Hey everyone! Here we are at the end of a year again for another year in reflection post. I am excited to say that I have some interesting updates and had a great year for writing. Don’t forget to stick around to the end of the post for the announcement of next year’s first series and posting schedule along with some information on how the scheduling will work. So, without further ado…
2023: A Year in Reflection
Now that we’ve finally come to the end of the year, I would like to write one final post as a reflection on all of the writing I have done or not done. It’s less of a Resolution post (as I don’t really want to make goals for writing yet) but more of a reflection on what I did well in regard to writing and major life changes this year.
This Blog
I think I did rather well this year on the blog even including all of the major life changes that occurred for me. Even with the stress of my final semester of university, moving away from my friends and University, finding a new job, and all the stress related to those things I am still proud that I was able to keep up with my regular posting schedule and keep up to date on my blog posts.
Every time that I felt like I was running out of series ideas I would think of something new, and I would find myself looking forward to writing my next post which is certainly an improvement from recent years where I was excited about the series but not about writing for it.
Nanowrimo
This year I successfully completed Nanowrimo. It’s been a while since I wrote the full 50,000 words in November – last year I only wrote 25,000 words which was my goal but is not really a full Nanowrimo completion. I am proud to say that this year I wrote the full 50,000 even if some days I wrote 5 words and others I wrote 6,000. I also was one of the MLs for my region for the first time this year and although sometimes it was quite challenging it was nice to have something to do during Nanowrimo rather than just write.
Another new thing happened to me with Nanowrimo – this is the first book that I have written 50,000 words for that isn’t even close to being all the words for the story. With my previous novels 50,000 words was stretching it and I was often just coming up with content to fill the page but in this book, I was writing for the sake of the story and didn’t even reach halfway in the story before reaching 50,000 words.
Writing in General
Even without Nanowrimo I have slowly begun to gain back my spark and excitement for writing this year. For several years I was so overwhelmed starting with my first year of university several years ago and including working abroad, attending University during COVID, and finally graduating University earlier this year, that I couldn’t even write with all the stress I was under. With my graduation from university and finding a job I now feel like I have the emotional space as well as the time to spend writing and enjoying it once again.
On top of the novel I started for Nanowrimo that I will continue into this coming year, I was able to write several short stories just for fun to re-find my enjoyment of writing. I have found that writing is back to being fun and not a stressful task I have to do at certain times.
Life Changes
The largest life changes this year so far, I would say, was graduating from university. It still doesn’t quite feel real. I also have submitted an application to apply for Graduate school at another university. Right now, that I am no longer in school I am momentarily enjoying working my job teaching. I have moved into a new room and am continuing to face life day by day and taking time to enjoy writing, reading, and my other hobbies. I think that despite all the stress of life changes in this last year I am doing okay and am excited to see what 2024 will bring.
That’s it for this last post of the year. This is also the last post before a new series and so we have a new announcement.
FIRST SERIES OF 2024 ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
Starting on January 6th we will start a new series titled Writer Self Care. During my summer talking to my other writing friends who are in university and during my time as an ML in my region I have heard a lot of writers talking about how difficult it is to find time or ways to do self-care that don’t take away from writing or daily life and don’t make a person feel guilty for taking time for themselves. So, for this new series I want to discuss self-care for writers since it’s something that I also struggled with for a long time and probably will struggle with in new ways in the future.
Posts will remain on Saturdays but might change later in the year. Stick around for that.
I am super excited for the new year and hope you are also just as excited. I hope to see you all back here again on January 6th. Excited for writing, for hobbies, and for enjoying life. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the links below. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next year!
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