Read Around the Rainbow: Goodbye 2023 – Hello 2024

Read Around the Rainbow is a blogging project featuring yours truly, A.L. Lester, Ofelia Gränd, Holly Day, K.L. Noone, Amy Spector, Addison Albright, Fiona Glass, Lilian Francis, and Ellie Thomas. Every month, we pick a topic and then we blog about it. Check the other blog posts by clicking the RAtR widget in the sidebar, or the links at the bottom of this post.

The December RAtR topic is a look back at 2023 and a look forward at 2024. But Nell, I can hear you say, shouldn’t this post have gone live yesterday? You’re right, of course, because these posts are supposed to go live on the last Friday of the month, and today is Saturday. But posting it later that I’m supposed to is very fitting for the theme of the month, so I’m rolling with it.

2023 has been…busy…is probably the best way to put it. There’s been a lot going on. First, the Day Job of course. I like my job, but it takes up a lot of time, especially considering I live pretty far away from the office and spend about two hours commuting there and back. Second, 2023 has been the year of serious health scares; not for me, but for both of mine and both of my husband’s parents, something that has taken up a lot of energy and had a negative impact on my mental health. Then there’s been a big house to care for, a garden that’s needed attention, friends to visit, a grandbaby – who’s not a baby anymore but “a big girl” – to cuddle, good books to read, crackling fire places to lounge by, things to crochet, learning to play the piano…you get the picture.

Because of all this, my writing has taken a backseat in my life. I’ve only released three new stories this year. But worse than that, I haven’t had the energy or motivation to promote them, so these books that I really, really love, haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. I haven’t been on Facebook in months, I only occasionally pop onto the Social Media App Formerly Known As Twitter or the new contender, BlueSky. I’ve neglected the blog and abandoned my dear friends in the morning writing office.

This has led me to think a lot about my writing career. Am I the kind of person who can’t make two jobs work? Do I need to pick one or the other (which would mean I’d keep Day Job because of the steady income)? Who would I even be if I wasn’t writing anymore?

So, I ended the year by giving myself a couple months off writing to think about things. To sleep in without feeling bad, to ignore the WIP that sits unfinished in my virtual drawer, that was supposed to be for a submission call with a November 30 deadline, without a guilty conscience.

But now, finally, when the year is almost over, my writer fingers are starting to itch again. I want to finish Sid and Andy’s story and I want to be a writer. But how do I do that? What will that mean for 2024?

To be honest, I don’t really know. Maybe it means that I try to avoid tight deadlines and accept that three releases per year is perfectly fine considering all the other things I have going on in my life. Maybe I go back to using a promo company for my new releases, instead of trying to do it myself, so the books I actually manage to write get some well-deserved attention? Maybe it means I pick the fun projects that are guaranteed to give me joy, like for example writing stories with the Naked Gardening gang? Maybe it means buying a new pretty fountain pen to encourage me? Maybe it’s allowing myself to sleep in even if I love writing with the morning office crew, maybe it’s realizing that writing takes longer now than it did before?

Maybe it’s giving myself a little grace when I actually forget a release. Because yes, I had completely forgotten that today is the release day of the JMS Books’ 2023 Top Ten Gay Romance anthology where my story After Marcus is featured. Had it not been for Holly Day’s newsletter, I’m not sure I would’ve remembered. I’m sad that I forgot about it because I’m really proud to be a part of it and I love short story collections.

Buy link @ JMS Books

So I’m ending this post by wishing myself and my nine fellow, brilliant JMS Books’ authors also featured in this anthology the happiest of release days, and by promising you that no matter what, I won’t quit.

I won’t quit.

Don’t forget to go check out the others’ thoughts on this topic!