I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. Sure, I think about what I’m going to change in a new year, and sometimes, I even make those changes. But overall, I don’t vow to do anything, because I know that’s probably the quickest way for me not to do it.
I do think about what changes I can make, and how I will make them, and I make plans. Lists.
What’s on my list for 2022?
More writing.
I lost my mojo, for a while. I went through a lot of huge life changes, which sapped my creative strength. In 2020, I thought I’d write so much more than I did, because of course being at home all the time was going to give me “more time” to write. Right? Well, that didn’t happen. Turns out a low-grade, everpresent anxiety about the world ending kind of made it hard for me to write. Every word was a torture.
Then came 2021. And…after so many years of change and upheaval and being at my lowest and then finding my way back to myself again, I wrote. I wrote a lot. I wrote almost as much as I’d been able to write at my peak, when I could easily finish four 100k books, plus some novellas and short stories, in a year’s time. I wrote four novels in 2021, plus some various other shorter pieces. And I liked what I wrote. I’m proud of what I wrote.
So, here we are in 2022, and I’ve got books on my plate, on that list I made, and I’ve got big plans. I’m working on revising a book right now that I wrote on a whim last August — A WHIM! A bonus book, if you will, that I tackled between two projects, one of which had a deadline (that I thought I woudln’t make but I DID), and now I’m revising that book and it’s a pretty good one. It’ll be my first contemporary sexy women’s fiction release in a long, long time, and I’m really excited about that.
Beyond that, I have plans to revisit an older project and get that back out in the world. I’ve got two thrillers that I started and haven’t finished, but I think I just might. I’ve got a sapphic gothic romance set in the 40s that I’ll be tackling (super excited!) and a full-length horror is percolating in my brain. I’ve got a story coming out in an Ohio-themed horror anthology. I’ve got other short stories simmering.
It’s January.
Let’s go.