I met Jessica in 2018 while promoting my book Finding Heaven. She bought a book from me and also became one of my first editing clients. I have had the privilege and honour to work on all three currently published titles in her award winning Starfell middle grade fantasy series, as well as her upcoming release, a middle grade paranormal mystery called The Haunting of Lavender Raine.

Jessica is a fantastic writer, but she is an even more amazing human being who constantly inspires me with her work ethic, creativity, and openness. I am so grateful she agreed to share her very personal story of recovering from an abusive marriage to become the person she is today.

Normally for this feature, I write an article about the person I’m interviewing. But when I read Jessica’s responses, I didn’t think I could say it better than Jessica herself did. So, in her own words, please enjoy Jessica’s story of overcoming tremendous obstacles to become the award-winning author she is today.

Six years ago, my entire world imploded when I left my abusive marriage. I was still pretty young, thirty years old, and had spent a third of my life in that situation.

Reality hit me like a freight train. Without somebody pushing me into certain roles, I had no idea who I truly was. I had suppressed myself and tried to fit into certain boxes to be accepted and liked by others. I had been living for other people’s expectations and views, and had never been true to myself. Nor had I had the confidence to embrace my own passions and quirks or to figure out who I am deep down. I hardly even knew the person looking back at me in the mirror.

When I started over, in addition to losing a toxic marriage, I lost everything else too: my belongings, my home, my farm, my livestock, everything I had devoted my life to. I didn’t even have a job. I had nothing but my three horses, two goats, and my scruffy little dog.

I moved home to my dad’s acreage where I grew up. I’m so grateful for my dad’s support. I know some people don’t have that, and without it I’m not sure how I could have made it. It was surreal though, living at home in my childhood bedroom with nothing but the clothes on my back and my pets. I felt like was a teen again, not a thirty-year-old woman.

Obviously, this implosion was the best thing to ever happen to me. It set me off on a long journey of healing, introspection, and growth. But between getting back on my feet, dealing with lawyers, stressful court dates, and severe anxiety, it was a bumpy road.

I definitely made mistakes along the way, but it was all part of the process. I got my old job back, made wonderful new friends, reconnected with family, and started to stabilize. But I was far from healed and still struggled a lot in my head.

Through hours of therapy and self-reflection (and writing—what a healing hobby to have!), I learned that my tendencies to be a people-pleaser and a perfectionist were not traits I was born with. They were methods I had learned to protect myself. My walls were sky-high, yet I had no boundaries and let others dictate how I should live my life.

The reality of these issues raised its ugly head once I started trying to live more authentically and let myself be seen.

This work wasn’t easy, and it still isn’t. It sounds cliché to say that for the last six years I’ve been on a mission to find myself. Maybe a better term for it is to grow into myself, as I knew deep down exactly who I was. For most of my life, I had allowed fear to prevent me from giving myself self-love and acceptance.

Through the group therapy sessions I attended at the Women’s Outreach, my eyes were opened to the fact that I was not alone. The other women there came from all different walks of life, but we all had a lot in common—every single one of us tended to put our own health and emotional needs last on our list of priorities. Many of us were perfectionists. And others, including myself, used our misguided missions to fix somebody else as a way to avoid dealing with our own insecurities and self-growth.

There’s absolutely no way I would have been able to put myself out there as a writer even five years ago. No matter what our life circumstances have been, it’s hard for most people to follow their passions and live authentically. There’s so much pressure and expectations put on us by society.

Right from the beginning, many of us are conditioned to ignore our emotions and needs and are often told by those around us who we are and who we are to become. It doesn’t matter what we want or even what our personalities are, it’s “just the way it is.” It can be hard to break through those messages and change our thought patterns, and we can become stuck in somebody else’s view of ourselves or who we should be instead of living our own truth.

I wish I had had the self-confidence when I was younger to learn these lessons earlier, but I’m glad life threw them at me now as a wake-up call.

If I hadn’t gone through all this tough stuff, I definitely would not be where I’m at today—in a healthy relationship with a supportive life partner, in a safe and loving home, surrounded by amazing and inspiring people, chasing my dreams as an author, and just finally feeling at peace.

And I’m still growing, learning, and healing every day. As they say, the path to wholeness is a journey, not a destination. It’s one I am happy to be on for the rest of my life.

With my books, I hope to inspire readers to embrace their authenticity and foster healthy relationships with themselves and the world around them. I love what I do and pour a lot of myself into my books.

Where do I see myself in the next five years? I’ve learned that no plans are concrete and life has a way of throwing us curve balls (hello, 2020!). Of course, I have a lot of goals with my author business and many books in my head that I plan to get out.

