a year in writing
a short letter about slow progress
Happy New Year!
It’s a time of reflection, making goals, and getting sick so you don’t have energy to work on anything for a few days. But now I’m back!
While it is sometimes difficult to see everyone’s year-end wrap-up posts and annual highlight reels, I also find it kind of fun and I definitely love doing it myself. I love going through my photos, journals, notebooks and writings from the year and remembering everything I forgot happened.
Before I hauled out all my notebooks and photos, my feeling about 2024 was that it was slow, as far as writing progress goes, and that I didn’t really do much, but I felt mentally stable and like I had space to breathe and enjoy life.
looking back
After I went through all my paraphernalia from the past year, I realized I’d accomplished more than I had initially thought.
This was the year I had my highest-paying submission published.
The year I travelled for a month around Turkiye and Iraq to meet my partner’s family for the first time, journaling every day along the way.
The year I participated in the Indie Author Spring Spectacular for the first time and had the largest spike in book sales since my release month.
The year I celebrated the one-year anniversary of this is a love story’s publication with a whole promo plan and celebratory dinner with friends.
The year I did a book swap with author Lauren White, author of Firefly Nights and found an author kindred spirit.
The year I finished the third draft of my friendship love story novel, and sent it out to beta readers.
The year I learned about small press publishing and had a sneak peek into the querying author life with Write or Die magazine workshops (and, accomplished my goal of taking a writing workshop this year).
It’s so easy to focus on the negative; the things I didn’t do or the accolades I didn’t get, so it’s always good to go back and get a reminder.
I encourage you to go back and reflect on your past year if you haven’t yet: go through all your photos, notebooks, journals, social media posts and see what you did, smile at the mundane and beautiful and hard moments you had.
looking forward
Looking back at my newsletters from the past year, there sure is a lot of existential artist hand-wringing. I’m constantly asking myself, am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things at the right time? I think if I could talk to my past-year self now, I would say, hey, everything’s slow, but you’re still moving in the right direction. Just be patient, you’ll get there. Sure it didn’t happen fast, but I finished my draft! I took a workshop! I was a writer!
And 2025 includes… more writing! Who knew?
2025 goals
I’ve received an email full of feedback on my friendship love story novel only a few days ago, and am working up the courage to look at it. Once I do, I’ll be diving deep into another revision on that, preparing it for submission. If you want to hear more about my writing/revision process, leave a comment! My goal right now is to have that revision done by summer, because…
I’m getting married this summer! And my fiancé and I are hosting his mom this summer for the wedding and showing her around Canada for the first time. I’m not sure what kind of writing I’ll be able to fit in this summer with all that craziness. If you’re a married writer, what are your suggestions for writing/journaling to do during this stage of life?
My only other writing goal for this year is to connect with people, as usual, in whatever way that looks like, but usually looks like writing/working together on separate projects.
Tell me your new year’s reflections and goals!
Happy January
xo,
Alyssa