose I will be perfecting the task of writing while taking these meds I need to live a sane life. If I could just lock myself in a room for days on end on a regular basis (to write, of course!), that would be great and I wouldn’t need them... but I do have to deal with people and manage a successful household... so I’m just going to have to learn what the best way to do this is when the time comes. I appreciate your prayers! Because I’ll need them so much!
