Mental Health Awareness Month

Memorializing Molly’s Goofy Nature

Hello, lovelies and soul bards,

Please be warned, I will be talking throughout this issue of Soul Writer’s Side Quest about the passing of a furbaby whom I consider a daughter and the atmosphere of Mental Health Awareness month’s importance for writers. I am 100% understanding if you would want to skip this issue, and I would like to empower you to share it to someone you feel might need it, at the same time.

Mental Health Awareness month has long held some importance to me as a person. I have green undertones to my feather tattoo on my right arm for a reason. Green for my husband’s choice in wedding colors and for mental health awareness month. Purple for my wedding color choice and the royalty within. Therefore, I find it ironic that my eldest kitty, Molly Moo, took her walk on the Rainbow Bridge this month.

As a woman who has been told she has less than a five percent chance of being a mother after a miscarriage took my Angel Baby and my right fallopian tube in 2021, you can imagine why I consider my cats to be my children. They’re not just family here. They are my daughters. Molly has been my “step daughter” since the fall around her 5th birthday, and she is the type of cat to befriend everyone. Not a single person is her hooman. All people who pay her attention and love and pets and treats and similar are her hooman. She has been part of my life long enough to see her 19th birthday. This summer would have been her 20th, and she is resting now with Angel Baby.

Molly was known as Molly Moo or Moo Moo for her “moo” like mewling when she would ask for attention. She is goofy in other ways. That’s why she has the beauty mark on one lip and not two, but the white stripe goes right down the middle of her nose and chest otherwise. She often reminded me with her encouraging looks to be my own goofy self. To not worry about things.

This picture of her was taken in my very first office a few years ago. She’s blocking me from using my mouse, and I think I was writing Book 1 or Book 2 of The Merna Annals at the time. Those bright eyes of hers reminded me that life is worth the brightness. Life is worth being goofy.

During Mental Health Awareness month, May, I want to encourage you and empower you to do much the same. This month ends with Memorial Day weekend here in the United States for a reason. It ends May with a sense of healing and release in healthy ways. Why not let the goofy moments in life be what does that this year? What makes you laugh? Sing? Dance? Write?

A few creatives in my circle have given me the, “oh, the drama, she’s a cat, not your kid.” That’s your perspective. Not mine. I’ve taken the time to heal from being her hospice nurse in the end, as I needed, and unlearning the care for a cat to that level isn’t much different from unlearning that level of care for a human, in my opinion. They both revolve around establishing and changing daily habits, and other than her presence not being there as it was, that change has been difficult. You are welcome to your perspective, as I am mine. Molly will always be my daughter in many regards because she was there through many firsts, like many children are, in ways that no one else, no other soul, was. She loved and listened in her own way, like most children do. Like most other souls do.

In my healing from not having her in this life, I am letting the process of adjustment be what it is. What does that mean for the rest of the month since Mothers Day Weekend and Molly’s passing (yup, same week)?

Me learning to be okay with letting each day be what it is meant to be, one step at a time. That’s how grief works, usually. Well, at least, that is how time works through grief along with us.

I have taken a step back from coaching in several ways, true. I wasn’t able to move, like I thought I was going to in March. All of that is okay. All of that is what it is right now. However, I am going back into the groove of my business, at least, in June. There’s a chance I am going to be back to daily content releases between various platforms, so check across the several listed on my link hub of holding +5, so named, as often as you like. I am keeping this to two a month, to be a fair. Definitely check YouTube for more updates. And I am working on a couple of channel release things, too. More about that in June.

I’ve also been working on building a virtual and physical book tour for The Merna Annals’ Side Quests and Season 2 launches. Check the list below!

• June 6, 2025—The Winged Ones launch party (my YouTube Channel)

• June 13-15, 2025—Sci-Fi Valley Con, Blair County Convention Center, Altoona, PA (get your tickets here)

• June 17-21, 2025—Indie Authors Central hosts Summer Heat Stuff Your Kindle Event (virtual, check my social media)

• June 12-13, 2025—Midsummer Expo, Lancaster Farm and Home Center, Lancaster, PA (more info coming soon; link, too!)

• June 17-21, 2025—Indie Authors Central hosts Something Strange Stuff Your Kindle Event (virtual, check my social media)

• July 7, 2025—Pearl and Gold launch party (my YouTube Channel)

• July 19-20,2025—Bowie Comfort Inn Convention Center and South Branch Library, Bowie, MD (a great place to meet several authortubers in one location!)

• August 8, 2025—Six Weeks but Three Years launch party (my YouTube Channel)

• August 16-17, 2025—Oakenmist Renn Faire, Howard County Fairgrounds, West Friendship, MD—our first! (get tickets by clicking here)

I have more events planned for the fall, and we will talk about those closer to those dates. I am so excited for the next year! That’s right, year. I have over a YEAR of events planning, and I am adding events constantly. Want to invite me to yours? Message me!

I am also loving the balance of working on other people’s projects and my own between editing for others and preparing so much for launch with The Merna Annals. Did you notice the release dates up there? Three book launches. They’re all in the final polish mode. I also have three more (Grace and Ptolemy, Slices and Sheets, and Daughter Forever) that are about to go from revision stages to final polish. I’ve also been drafting The Merna Annals, Season 2, Book 6: Legacy of Lyric and Time alongside writing Unschooling Soul Writer, part one of two non-fiction books that are coming out for creatives going through a career change from a more traditional job and into a more creative business ownership. Well, then there is that third project I’ve been dabbling with called “Seth and Angelique” for now. It might be a mirror series to Vitaelangica, my urban fantasy romance explaining what happens to the human end of things during Season 2 to fill in how the humans start working with merna in harmony once more against one of their own. I have contemplated, though, using “Seth and Angelique” as a start to a new pen name. Not certain yet.

In the meantime, want a glimpse of Book 6 from Korrin’s point of view? We’re getting to see Lee do her Mom-mode in action, too! Their relationship has changed a great deal since the end of Book 5 about 333 years ago, to be fair.

Want more snippets in the future? Let me know! I would love to share more from future chapters. Who do you want one from? Korrin, Harumi, Snow, or Adira? Some new faces and names Some old ones. Enjoy! (Look for the goofy moments, that is even happening in those drafts. You know how I love party banter, lol.)

This month more than ever, please take care of you all. Many hugs!

Thank you for your support! I appreciate all you do and share.

All my hugs,

Jenna OM

~Your Soul Writer

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Marzia, the daughter of a powerful crime boss, grows up isolated from her own family and protected by a thick bubble of unawareness for all of her twenty-one years. One morning, driven by an insatiable curiosity, she takes an alternative route on her motorcycle and arrives at a place she has never visited before. Fate leads her to hear screams. She encounters Nila, who has been kidnapped, drugged, and held captive, thousands of miles away from home, awaiting to be sold by human traffickers.

The strong desire to discover the truth for one and to escape for the other causes their lives to intersect on the same winding road, paved with lies and ruthless cruelty. In just a few days, everything is turned upside down. The bubble bursts, and the trap widens. The worst atrocities are uncovered, and consciences silenced for convenience are painfully stirred, forced to confront a reality that can no longer be ignored.

Discover how the strength of love can shine even in the darkest corners, and how two lost souls can find the courage to face their shared destiny.

Love arrives not only to unite two people but also to provide that boost of courage when it falters in making the right choice.

It might appeal to fans of series like “The 100,” “Orange Is the New Black,” movies like “Bound,” and generally books with very strong female characters.

Content Warning: Spicy scenes between Female/Female and Female/Male - Violence - Murder—all found in Beats in the Darkness