As Ever, Life Soldiers On

 It's been a few years since I've done anything with this blog, and I have to say that it hasn't really bothered me to not have a constant presence like this on the internet, even if I haven't ever really gone anywhere.

My parents are now both dead, and my last "childhood" cat is currently living out his last few years with me in my apartment. I'm no longer living with roommates, I have my own apartment in one of the shittier towns in my home state. 

For more than five years, I've been really struggling with my mental health. It's only been within the last... oh... six months? that I have been making marked improvements, mostly with the help of industrial strength- well, medicinal strength-- marijuana. That, and finally having gotten out of retail (hopefully for good). I'm starting to write for myself again and I'm starting to smile again, both are things I've struggled with for what feels like decades. 

Weirdly, it was the grief surrounding my father's death that kinda started getting me out of the slump I'd been in. Like being pulled out of icy water after falling into a frozen pond, the first emotions I started to feel were pain and anger and sadness and grief and fear. But slowly, those have given way to apathy (not the same as depressed apathy, weirdly), small bouts of happiness, and even moments of hope. 

Hope that, within the next six months if all goes well, I'll finally be releasing another piece of fiction under my own name. 

You may notice that the title of this here blog has changed. I no longer personally go by the name Emmaline Westlund, but that name will be going nowhere as my professional name. Until I finally get my name legally changed AND write at least one bestseller to where it makes sense to actually publicly change the name, I'll continue to publish under the name Emmaline Westlund or maybe E. Westlund. 

I'm going to try to post here more commonly, too. I'd like to get to where I can monetize this bitch as well as my youtube channel (The Book Bitch) again. I'd like to get to where random strangers stumble across my writing again and decide to give me a chance. I do so miss seeing random people review my work. 

I hope this post finds you well, dear reader. And I hope that within the coming months I'll be announcing a release or two.