Weslie Ashe

So way back in 2019, I released the third book in my Yummy Romance novella series, He Burned Toast. Then I promised a fourth book, which will be titled They Ate Cake. That was October 2019. (And you can read more about He Burned Toast below, since I never did an official release blog for it!)

Then things turned a bad corner for me in November 2019. And I hate those, “Mary opens up about X struggles” posts, but the truth is that my life has been silently distressing for many years thanks to my personal struggles with infertility and miscarriage and that’s what I was dealing with last fall. One day, I’ll write a non-fiction book about it. I have a lot to say about the subject.

Fast forward to January 2020, and I was a tiny bit behind with my writing but thinking it’s a new year with new goals, right? My husband and I were going to try another in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle, I was going to write all the books I was behind on, and I thought I’d probably have They Ate Cake done by spring, just in time for wedding season! And…you all know what happened immediately thereafter.

I think we can also tick off “mass extinction,” “powerful storms,” and “widespread famine” at this point. After all, isn’t that just any year after 2000? Or am I the only one who’s migraine headaches (literal and figurative) are getting worse thanks to climate change?

In any case, I’m a glass-half-full kind of person, so I am going to choose to think of 2020 as the year I learned that making sourdough bread is possible, but not nearly as easy as picking it up from Panera. It’s also the year my husband and I learned to share space together at home during the day, to appreciate Hello Fresh’s meal delivery service to its fullest extent, and to always be stocked up on extra toilet paper. I read White Fragility, made a dozen masks, and hero-worshiped Dr. Anthony Fauci. I called my parents more often, and I learned how to run Amazon ads for my books. That could have been much worse, no?

Unfortunately, I’m still behind on my writing. He Made Pasta and the rest of the Yummy Romance series has gotten pretty cold. But They Ate Cake is actually on its way, and I’m looking forward to wrapping up that series. If you’re interested in the meanwhile, check out He Burned Toast, and if I get lucky, I’ll also be able to deliver a holiday romance in November. (But no guarantees. Because 2020.)

So that’s me. I hope you all are doing as well as you can be given the circumstances. Stay safe and healthy. Wear masks. And please vote for Joe Biden in November so that we can avoid a 2021 apocalypse.

Weslie Ashe

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