DAY 19 

Mantra: “You are not alone.” 

Today I am editing book three. I was on a roll until I got to one spot. 

I can’t hide Identities the way that I normally do in my books. 

Finding a way to write some of the hardest moments that I went through without ruining someone else is hard. 

In the first two books I hid the identities and I was so surprised at how well it worked. 

It made it easily relatable and because I focused on the way it felt to be on the other side of all that pain. That made it so that anyone reading the books could go to places in their own story where they too had felt those feelings. 

By the time I got to the lessons in the book- they were ready to heal their own hard stories too. 

This one is trickier though. 

Book 3 is a lifetime in the making. I have literally been trying to find my way to write some of these stories for as long as I can remember. 

I will find my way through, but right now- it’s hard. My fingers are freezing over the keys. I can feel the moments that I rewrite something and I know it still isn’t right. I can feel the doubt in my body. 

This is all part of the process. I felt this before with the first two- ESPECIALLY book 2. I barely even promoted it because I was so nervous about that story coming out. 

But I did it scared and every single time I pick it up I am so glad that I did. 

I had so many people reach out to me after book 2 (Young Writers Day: Fragile Minds and the Adults That Mold Them) wanting to guess who each story was about. 

That didn’t happen with the first book. 

The first one- everyone reached out and wanted to share their similar stories. 

Book two was a lot more traumatic and the number of people that reached out to me guessing who did what because of what had been done to them- was mind blowing. 

Here we were in this small town and the teachers that they were guessing, weren’t the teachers that I was writing about. 

Some of them were right- but the majority weren’t and they had felt the same way around all of these other teachers. 

How could one small district have so many monsters that nobody did anything about? 

Even more wild was the number of people that reached out to me saying that they have kids going through it in the same district NOW. 

Writing book 2 was eye opening and not in the best way, but it was needed. It truly made me realize that we truly aren’t alone in our struggles. It also made me even more sure that sharing our stories is the way to shine the light on how needed mass healing truly is. 

I will finish book three. 

This time, I am sure of it. 

It won’t be easy. 

I will shed more tears. 

I will shed more doubt. 

I will shine more light. 

Whatever comes – will come. 

I must trust in my ability to tell the hardest stories. 

This is just a reminder that things are extremely hard before the breakthroughs.

And one breakthrough doesn’t mean you did it and you healed.

Some things need a series of breakthroughs before you are truly on the other side of things. 

This is one of them.

Always keep trying. 

Celebrate every failure. 

Learn from every attempt. 

It all comes together when it’s supposed to as long as you keep going.