Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaime Townzen.
Hi Jaime, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
After seven years as a stay-home-mom, I was finally planning to return to my career and personal ambitions in the fall of 2014. But the universe had other plans. Between October 2014 and January 2020, our family lost 8 loved ones, including my father-in-law, my biological father, my stepfather, and my stepsister, who died at age 50 from ALS. Many of those deaths followed lengthy hospitalizations and long-term hospice care, where I did everything I could to help. And three widowed mothers meant more demands on my husband and I ensuring they were safely looked after as well. Then the pandemic hit. After so many years spent caring for others, and the onslaught of grief, stress and fear, my body was a constant hum of anxiety. In July 2020, in an attempt to find a joyful activity during lockdowns, I took up watercolor. The creative process of painting slowed my breath and eased my stress like no other activity could. By the end of 2020, I was painting every day. My brain was positively stimulated in ways it hadn’t been in more than a decade, and I craved more learning and creative outlet, so I enrolled in an online masters of writing program. Within 15 months I’d finished my degree, and written the first 10,000 words of a novel. By January 2023, the rough draft of my novel was complete. After more than a year of revisions, and another year determining the best publication path, in January 2025 my debut novel, Absorbed, was published. I also launched my website in 2024, and since then I’ve been sharing my artwork and selling it along with publishing Absorbed.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a very challenging experience trying to write, revise, publish and market my debut novel, plus paint and sell my artwork, while parenting two teenage girls, and caring for all three of our aging mothers. One major struggle came in 2021 when my mother was scammed out of all of her retirement savings, and I was put in charge of her finances. Finding ways to make every penny last as long as possible was the goal the past four years. We are currently trying to sell the home she has lived in for 26 years so she will have money to live off of for the rest of her life. The next significant hurdle came when my mother-in-law had a major stroke in October 2024, which required my husband to spend significant time in Northern California caring for her until her death this past January. We just closed escrow on the sale of her house as well. All of this has been while our oldest daughter was applying to colleges, and our youngest daughter plays basketball year-round and was learning to drive. Finding time to prioritize my personal goals for my art and publishing is very hard when each of these other demands is so pressing, and there is no one to step in and help us because all of our family has suffered so much loss in the last decade.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a native Southern Californian and emphasize my love for this place in all my art and writing. My watercolors primarily focus on bright, colorful California beach scenes, palm trees and tropical flowers. My novel is set in Southern California in 1996, and highlights aspects of the Inland Empire and Orange County as they relate to a teenage girl’s coming-of-age story.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way and Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act both helped me find habits and approaches to my art and writing that opened my mind and increased my capacity for creative flow. Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman regularly introduces me to experts and creatives with transformational stories and new perspectives that broaden my mind and encourage my ongoing healing and growth as a person. And Write Minded with Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner familiarizes me with a variety of authors beyond the big five publishers’ lists, while offering inspiration for writing as well as insider information on the publishing industry.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://JaimeTownzen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimegetscreative/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaime.townzen/
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/cMu9YdvO914?si=NdXlpbI6X_XlVUmW
Image Credits
Karen Miller
Sari Singerman
Jacqueline Asbury
Frugal Frigate Bookstore
