When I started out as an indie author, my first book was a fun paranormal I’d written after a crazy dream I had called Fated Heroes. My friends encouraged me to write the dream down, publish it, and see what happened. It did okay, but it didn’t explode in the sales department or anything-which I was completely fine with. I was dipping my toes into the indie author pool, so I figured it was a great way to learn how to publish a book.

After publishing that book, a friend of mine suggested I write a mm contemporary book, and I decided to go for it and wrote Teaching Tenderness. The publication of that book is what helped me find my way into the awesome community of mm authors. Since then, I have met some amazing friends, and some I now consider family.

But as I was writing my contemporary books I started to feel like something was missing. I love to read second chances, happy for nows, and happily ever after, but ironically I wasn’t happy writing them anymore. My heart and head were screaming at me to write what would make me happy, so I transitioned over to my mystery and suspense books. But in doing so, I started to feel lost in the community.

You see, it wasn’t anything my friends did, but it was my anxiety getting to me. It kept reminding me that my friends, the people I considered to be a part of my tribe, were off writing their romances, doing collabs or a series together, and I felt left out or unable to contribute in some way. How can I be a part of anything romance related if I’m writing about serial killers and stalkers? How can I join in a conversation about first kisses and hot sex scenes when all I can offer is my MC decapitating someone?

It made me depressed. I was seriously considering taking a social media break and truly re-evaluating a lot of things, but then I realized something. I was being stupid. My tribe and friends are still my tribe and friends. It doesn’t matter if they write romance and I write suspense. There is a reader out there for everything. At the end of the day, we can still encourage each other, build each other up, and bemoan the fact of writing the dreaded blurb.

I just need to remember that whenever my evil anxiety tries to get the best of me. I’ve found my tribe, and I love them hard.