NEW BEGINNINGS
Part One
IT’S hard to believe it’s been almost 8 years since I was forced to put The Bearded Scribe Press on a very unwanted—but inevitable—hiatus. With the blog and the publishing company, I had finally found my creative outlet, and then all at once, I was forced to give it up.
Without getting too detailed on the reasons, I was also forced to make another hard decision as well: to walk away from a 14-year relationship—a toxic one, sadly, with a level of perniciousness I kept hidden from the world, perhaps in hopes (or maybe denial) that it would one day change. As much as we tried to make it work, however, at the end of the day, we were not bringing each other the happiness we both deserved, the happiness everyone deserves.
Although we could no longer make it work as a couple—or, unfortunately, even as friends—I will forever be grateful for the support my ex gave me in my writing endeavors. I think, other than it logistically not being able to fit it in my schedule anymore, this is the reason I found it hard to focus on writing after the break because writing reminded me of my ex (and my failed relationship).
Coincidentally, and funnily enough—well, truly not as funny as it was frustrating—someone hacked into the website (about 3 months after the breakup) and created an automatic redirect to a porn site, as if the universe was trying to nail home even more the fact that I should put my writing on hold. Even though I still technically owned the domain name, I could not log into the website or do anything to fix the issue. After a month or so of trying with GoDaddy to correct the issue, I gave up, and the site sat dormant for about a year and a half after. Every now and again, for a few years, I tried to log in and make a backup of the data, but I had no luck saving the data without also saving the redirect. Even GoDaddy had no luck and told me my best bet was to wipe the site completely and do a fresh re-install of the theme and plugins—this, however, meant losing all the pages and blog posts I spent years creating with my team.
I held off in doing so, not wanting to let go of the hard work and proof, much like I held off on making that hard decision to finally leave a relationship I put so much hard work into, trying to make it work, and that takes us directly to the lesson I learned in the process.
Sometimes the work required to repair something that is broken isn’t worth it. Sometimes it’s about trusting in your gut, in God, that the new beginning that awaits you was the reason it all had to end in the first place. While the new beginning of The Bearded Scribe Press is still a little bit in the future, I’m excited for the adventure.
Until then, I’ll share my own personal new beginnings that have happened since the forced hiatus in 2016, so stay tuned for my updates.
Until next time—Happy Scribing!
