A different mindset, a book release, a milk loaf

September has just sped by, and suddenly, it's the second week of October, my birthday is just round the corner, and I find myself with yet another book published! I still don't know how time eludes and passes me by without my even realising, but the truth is, there's not one single moment when I feel like I'm just going through days trying to reach the end of a race, never mounting up to much, never getting anything accomplished. There was a time, and it wasn't all that long ago, where I used to feel this way every single minute. As if nothing I did was worthy, as if it carried no meaning, no importance at all. As if it was all void. The truth is, this kind of mindframe does not come only from the inside of our heads. It's put there. It's not just our own, personal fault, it's not a mirror of how little self-esteem we have, or how much we lack confidence. No, this kind of idea is put into our brains, shovelled inside a little at a time.

I fear it comes from an over-consumerist, over-capitalist society where value is measured in terms of money and achievements and success are told by how much you've earned. We are meant to think this way, and end up perpetuating these thoughts and dogmas sometimes even without realising it. So for many years I considered all my work - hard as it was - as meaningless, it was just something I did to entertain myself and it had no added value at all. Plus, because the results of said work were so meaningless, I surely wasn't working hard enough, nor was I capable enough, talented enough, deserving. It was a spiral of demeaning thoughts that cluttered my brain constantly and always had me feeling like I was nothing, in the grand scheme of things, and meant nothing. Like I was wasting my time sat at a desk writting silly little (well, not so little) books, stupid little stories no one cared about but me. It took some soul searching to get out of this. It took some evaluating too, of who and what I was surrounding myself with. It took the conscious decision of shutting off those voices - both inside and outside my head.

Not that I'm there yet, on a frame of mind that has me believing what I do is important - it is to me and that should be enough! - or meaningful, but it isn't meaningless any longer. This matters. These books matter. The long hours I put in, the hard work, the joy it brings me when I go over those lines, those sentences, those paragraphs, it matters and has meaning. It brings something to the world. And, yes, it is enough. What I do and who I am is good enough, despite certain voices constantly making me feel like I am never quite quite there, and what I do is never quite quite good for them. But the moment I shut these presences from my life, I have been feeling a lot more confident. I have been feeling better about myself and what I do, what I say, how I say it, how I do it. Because these were voices that always made me feel like I did all wrong, all the time, and that no matter how I expressed myself, they always found fault in my words, or twisted my meaning, or read second intentions in my every action and every word, when there weren't any. And I ended up feeling constantly like the most horrid person in the world, and so demeaned I found it very hard to believe in myself, in my worth.

Avalon Hall, my latest release, was a labour of pure love. That entire trilogy was. I mean, all my novels are, but these three books more than any. I struggled a lot with whether I should or shouldn't publish these books. I doubted myself constantly, I feared letting them out in the world, I didn't want to share that story. I don't really know why, it's not as personal and autobiographic as the Blood Trilogy series. It's not as tentative and naïve as The Preternaturals series, nor is it as rookie as A Study for Love. But for whatever reason, I've loathed the thought of publishing these far more than the rest. But in the end, I decided I had to do it. If only to force myself to grow out of these fears. What's the worse that can happen? People may hate and bash it? So what? It's not like I have much self-esteem, so what will this do? It won't kill me, it won't kill my son nor my husband, it won't make them love me less or admire me any less for all the hard work I put in, in every aspect of my life. So what if readers detest it? I will be hurt, of course, desperately so, I will go into a very dark, depressive place, and I will hide myself. In my writing. Which is pretty much what I already do, so there'll be no difference there. And if I have learnt something about myself over the years is how resilient I actually am. I hurt and bruise and suffer a lot, but I get back on the horse.

And who knows, maybe it will toughen me up. It forced me to face my fears, look them in the eye and say 'You know what, yes I am terrified, but I'm still gonna do this.' It forced me to pull out of the safety blanket it was to let others dictate how I see myself, the safety blanket it was to allow others to rule the way I lived my life, it forced me out of the cocoon and straight into the fire. This is a good thing, regardless of the results. So what if I only sell a couple books? What if I don't make it to whatever kind of lists there are, what if I'm not flavour of the week or hot new release or what the hell I'm supposed to be only so that others may respect me? See, that's not the reason I should be respected, at all. I should be respected because I have never disrespected others, that's the first point. But also because I worked my arse off and did it with as little help as I had available - not that some folks didn't offer, but that is not who I am and this should also be respected. In the end, if my work is not taken seriously by others, it is their problem, not mine. I take it very seriously. This is not a hobby. This is not a whim, a caprice from a middle-aged woman catered to by a hard-working husband who she leches off. No. This is my job, my work, my lifelong dream, my breadwinner. And this has to be respected, if it's not, then you have no place in my life.

So I can safely say there was a huge mindshift happening in my head recently. I went from desperately seeking others' approval and respect to demanding it. If they can't give it me, I'm not going to keep running round their ankles like the tongue-lolling, love-seeking good puppy who gets only kicks and the occasional pet up its head. I will respect myself and my work, I will cheer myself on even if no one else does, and I will be damn proud of the work I've accomplished and the results I've had so far. It's not just money and sales that matter you know? In the four years since I've entered this business I've learnt so much, I've grown so much, I've evolved so much. Only now am I starting to look at all I've done with an amazed eye - did I really do this? Wow, is this really all I've accomplished, have I really come this far? - and the self-respect for not having thrown down the towel and persisting with what I believe in, what I dreamt one day. Right now, as I write these words down, I couldn't care less if I sell books or not - ok, who am I kidding, we all want our books to sell - I don't care that I make money out of it or not, that isn't what's going to determine my success and my achievements in my eyes. If this is all that matters to others in the way they perceive and view me, then that's their problem, not mine. If they want to see me as lacking, as a loser, as a ne'er-do-well, again this is their problem, their hang-up, not mine. But I won't allow their words and beliefs to push me down. I won't allow my words to be twisted into something other than what I meant, and when someone tries to demean me publicly and make me look bad, I will walk away. Let them have their cake, if it's what they need to feel their life is liveable... I'd rather have bread, anyway!

And here is a rather delicious milk loaf that will have you drooling over it with a smile up your face. I swear this can turn your day around! Here's how you get it:

• 125 ml  lukewarm milk
• 10 gr yeast
• 50 gr butter
• 200 gr flour
• 100 gr barley flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 egg + 1 yolk

Turn on the oven at 180º and line a baking tray with parchment paper. On a bowl combine the flours with the salt and the sugar. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk, melt the butter and mix it to the milk once it's lukewarm as well. Beat the egg into it and add the liquid mix to the dry one. Knead for five minutes on a floured surface, then return it to a floured bowl, cover with a tea towel and let it rest for one and a half hours. Turn the dough over onto a floured surface again and knead briefly. Line a loaf tin with baking parchment, divide the dough into balls and place them inside the tin, some on top of the others. Cover again with the tea towel and let them rest for another half hour. Turn your oven up to 200º. Beat the egg yolk with a sip of cold water and brush this mix over the loaf. Lowering the temp back to 180º, bake the loaf until it's golden brown, this should take twenty minutes depending on the oven. Keep an eye on it, just to make sure. Pull the loaf out of the tin and allow to rest over a cooling rack, then serve with butter or jam, you won't be sorry!