A New Year Awaits

Photo by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you all enjoyed a restful and/or fun break from your busy routines. It was a happy day at our house, and I’m so relieved that the weather cooperated so my family could be here. The icicles melted and the snow is nearly gone, however, certain areas of the Lower Mainland are now in flood watch.

For the writers among you, did you use whatever down time you had to catch up on writing, editing, or reading? I have much of this week, though other activities will prevail over the next three days.

Are you excited about the arrival of 2023? Do you have some special plans or goals? As most of you know, we’re moving some time in the spring, so the only firm writing goal right now is to finally recruit beta readers for my urban fantasy novel. My current draft is focused on reducing the word count. So far, I’ve gone from 122,000 words to 108,000 without about 100 pages left to edit. With luck, this round will be done by the end of January.

Meanwhile, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Year-End Reflection

With 2018 soon arriving, it’s time to reflect on this year, and to consider what I learned and to focus on what still needs to be learned, finished or accomplished.

The three major goals I set for myself twelve months ago were achieved, but only due to hard work, patience, and perseverance. Two of the three goals involved book publishing. There were timing obstacles, which meant that the books were released only one month apart. Promotion ventures were kind of crazy and not as fully developed as I would have liked. I’ll try to account for timing glitches when I next publish a book!

For various reasons, I also had to update legal documentation, starting with a legal name change (a minor change the provincial government required). I won’t go into details, but it took many hours, more than a few bucks, and visits to the local police, a notary, and Service BC offices, twice! Lesson learned: make sure I always fill out government forms using my full name or it’ll come back to haunt me years later. I’m never changing my name again.

Smaller goals were achieved and our family has started a new one for 2018. We’re in the process of moving my mother into an assisted living environment, hopefully in the spring. This coming year will focus on her needs, although I’ll still be writing. Writing has always kept me grounded through difficult times and changes. I’m optimistic that everything will work out just fine.

Meanwhile, my husband and I are taking a trip in late February to Mexico—travel is a rare occurrence for us—to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary. My son will also graduate from university, so I’m thinking that there are plenty of good things to look forward to.

Meanwhile, I wish you all a very happy 2018!