2024 sure was something, wasn't it?
Like any year, 2024 had its ups and downs. But somehow, some of the downs felt lower.
I don't want to dwell on the negatives, impossible as it may seem, and I'm trying to stay optimistic as 2025 swiftly approaches. And that starts with celebrating the things that did go right in 2024. Things may not have gone according to plan, but there are certainly things to celebrate.
This year, my writing got a bit waylaid, but I was able to make some progress with A Tided Love (and Bound to the Heart, unexpectedly).
The blog saw its fair share of change. I redesigned it over the summer and I'm so pleased with the results—even if there's still some fine-tuning to be done here and there. These changes coincided with my being approved for Google AdSense, which means I'm able to earn a tiny bit of ad revenue, which is fantastic! I also finally got my newsletter up and running after putting it off for way longer than I should have.
I still call myself an internet introvert, but I've made gradual steps to come out of my shell and interact with the online writing community more often. I've connected with some great folks and even found a new virtual writing group that has already helped me grow so much as a writer since we started our bi-weekly meetings.
Outside of writing, I've made significant strides health-wise. For those who may not know, I had a rough bout of Long Covid that made 2023 a not-fun year, but many of my symptoms have subsided over the course of 2024. I ended up getting Covid a second time and while I was down for the count for a good while, it wasn't nearly as long or as bad as the first time around (much to my relief!).
In March, I was hired as a Game Master for a local escape room and while I knew it would be fun, I didn't know it would be such a dream job. There's a bit of storytelling and theatricality at play that caters to my natural creativity as a writer (while also allowing me to be my naturally sarcastic self depending on the dynamic and vibe of the players, in a way that most customer-facing jobs don't). Sure, my job boils down to locking people in a room just to see if they can manage to find their way out in an hour, but it feels like it was made for me. And when I call my coworkers the "work fam," I mean it because we're so tight-knit in a way that I haven't experienced in any other workplace; they're also incredibly supportive of my writerly goals.
2024 was busy and while I wasn't able to check off everything on my to-do list as readily as I'd hoped, there was still plenty that got done.
A Tided Love
At the top of the year, A Tided Love was my top writing priority, and my goal was to finish the first draft by the end of the summer.
That didn't pan out, exactly.
Part of that has to do with my new work schedule. The escape room I work at is open all year, but we have extended hours of operation in the summer, which means more hours for us GMs (which I don't mind whatsoever).
That shift in my available free time meant finishing the first draft of a novel by the end of the summer wasn't as likely for me. But that we're in the off-season, I'm able to do a little more writing each week (and I expect I'll be able to plan ahead more effectively for summer 2025)
The trajectory of A Tided Love also shifted after getting some excellent feedback from my writing group. I ended up reworking so much of the original plotline and more or less started over from scratch.
Even though it felt like I was taking a few dozen steps back, it was necessary to move forward. The story feels so much stronger now and though I'm still in the early stages of this new first draft, I like where it's headed.
Bound To The Heart
In my January post, I said I would wait until the first draft of A Tided Love was complete before resuming work on Bound to the Heart, a WIP I've been editing in circles on and off for the past few years.
And while that mostly held true, there was a brief period of 2024 I spent with Bound to the Heart.
Remember how I said my coworkers are so supportive of my writing? Well, this summer three of them bullied* me into letting them read what I called a "proof of concept" draft of Bound to the Heart, as they wanted to read something I'd written and that WIP was the nearest to done (but still a long ways off).
*their word choice, not mine.
I ended up speed-reading through the most recent draft and doing my best to polish it up before handing off the flash drive, which was a great experience overall despite all of the cringing that came with it.
While I didn't make any outstanding progress with Bound to the Heart in 2024, it was a great reminder of the progress I've made as a writer.
The Blog
Between the redesign, AdSense approval, and at last getting the newsletter up and running after delaying it for far too long, it's been quite the year for the blog.
Staying ahead on blog posts has remained a constant basically since Day One in 2018. I decided to take a semi-hiatus over the summer to accommodate my new day job's schedule and focus on my fiction projects, but there weren't too many glitches otherwise.
That is, until the THAT statement from NaNoWriMo HQ. National Novel Writing Month has been a favorite challenge of writers every November, during which participants take on the intimidating goal of writing 50,000 words in thirty days. There was a bit of controversy during the 2023 challenge that was already bleeding into 2024, but the organization's statement regarding the use of AI in writing sparked understandable outrage and prompted many longtime and would-be participants to bow out going forward.
I hadn't decided whether or not I was going to attempt NaNoWriMo in 2024 at that time, but ultimately chose not to, instead participating in Better Novel Writing Month (aka BeNoWriMo).
But I digress.
This proved to be one of those times that planning ahead actually bit me in the ass. I'd prepped a handful of NaNoWriMo-friendly blog posts for late October going into November that I ended up cutting or reworking due to the ongoing circumstances. On the one hand, having a few Back Pocket Posts to slip into those gaps made things easier, but it still created a little chaos on my side of the screen.
Nevertheless, we persist. I was able to write up some new content, which included some spontaneous posts that ended up being among my favorites for the year. Being a writer means being able to roll with the punches and plot twists after all!
Climbing Out Of The Reading Slump
One thing I mentioned my 2024 goals post was that I'd been in a deep reading slump and hoped to crawl out of it this year, but I didn't go into much detail about the cause for the slump.
Among the worst of my Long Covid symptoms was the brain fog. I had such a difficult time remembering things and paying attention that reading became frustrating which, as a writer, was heartbreaking. I'd felt like I lost a major part of myself.
I'm not a doctor, so take this with a grain of salt, but Long Covid seems to thrive on the underlying issues and heighten them, which could be why my newly diagnosed ADHD was easily masked and flew under the radar until Covid messed with my nervous system.
For a while, I was only able to read eBooks because they were easier for my brain to focus on—side note, I highly recommend getting a matte screen protector to cut down on the glare of your screen if you're like me and reading on a run-of-the-mill tablet and not a Kindle or similar device. Seeing a constant reflection of yourself as you're reading can be distracting.
It was only towards the fall that I was regularly reading paperbacks again. I'm still a slower reader than I used to be, but I'm having an easier time following the plot and recalling events of past chapters.
Did I read my goal of fifteen books this year? Nope! But what I did read, I enjoyed.
My favorite read of the year was hands-down The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K. J. Charles. So, so good. ❤️
Reconnecting With My Writing
Something that wasn't on the original goals list but became a nonnegotiable objective was reconnecting with my writing.
Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't say I lost my love for writing, but rather, I struggled to work on my WIPs consistently for so many reasons. The shift in day job schedule. Lingering medical stuff. Apart from the blog, it felt like I was stuck. Things were happening, but it didn't feel like my writing was going anywhere.
Towards the end of October, I went on a brief trip up to Maine, and that time away from everything helped recenter me as a writer. Since then, it's been gradual, but steady, and that steadiness is what matters in the long run.
I feel like everybody says this every year, but 2024 wasn't exactly what I expected. And in some ways, that's not a bad thing.
As we wrap-up this year and enter the next, I am grateful for all of the exciting changes that have come my way and I'm intending to carry that sentiment into 2025.
Happy New Year, Readers. May this next chapter be full of love, light, and writing.
