Evelyn Welch

My Year with Odd Maude, chapter 9 has been posted.  Both Luke and Maude find romance, and it might just be my favorite chapter I've written of anything ever.

My Year with Odd Maude, against my expectations, made it through into round 3 of the ONC! I was really surprised, but my 13 year old daughter was not lol.  
          
          Chapter 8 is posted.  Luke bonds with Maude and Savannah! And Tippy gets stuck.

Congratulations for ONC2021 second qualifier round. Yaaay. 

Chapter 6 of My Year with Odd Maude is up! Luke goes home for Christmas and things get a little uncomfortable.

Happy Easter!
          
          Just under the wire, chapters 4 and 5 of My Year with Odd Maude are uploaded, bringing the story's word total to 8,632.  I'm behind my personal goal, but at least I managed to submit it by the round 2 deadline (at 11:57 p.m. lololol). 
          
          Luke faces a crisis of faith and the knowledge that he's been taught an inaccuracy his whole life.

Somehow, magically, My Year with Odd Maude made it to round 2 of the Open Novella Contest.  I've been having trouble finding the time to write like I'd hoped (the baby is teething and VERY attached to his Mommy!), so I'm cutting it close.
          
          But.... Chapter 3 is up!  Luke has learned something unsettling about Maude.  How is he going to handle this new information?

It's been a year since my last post.  This past year, my life, body, and brain have been taken over by such a wonderful change.  I had a baby!! Something I had given up hope on ever happening.  He's a perfect little boy and I'm very content spending my days with him.
          
          But.  It's ONC time again, and while I've missed the last two, this time... this time I need to do it.  The writer part of my soul is still there, and maybe not as needy as it used to be, but I'm ready to let it out for a little while.  
          
          It'll be so hard to write a novella while being fully present for every moment of my 6-month-old's life, but my husband and (now almost 13-year-old) daughter are supporting me. 
          
          So, I present to you, My Year with Odd Maude, a new adult fictional story about a young man learning to live outside his very religious family's strict doctrines, and a woman learning to heal after the trauma that family placed on her.
          
          https://www.wattpad.com/story/260112412-my-year-with-odd-maude

So, another hiatus has happened, unexpectedly. 
          
          Back in the autumn, I stumbled upon the discovery that I might be autistic, and suddenly all my focus was forced into learning as much as I could about it, and getting assessed. I received my diagnosis of 'moderate-high functioning autism' in December. 
          
          That same month, I learned that I'm pregnant. 
          
          The last few months have been a crazy, emotional, soul-changing time for me, and tbh, I wasn't sure how it would affect my writing. My priorities in life have changed. I now know so much about why I operate the way I do, and how I tackle projects, including my stories. I haven't been able to write while my mind has been so consumed. 
          
          But in the last couple weeks, Odessa, James, and Tai have been bugging me to come back. Victor has been nagging at me to polish his story, and a certain someone has been itching to tell her side of things. The urge to write is coming back to me, and I want to do it, to share that energy with my baby as I grow it over the next few months. 
          
          But now I know why I struggle with multiple projects, and pregnancy is a very BIG project! So I don't know what to expect. I also still have a lot of life stuff to catch up on, having gotten behind during this time. But soon, soon I'll be back at the keyboard, telling my characters' stories again. 
          
          I just don't know how soon. Thank you to anyone who still reads and/or follows me. I love you all terribly. 

I published chapter 63 of DatN last weekend, and chapter 64 just now! I also updated the cover.  What do you think? It turned out a little more horror than I'd intended, but I've always had trouble getting the imagery right for this story.  I'm TOTALLY open to guest covers, though.  Like seriously.  Make my week, please?? *puppy eyes*

Thanks for the votes on The Maggies and for adding it to your reading list!