To say that 2016 was the worst year of my life would be an understatement. For those that don’t know, I lost my father a few days after completing Nano.

It should have been a happy time for me, not only had I completed Nano in three days (my personal best), but it was my first time delving into Original Fiction.

Losing my dad completely destroyed me. My father was my everything, from raising me alone, to being my best friend in the whole world. I had never been closer to anyone as I was to him, and it hit me hard.

My father was the person who got me into Harry Potter (It’s why I have his name as the wand part of my Deathly Hallows tattoo. Because he is the strongest person I know). I remember it well, I was around 13/14, and I had a week off from school because I was extremely ill. My dad needed to go shopping, but didn’t want to leave me alone, so he took me with him. We went down the book aisle of the supermarket, and I saw the box set of the first four books on the shelf. My dad brought them for me because he thought that it might cheer me up, and I became hooked on them from the first book.

Most of my Harry Potter memories come from my dad. He would listen to the audio books on his computer pretty much every day – he must have listened to them millions of times – he would watch the films all the time. He would make sure that we went as a family to see the films as soon as they came out. He would buy me each new book at the midnight release. He was as much of a fan as I was, to be honest.

It’s why I told him about my fan fiction as soon as I started writing it. I wouldn’t let him read any of it; because I was too embarrassed at the beginning, but he would be there ready to give me ideas if I was stuck, and offer help if I needed it. He was so proud of my writing, and would encourage it all the time. He was my muse.

He loved Nano, and would brag to anyone who would listen about my word count. He would tell everyone he knew that I was a writer. He would tell people about how I was going to be an author one day, and that I wrote books online. Every Nano, we had a few traditions that we followed every year. As soon as I was done planning, I would get a Chinese for dinner. He would buy me my Nano stash so that I had energy when I was writing, he would be on hand to make me a hot chocolate as encouragement. Whenever I got writer's block he would take me for a drive along the seafront, and not care if I listened to my iPod as we drove... the shock and admiration from him whenever I told him my word count, and how quickly it increased was what kept me writing so much.

I have never seen him prouder than he was when I completed it in three days, and I am so glad that he was able to see me achieve that.

He was such a massive part of my writing, and I believe that’s why I wasn’t able to write for such a long time. When he left, I lost my muse; I lost my reason for writing.

I had never felt as alone as I had in the last 14 months. Not only did I lose my dad, I realised how little my siblings and mother seemed to care about me (I won’t get into that at all, it’s much too long). I ended my relationship of twelve years, because he kept telling me to basically get over my dad’s death because he didn’t want to deal with it (It had been two weeks when he first said this) and that I was being too dramatic by crying at my dad’s funeral. He also told me that I had to sell all of my dad’s things, and get rid of his cat. Yeah, he was kicked to the kerb, and my cat is my baby, I would choose that cat each time!

I was left to deal with absolutely everything alone, and it was hard because I always had my dad there to guide me, and I ended up with no one. I know that I should have come on here, you have all been so supportive and loving, and I love you all. But, I was in such a dark place. A horrible, awful, dark place. I had never felt such pain and loneliness and did so many stupid things in my attempt to try to cope with it all. I hid myself away; I took myself away from everything because I didn’t have the energy to be myself. I didn’t want to be alive, and I didn’t want to drag anyone else down with me.

I’m no longer in that bad place, and that is thankfully because of one of my siblings (I have five), my friends, and my new boyfriend. They have made me want to stay alive; they have made me see that my dad is always with me. My new boyfriend – you’ve probably seen me gushing about him on twitter/instagram/snapchat all the time – has made me want to write again. He wants to talk about my dad all the time, he wants to make sure that he encourages me to write, because he says that it’s what my dad loved, and that I should continue it. He makes me want to be me again, and to stay alive, and I can never thank him enough. He saved me from a downhill spiral.

Because of his encouragement, I wrote four new chapters.

There wasn’t much point to this blog, except that I felt like I needed to write it so that you all knew where I had gone. I disappeared, and I’m sorry. I feel like I’m ready to come back though, and I’m going to try and be more involved because being around you all makes me so happy.

Thank you for letting me ramble, and rant, I really appreciate it (and I hope you can forgive all of the punctuation and grammar mistakes. I'm a little rusty ) . I hope to talk to you all more!