Blog & Updates

Where I’ve been… and where we’re going

At this point, it feels like “It’s been a difficult time” has become my eternal refrain. But just briefly, to share what has been happening with me…

The last time I posted a proper update on my writing work was over a year ago, back in April 2024, when my husband’s lung collapsed while I was waiting on a significant piece of good news. While the Boy has fully recovered at this point, I still am not able to say much on the professional front, as things haven’t gone quite as planned.

For one thing, around this time last year, I began experiencing severe bouts of debilitating exhaustion and muscle weakness that saw me bedbound for days at a stretch. Meanwhile, increasing tension with the Boy’s job led us to move back to the UK, as much for his mental wellbeing as for my own. Last year, we celebrated our final Christmas in our tiny Barcelona flat with its view of the Med, before packing everything up for yet another international move. 

When we got back to the UK in March, we hadn’t even gotten the chance to unpack before I ended up in hospital. When I was able to return home — only with continuing community care and monitoring — the final penny dropped: my dad called me with the news that he was in A&E while the doctors waited for a place to open up for him in palliative care. They’d given him an estimate of months to live.

What is a daughter without parents, an author without a book, an adventurer bound to house and bed?

We spent the next three months shuttling back and forth between the UK and Malta to take care of my dad. Meanwhile, every trip made my fatigue worse, my body weaker. And though he passed in July and we spent early September honouring his memory, so much still remains unresolved due to bureaucratic complications.

For as long as I’ve been travelling and working, there have been parts of me that I’ve named and held on to — pieces of identity that I’ve used to define who I am when I have nothing else to grasp onto: a writer, a daughter of immigrants, an adventurer, a survivor.

But now? What is a daughter without parents, an author without a book, an adventurer bound to house and bed?

Perhaps I cannot choose what I am, but simply what I do. And every day, I am making the choice to write, to remember, to keep challenging myself, even if that challenge is to slow down rather than ramp up, in order to preserve my health. 

So here is me, wading back into the waters, in defiance of grief, yet again. All I can ask of you is to stay with me on this journey, however slow we go. Which brings me to the question of what comes next.

I am currently working on edits for a major project, and hoping to share the big news sooner rather than later. Until I can announce everything properly, I’ll be endeavouring to maintain monthly updates — along with more worldbuilding content and additional writing insights that I hope you’ll find fun. I’ll also be sharing snippets on Tumblr, for those who want to sink their teeth in, as well as on my brand-new author-focused Instagram. Head over there and say hi!

Thank you for being here. You’re the ones who make it all worth it.

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