2018 in Review

First, the fun part: Round Midnight is currently free. Yes, free! So if you haven’t read this duet of retro Christmas/New Year’s Eve romances, now’s the time. You can get it at Amazon, iBooks, B&N, Google Play, and Kobo.

Also, Star Dust won’t be free much longer, so click fast if you don’t have the awakening divorcee and the playboy astronaut next door.

Now onto the disappointments!

2018 was the worst writing year I’ve had since 2011. I barely wrote any new words, I spent most of the year staring at my manuscripts while dread galloped around my mind, and I felt defeated by my desire to be a writer in a way that I haven’t basically ever.

I say this not so people will sweep in to buck me up, but because I know–really, truly, intimately know–how reading people’s year in review posts can lead one (by which I mean me) to feel like everyone else on earth rushed forward toward their dreams, while one (again, I’m talking about me) stayed in place or regressed.

If this sounds familiar, solidarity. Because it’s been a year.

I’m so fiercely proud of the people I know who got amazing work done in the face of a current events landscape that liquified my brain and crushed my spirit at times. And I hope that some day soon, I’ll manage to get myself back on track…if only because I’d like to write a triumphant year in review post next year. Just for variety’s sake.

Here are the few things I managed to do in spite of everything.

• Genevieve and I edited and released Free Fall.
• Gen and I wrote most of a Fly Me to the Moon novella, and we also brainstormed/outlined Red Shift and began drafting it.
• After a few false starts, I wrote “Run” for Rogue Hearts.
• I collected my three Rogue stories and released them as Dispatches, a freebie perk for my mailing list subscribers. (Sign up if you don’t have it!)
• All told, I wrote about 35K and read 80 new-to-me books.

There were some lovely moments, such as the largely positive response to Free Fall, but mostly, it felt like an elaborate game of chess against myself–one that, somehow, I still managed to lose.

For 2019, my goal is to reclaim my mental health, to set micro goals for myself (200 words a day) in order to re-establish a daily writing habit, to only write what I want, and to not think about the market. If it’s not about renewal or health, I’m letting it go.

So if your 2018 was less than amazing in terms of creativity, you have all my sympathy and concurrence. I hope we both kick ass in the coming year, and I’m praying for peace, joy, and justice for the world.

(I’ve been writing some version of this post for as long as I’ve been blogging. You can read about my 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013 respectively.)