Oh man, it has been an age. Every year I make myself the promise of being more productive, being more present, and just being more. While everyone was in lockdown in 2020, I was still going to the Day Job and having to deal with that along with family in the home constantly and no place of my own to escape and write and relax. Libraries and coffee shops, my haven in the Times Before, were all closed. Even Disneyland, the one place I could go and leave everything behind was closed for over a year. Covid made sure there was no travel for anyone, and where I would have had time to myself during a normal year, 2020 was anything but normal. #ThanksCovid 😒
By the time January of 2021 came around, I was done. I all but dropped out of the writing life. I didn’t write, I didn’t plan, I rarely got on social media. Even worse was that I had no desire to do any of it. In other words I was burned out. 🔥 The stress of 2020 finally caught up to me and I took 2021 as my time to recover.
It took a long while for me to get back into the groove of things. Little by little I posted more to social media, bought a couple of premade book covers (omg, they are absolutely swoon worthy! 😍) and in October I signed a contract to have a new historical romance novella included in an anthology. It is due at the end of May and will be published in time for the 2022 holiday season. This anthology was just what I needed to give me the kick in the pants and set things back in motion.
In the last days of 2021, I took a good hard look back over the last two years. I had been so caught up in being an authorpreneur and all the things that went along with it—marketing, graphics, pushing sales, blogging, being present on all social media, being everywhere at all times—that it’s no wonder I was burned out. I was doing All The Things.
Except one: writing.
So I’ve made a decision. I can’t be an authorpreneur without being an author first. To that end, I’ve decided not to make resolutions, I never follow through with them. Instead I’m going to do what I’ve done for the past five years and choose a word.
Word of the year is a an intention; a promise to myself. There is no definitive goal, no finish line, and (if I’m being honest here) no pressure to succeed at it.
I looked back over the years and knew what my word would be.
I’m going to revive the joy I used to feel in writing, revive my writing, revive publishing my books, and revive my creativity. It’s not a come back or a return because I never left, I just got a little lost and lifeless over time. It’s time to give my writing life the shot of Vitamin B12 it needs so I can give it the chance to take off.
What about you? Do you choose a word for the year, or do you set resolutions?
Christina