Fiery Pen

It has been a long time, and this blog is not the only thing I have neglected. My health the past few years unmoored me, but life sprinted on ahead. It feels like we have returned to pre-pandemic pace, but I am not the same person as before. I am broken and hobbling. I have lost the stamina to keep up with my own life.

That’s not to say I’ve been doing nothing. I have been doing plenty. Just not like I could before.

For months, I have been working on my three WIP novels. I have drafted and revised and put them through critique group and revised again. Now, two of them are out on submission.

Let the torture begin.

Query composition. Inadequate summaries. Form rejections. Miniature panic at every email. I wait for the guillotine to fall while hoping my hardest.

I’ve written more shorts. Some rejected, some accepted.

Ironically, I have done more speaking and vending events than I have in a long time. Readings with author groups, booths at Prides or oddities festivals, even podcast appearances.

I have been trying. Maybe I even have been accomplishing it. Perhaps I am the duck, gliding smooth along the surface while I’m kicking like hell underwater. But man, I still feel like I’m drowning.

The health stuff has slowed me down physically, obviously, but it has changed me mentally too. Bipolar has always been a thing; depression has always been a thing. So long that they became consistent companions, expected experiences.

Now, they have changed. What used to squeeze and suffocate me now leaves me feeling vacant. What used to torment me now numbs me. It feels like it is all happening to someone else and I am simply observing.

And I know how worrisome a symptom that is.

(Even now, the words trickle from my fingers rather than pour from my mind.)

So I continue to trip and stumble. I continue to try. Career, family, writing, existing. I just keep paddling and swimming.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

• Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
• The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
• Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
• The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
• Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
• Horror Anthologies