It’s been seven years since I retired from my full-time job in nursing and my life is nothing like what I thought it would be by now. Why do I bring that up now? Because in reviewing my year’s worth of efforts, I have to take several things into account that happened in those past seven years.
2017 through 2020
In 2017 worked full time—rather, I tried to work full time. I spent a lot of time that year helping my late husband at doctor’s appointments, during hospitalizations, and at rehab centers. I worked on my novel, My Soul to Keep, in the quiet moments. By the end of the year, it was obvious I couldn’t keep up with everything, so I retired early. I bought myself a puppy, Neo, to celebrate my retirement.
The next three years were much the same. Though I finished My Soul to Keep and publish it in August 2018 and write and publish Fellowship in 2019. I started If I Should Die, hoping I could also finish it within a year.
2021 The Year Time Stopped
My husband died from his medical conditions made worse by a fall in February 2021. I pushed through and finished and published If I Should Die in 2022. And I started working on And When I Wake.
A combination of grief, my health issues, and various safety and esthetic issues with the house overtook me. I kept working, sporadically producing blog posts, and developing the third book in the trilogy. But nothing went smoothly.
2024 The Year of Trying New Things
Honestly, I’m not sure I’m out of the fog of grief yet. One sign that the fog is less than it was is that I have tried a lot of new things and have a lot of new things to celebrate.
It has taken a lot of backing up and restarting this year to get to clear on where the novel is now and where I want it to go. But the point is, I can see it now. That’s worth celebrating!
Authorpreneurship
I’ve learned a ton about the business side of being an independent author.
Trying out new social media sites (new to me anyway) has been a kind of half-hearted adventure, but I’m getting the hang of it.
Experiments with marketing included yielded varying success. The offer of a free copy of My Soul to Keep through Book Barbarian had an amazing response. I will try that again in the future.
Appearances
Bold Journey, an online magazine, interviewed me. Read the interview now.
It was a lot of fun to take part in the reading and book festival at a local coffee shop / bookstore.
Speaking of fun, my grandson’s preschool invited me to read a children’s book aloud to his class. Children that age are so eager to learn and to express themselves that I had a blast.
Friends & Family
I drove myself to Georgia and visited with my brother and his family for a week. It’s been years since I could do that. The trip was 99% uneventful (a ten-minute deluge of rain is barely worth mentioning.) I’m glad I went. The visit was much needed, on all sides, I think.
Hosting Thanksgiving dinner again was delightful. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but I loved being able to show off my freshly redecorated home and to have family around the table again.
Friends both near and far have been generous in sharing time with me. I cherish every minute of chatting, every phone call, video call, and visit.
Meeting new online writer friends was another highlight of my year.
The House
This year, I did a lot of creative problem solving in order to renovate and update my home. I finally finished the renovations phase of restoring my house in early November. (Strike up the band AND the chorus!)
Oh, and I can’t forget what a joy it is to sit in my beautiful living room with my dogs enjoying our Christmas decorations.
And this year I celebrated good health all year long!
Best Of The Blog
I am passionate about storytelling and empowering others to engage in creativity, self-discovery, and living authentically, regardless of gender, age, race, ability, or religion. Every Monday there’s a new post published. My posts include brief biographies of women whose contributions have been little know until now, the topics of creativity, self-discovery and improvement, reading, and how to write fiction.
These are the top five best received blog posts of 2024.
- First Lines to start your SF Adventure
- The Indispensable NEW Companion to the Emotion Thesaurus
- Tantalizing First Lines from Science Fiction for Children
- Where You Can Find Inspiration
- The Frame of a Story: The Forces of Antagonism, Part One
Best Of The Newsletter
In 2024, I sent 11 newsletters to the Reading Rebels, the best readers’ group in all of authordom! These were the top three subject lines they responded to:
- “It takes a Special Bravery to Trust Your Gut Instinct,”
- “T’was the night before Thanksgiving and…Like a sprinting reindeer, it’s almost the end of the year!”
- “Did you know you’re feeding two? We all have two bodies and we need to care for both.”
You can be part of Reading Rebels, too! You’ll get all my weekly blog posts plus my monthly newsletter delivered to your inbox. Reading Rebels get insider news, occasional special features, and will be among those I invite to be the first to read my next book. Sign up today!
Looking Forward to 2025
Oh, the plans that I have! I will not spill it all today. I’ve learned my lesson and don’t want to overestimate what I can deliver. But Reading Rebels will hear more about it and, if things go well, they’ll get some special surprises.
Coming soon, I’ll share a cover reveal for And When I Wake, the third book in the Fellowship Dystopia and will follow that with a few “background” information posts before it’s published.
It’ll be an exciting year here in Reading Rebel Land. I hope you’ll join us.
For now, let me wish all of you a very happy, safe, and prosperous New Year!
Image Credits
Featured image by Susana Cipriano from Pixabay
Second image by MasterTux from Pixabay
Third image, photograph by Ana Meserole
Fourth image, photograph by Lynette M. Burrows
Final image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Please do not copy the photographs without permission.
Happy new year!!!
Thank you, Lisa. Happy New Year, to you!