Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jessica Warrick. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jessica, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

Hello! Thank you for having me!

Taking my book from an idea in my heart through to bringing it to life was an incredibly long journey. My book is a deep-dive into the darkest parts of the grief and trauma I have endured as a result of losing my infant son when he was just 4 months old. I was a young woman myself at the time, at merely 23 years old, so I had quite a bit of healing to do before I could bring any form of semblance to the idea of writing a book. Still, from very early on in my grief I knew his death wouldn’t be in vain.

In the years following his passing, as I grew further into my relationship with Christ, the idea of this book was placed in my heart. While I’ve always been a fond lover of words, the idea of writing a book was never my own. In hindsight, I’m glad it wasn’t my own idea; or else I’d likely have succumbed to the immense amount of imposter syndrome I felt along the way, haha. But I digress..

The idea of writing a book about the loss of my son, and my journey with grief and faith toward deep healing sounded easy enough on the surface, but for years I admittedly struggled with how to bring it to life. Yes, you read that right… years. I still had a lot of healing and growing that needed to be done on my own before I could begin to seriously consider helping others. But all through my path, I never lost sight of the hope that, one day, I’d be well enough to tell my story, and was even more hopeful that my story may help anyone else weather their own storms in life.

When the time came for me to begin writing my book, it started with a rough outline. I had to consider what the most important aspects of my journey were, so I could be sure to include them. Not only that, but I wanted to be certain to include ways that others had been helpful to me during my darkest hours, as well. I figured both aspects were great tools to someone grieving, and to anyone who loves someone who is grieving.

I spent a lot of time scouring my personal Facebook page, combing through the years prior to help jog my memory on some things I might have forgotten as the years passed by. It’s wild how much PTSD affects your memory. Fortunately I was able to piece together the majority of those years between my Facebook posts, photos, and the memories that linger even still.

I got everything out onto paper first, just so I’d have it all in one place. Then, once I had it all, I began organizing it into the timeline in which it had all occurred in my life. Telling of the path I walked, the agony and struggles I faced, as well as the things that proved to be helpful to me: whether they be my own actions or those of anyone else in my circle. As I did, my book slowly began to take form.

I spent November of 2019 engrossed in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) platform. For anyone who doesn’t know, NaNo is a non-profit organization whose focus is to help writers find their groove throughout the “idea to execution” phases. Each November writers from across the globe come together to work on their individual works, with a broad sense of community. You can set your own word-count goal, but personally I stuck with their baseline count of 50,000 words. Throughout the month, I managed to get my story written in a total of 50,505 words. I was so pleased to have everything in order, on paper, and that it had actually begun to resemble a book! Plus, I took great joy in the palindrome of my final word-count, too. Haha!

The huge benefit, in my opinion, of the NaNo platform is that they encourage participants to “write with literary abandon”; which, in short, means to write without editing. Their point for this is that the first draft is simply to get it all out onto paper. The punctuation, spelling, story-arcs, or anything in between don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be done. Being somewhat of a perfectionist myself, this is a concept I never would have dreamt up on my own. Fortunately, NaNo was there to help nudge me forward in all the ways I never knew I needed.

So, at the end of the month I had an extremely rough draft of a book I had spent years mustering up the courage and wherewithal to write… and it felt so dang good. But that wasn’t the end of the road; there was still a lot of work ahead of me. Then, in 2020, when the pandemic swept across the globe I found myself battling depression pretty heavily and decided, due to the content of my book and how heavy it is, that it was best to take some time away from it to nurse myself through the screwed up “new normal” we were all enduring in isolation.

It wasn’t until April of 2021 when the NaNo organization emailed me about their newest call to action: “NaNoFinMo”. If you recall, NaNoWriMo was all about writing my book. This, though? This was National Novel Finishing Month. It was just the fire I needed under my feet to get me up and moving again, in terms of my book. I immediately resolved to accept (and complete) the challenge laid out by NaNoFinMo, and come April 1st 2021, I was elbows-deep into the process of fine-tuning my manuscript with the aim of having a finished, polished draft at the end of the month. Fast forward 30 days and I’d done it! Again, thanks to NaNo, I had made incredible progress on my book! It felt incredible.

From there I connected with a Facebook group “Writers Helping Writers” wherein I found my beta reader, editor, cover designer, formatter and, most importantly – in the end- a great new friend. Between my editor and my newest dear friend R.W. Harrison, author, I was set up for tremendous success. Their expertise and guidance took me from what I thought was my best, final product to a final manuscript that was far better than what I had created on my own.

After a long, grueling editing process, Robert (R.W. Harrison) helped me publish my book on Amazon through their Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Shortly thereafter I finally held a physical, bound copy of my book that had been many, many years in the making. Words fail to describe the emotion that overtook me as I unpackaged the first copy of my book, but – in short- I began to believe that maybe, just maybe, my son’s life and death weren’t in vain, after all.

Jessica, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been an avid lover of words since I was in high school, when I began to learn just how beautiful they can be. Over the years I’d had many people suggest to me that I should pursue writing; but it wasn’t until early in adulthood that I knew what I wanted to use my voice for. I’ve lived most of my life challenged by a handful of mental health illnesses (depression and bipolar), and then at 23 I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) following the sudden, unexpected death of my one and only infant son, Gunnar.

Throughout my journey with grief, desperately seeking healing, I learned that 1-in-4 women will experience the loss of a child, and that nearly 1-in-5 U.S. adults live with a mental illness. These staggering statistics, coupled with my first-hand experiences and my desire for others to know they are seen, valued, loved, and not alone, I began to pursue my book, Despite the Odds: a Memoir of Grief, Faith, and Healing.

In addition to having authored this published work, I own and operate an Instagram and Facebook account wherein I share uplifting quotes and snippets of my personal experiences to really drive home the point that no one out there is truly alone, and to shed light on the hardships any of us might endure as we navigate this life and the human experience of it all.

My deepest passions are bringing awareness to the reality of mental illnesses, and advocating for healthy means of mental wellness. I’m madly in love with humans, especially the ones who may label themselves as broken, outcast, misunderstood, or anything else of that sort. I believe I have a light of love to share with them, to help them see and understand exactly what I mentioned before; that they are seen, valued, loved, and not at all alone.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There absolutely is! My aim is to help others however I can. I have high hopes that by sharing my own struggles and hardships, and the ways I’ve come up over the years despite all my downfalls, that I’ll be able to resonate with others who are struggling. Most notably, bereaved parents. Though, having lived a life with mental illnesses far prior to the loss of my son, I feel connected to people who are hurting- regardless of the cause. I want to help people feel heard and validated, and I would love nothing more than to help them heal. So, in all my writing endeavors, that is my aim, my goal, and my mission.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect, for me, is when others reach out to let me know that my work has resonated with them. When my writing has the ability to speak to someone in a way they find helpful, my heart knows joy. One of the coolest happenings of this was when a friend of mine chose to have my words tattooed on her as a constant reminder of all she’s overcome and all the beautiful opportunities the future holds. Knowing my word is impacting people’s hearts the way I intend it to is unparalleled. It’s the fuel to my fire; the breath in my lungs. It’s beyond rewarding; it’s lifesaving.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/jessicawarrick.author
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jessicawarrick.author
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/jessicawarrick.author
• Other: Amazon listing for my book, Despite the Odds: a Memoir of Grief, Faith, and Healing. https://a.co/d/4qqKUjP

Image Credits
Alexandra Paris dba Grandview Photography