Ah, December has rolled back around once again. The close of
another year. The precipice of beginning a new one. This can be an overwhelming
and exhausting time of year for many people, but it can also be a exciting one.
Especially for those of us who anticipate cracking open a new planner to start
knocking out task list items and reaching our goals like the amazing rock stars
we are!
What about you? Do you like to use planners and calendars to
organize your chaotic life? I find them invaluable. I have both anxiety and
OCD, and possibly ADHD, so regularly using a good planner helps me keep on
target and feel a huge sense of accomplishment.
Another thing I did this weekend in anticipation of
preparing for the new year was to move my office out of our living room and
back into the spare room. Why did I move out to begin with? Allow me a moment
of vulnerability. The office that I just returned to was one that I prepared in
great excitement after I scored my book deal with Penguin under their Ace Books
imprint back in 2008. My husband and I painted the room my two favorite colors
and decorated it with trim and all the fixings. I set up my new desk and posed
for pictures of my hard-won book contract. I was really on cloud nine then.
Fast forward a few years, with the cancellation of my
traditionally published Shades of Fury series and my grief over the loss of five
close family members in five years, and that room became more of a painful
reminder. So in order to improve my mental health, I moved out into the living
room where I could focus on digging myself out of the hole of grief and
depression.
But even the deepest of darkness doesn’t last forever. I did
the right thing by focusing on my mental health for the next few years. I got
myself back into a good headspace, slowly started writing again, and fell in
with this awesome collection of writers here in the Urban Fantasy Fiends group.
Slowly my confidence returned, and I got my publishing career back on track. Although
I do still have a great literary agent and hope to traditionally publish more
things in the future, for now I am focused on my indie career.
This brings me full circle back to loving this time of year.
I set myself some lofty goals for 2019. I re-released my first indie-published
book, Reborn in Fire from my Untamed Elements series, and indie-published two
more books in that series. I published the first two books in my Eternal
Academy series, and I’m hoping to publish the fourth and final book in that
first Untamed Elements quartet this month. When I stop to think about that, I’m
so proud of myself. After a few years of publishing nothing, I will have put out
six books by the end of this year!
Next year I have even higher goals that I hope to
accomplish. Whether I actually attain them all doesn’t even matter. It’s
amazing just to be feeling productive and hopeful again. When you’re in a good
headspace, it’s better to reach for the stars and fall short then to
underestimate yourself and play it too safe.
And if you’re not in such a great space? It is perfectly
okay to take time for yourself. So whichever camp you fall into this December,
I wish you nothing but the best. Enjoy the rest of this year and hopefully you
will be reaching for the stars with me come January!
No comments:
Post a Comment