Announcement + Explanation

Hi everyone! I just wanted to come on here and make a blog post about my second book and why it is taking so long because I know a lot of you out there have been asking about it.

So the first half of this post will be an announcement about my second book and when it will be released. The second half will be an explanation about why it is taking so long and whats happening in my life. Feel free to stop reading at any point, some people don't care for information about my personal life and thats totally okay! 

Alright, so my second book. Yes, it was originally supposed to be released in the spring of 2017. Unfortunately, that did not happen due to reasons I will get into below. But the second book is finished now and I'm currently in the process of editing it. After that, I will get into the real publishing process of designing the cover and putting it into a book form. Publishing, sadly, is a very LONG process that I wish I could speed up. But I can't, because it sacrifices the quality of the book.

But, I am trying to edit as quickly as possible and start working with my designers. I do not have a set release date yet because it is too far in advance but the second book realistically should be out in the spring of 2019. As soon as I get an exact date from my team I will post it everywhere I possibly can and make sure you guys know about it. I am so incredibly grateful all of you are excited for my second book and keep asking about it because it motivates me to edit faster, and get the book released. So thank you for remembering, loving, and asking about TCC, it has saved me and comforted in more ways than I can possibly express. I am in love with my second book and I'm so excited for everyone to read it and to follow Alyssa, Amber, Zack, and Haven as they travel to Brazil!

Alright, here is where I will get into some information about my personal life so if thats not your cup of tea, feel free to just stop right here. 

I've never really spoken publicly about this before, not even during my motivational presentations. But the truth is, I actually struggle with debilitating chronic pain because of a chronic migraine disorder. I've had this disorder since I was ten years old and I would get a lot of migraines from it, about three to four a week. 

The year my first book came out in 2016, was the best and worst year of my life. My book came out obviously, which was amazing, but I had a REALLY bad pain flare up that year. It was insane. I had a migraine for eight months straight, twenty four hours a day, every single day. It was like some awful nightmare I was trapped in. I couldn't get rid of the migraine, no matter what I did. I missed most of the school year because of it and was bed ridden a lot of the time. This impacted my writing obviously. I started my second book and had plans to finish it quickly and to publish it, but it was just not possible. It was extremely difficult to write when in pain all the time, and as a result, my progress on my second book was slow. 

Things slowly got better as I visited more doctors and learned more about the disorder, but I was still in a lot of pain for most of the days in a week. Truthfully, my mental health suffered a lot because of it. I developed pretty bad depression and anxiety and it suddenly became an effort to even leave my house. Everything, no matter how small, mentally and physically exhausted me. I withdrew from my friends and social life, and kept to myself a lot. The only thing that I looked forward to was writing which I continued doing on the days where my pain was tolerable. 

Because of this condition, I was put on a lot of heavy medication to treat it which caused a lot of side effects. One of them was extreme exhaustion and I remember the many nights where I would fall asleep at nine pm. Before the medication, I would stay up until 1 am writing, and as any writer knows, sometimes the best writing comes to you in the night where the world is asleep and you are awake. Ideas just seem to flow from you like a fountain at night. But the medication made me extremely confused and I didn't feel like myself. I didn't know if I could ever finish a book with the way my life was going. 

But in my darkest moments I remembered my fans and the people who support me and I always clung to that as a sign of hope. So I continued to write a little when I could, and eventually my second book started to come together. Over time I was able to get my migraines under control to the point where I could have a normal life again. I almost forgot what normal felt like. I remember waking up in the morning and immediately wishing for it to be night time again so I could sleep away the physical pain and my emotional pain. But writing truly did save my life and it was one of the only things combatting my depression. It gave me a purpose to keep fighting. 

I finished my second book eventually in May of 2018 after my first year of university. As anyone who is in university knows, life gets freaking busy. I was a first year english student and I was buried in essays, readings, migraines, depression, and novel work. It was a LOT of writing, to say the very least. But I found that writing my book was really fun and I was never sick of doing it, even when I had to write fifty essays for my english classes, aka, How Well Can You BS An Essay on Shakespeare 101. 

So that is kind of a summary of where I've been and whats been happening in my life. My second book is set to be published and will be out very soon and I am SO excited guys. I love this book even more than my first. It's like my child. I feel like I gave birth to my second child. 

But on a serious note, the moral of this story is that you should never let anything like a disability or a mental illness stop you from reaching your goals. Yes, at times you're going to feel like shit and you're going to cry and binge watch Netflix while eating ice cream. And that is okay, because things will ALWAYS get better. Even if it doesn't feel like it, there is always a rainbow at the end of a storm, no matter how long that storm lasts. My storm is still ongoing. I mean, it isn't metaphorically pouring and hailing on me anymore, it's lightly drizzling, like on a spring day in the middle of April. I still have issues with mental health and migraines but life is looking up for me. I love my school, I love where I live, I love my friends, I love my book, my fans, and my job. There is always a silver lining in any situation. Today for example, I had a terrible migraine and laid in bed for four hours but eventually it passed and I picked myself up out of my bed and now I'm sitting here writing this blog post. Just having this platform to express myself is a silver lining to my day. 

For anyone out there struggling with a disability of any kind or a mental illness, do not be afraid to reach out for help. I am here for you and you are loved by so many people in your own life who would want to help you. Having a disability does not change who you are as a person or your worth. Having a disability does not make you broken, which is what society sadly leads us to believe. Having a disability makes you strong and gives you the capacity to love and appreciate every single day. We take nothing for granted. We laugh because we have felt extreme pain and we love because life is short and unpredictable and a single moment should never be wasted. So, if you are dealing with something in your personal life, I believe in you, I am thinking of you, and you are strong enough to carry on and to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Chin up, because life is a rollercoaster and theres crazy loopholes and twists at every turn. Life is exciting and beautiful and we are all here for a reason. Embrace yourself as you are, be kind to yourself, and love yourself for who you are, not who you want to be or who you think you should be. 

I love you guys and thank you for loving my book series as well as the person behind those words. I would not want to be doing anything else with my life. Again, I am so grateful for your support and kindness and it really has saved my life. 

Thank you for reading this. I hope that  what I've shared here has helped some of you, or even one of you. 

Much love, 

​Alessia