But at a higher level, I am striving to be more flexible and adaptable to change. And I plan to still be on this road of self-discovery, writing lots of books, surrounded by like-minded and supportive people, enjoying my partner and the life we have built together, and be doing my best to live in a way that’s authentic to me.

JESSICA RENWICK is an award-winning author of fiction about friendship, courage, and being true to yourself. The Book of Chaos was her first novel and the start of her fantasy series for middle-grade readers, Starfell, which now also includes The Guitar of Mayhem and The Bow of Anarchy. Her short story “The Witch’s Staff” was published in the Mythical Girls anthology by Celticfrog Publishing in June, and the first book in her new easy-reading middle grade paranormal series, The Haunting of Lavender Raine, will be coming out September 15. She lives in Central Alberta with her life partner, Russ, her flock of backyard chickens, and two rambunctious dogs, Lucy and Vader.

You can find more information about Jessica on Instagram (she rocks the Instagram thing!), Facebook, or her website. www.jessicarenwickauthor.com.

On a personal note, there have been several very exciting developments in my own writing world in the last couple of weeks, so I’m going to try to keep this brief. (Post-writing note: Epic fail on keeping it brief! Haha.)

First, I have been cruising along on The Sphinx’s Heart this week, averaging 2,500 words per day and hitting new personal speed records for fiction. I’m enjoying it while it lasts, because, you know, it’s historical fantasy—I’m bound to come up against another thing that needs researching sooner or later that will stop me in my tracks.

However, the manuscript is now over 100,000 words, and I can at least see the finish line, so whee!

This is when writing fiction is fun.

The Waterboy audiobook is now complete… and I’m just waiting for my new cover before I release it.

It’s killing me to sit on this. As an indie author, I haven’t developed my patience muscles much in this area. When something is ready to go, I want to get it out there, especially because I’m so excited for other people to hear it. But I also know it will have a much better chance of success once it’s got its new, more appropriate epic historical fantasy cover, so I’m figuratively sitting on my hands. (Not literally, obviously—it’s super hard to type with your hands under your bum.)

My release date for this book is September 28. (You can hear the retail sample on the book’s page now, though!)

In the meantime, I discovered that the book had to have an actual eBook or Print listing on Amazon in order to be released on Audible there, so I made the decision to finally put this book up for sale in stores. It is still available for free to my newsletter subscribers, but if you would prefer not to sign up to yet another newsletter, you can just buy it. (And if you buy it directly from me, I get to keep a little more of the dough, so, yeah, please consider it.)

But my newsletter is totally worth checking out, so really, go get the book for free! (If you download the book and then unsubscribe, I’ll find a hanky big enough to absorb my tears and get over it somehow.)

And if you’ve already read The Waterboy and loved it, I’d sure appreciate if you would leave a review on a platform or two of your choice, so when the audiobook comes out, folks know it’s worth their time and money.

Get to The Waterboy on your preferred platform here and Goodreads here.

Once I’ve got The Sphinx’s Heart into beta readers’ hands, I’ll be working on a brand-new exclusive freebie for newsletter subscribers, so signing up now means you’ll get two free books (eventually) instead of only one later. ;-)

And ignore that creepy, haunting vibe Zale is giving off on my cover. It’s not horror, I promise. And it’s not creepy. It’s fun and full of heart with just a shade of darkness (like Lord of the Rings is dark, what with Frodo wrestling with himself and Aragorn wrestling with himself and Gollum wrestling… you get it), and deals with some important social issues like prejudice and how we treat others, as well as our duty to our family and society. (These are themes that run through the whole Rise of the Grigori series, so that’s why it’s a great book to test out that particular series without the time commitment of the epic-length volume one, The Undine’s Tear.)

Speaking of “new in stores,” the science fantasy novelette Up in Smoke, which I wrote over a year ago, is now also available on all platforms. This is a fun, quick read that mixes dragons, clean energy research, and an estranged father and daughter coming to a new understanding. Please check it out.

(And, not to beat a barely moving aardvark—or any creature of any kind, because that’s not how we roll around here—but buying direct helps me out with the cash, and leaving reviews on a store platform and/or on Goodreads helps other people know it’s worth their time.)

Okay, I tried, folks, but there was too much news to keep it short.

And on a personal personal note, it seems very likely that the house deal our family has been working on since March will be going through this week, which means the next couple of months will be very busy as we get it moved onto our property, renovated, and set up for winter. (More than usual.) I’ll be driving my oldest son to college on the coast in a few weeks. And we’re currently wrestling with the at-home-learning vs. sending-our-teenagers-to-school decision.

And that’s just life during a pandemic, isn’t it?

And, in case you’ve been waiting with bated breath after my last post, I decided to retire from teaching piano. So I’m a full-time freelancer now, which is both exciting and terrifying, but mostly exciting.

Always a new adventure.

What adventures have you been on lately, friend?