I took December off.

It was an unplanned break.

I started with just taking a week to recoup a bit from NaNoWriMo and then some personal stuff happened – we had to put my dog down – and then all motivation left me. I also tend to take December off after NaNoWriMo to recover from burnout, but I thought for sure that I was going to be able to jump right back into my SF WIP because I was so excited to work on it.

Then life happened and things kind of sucked and I didn’t want to get lost in my own story. Doing that would have required brain power, and I wanted to turn my brain off and get lost in other people’s stories – which is exactly what I did.

That feeling of excitement and itching is back, but with the end of the year two days away, and a million things to do before then (to prep for the NYE party we go to every year) I unfortunately just don’t have the time to sit down and write. That, and this break has been kind of nice. It’s let me miss my characters – absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

I haven’t been completely ignoring my WIP though. Since I’m excited, I’m constantly thinking about it and I know exactly what I need to do when I jump back into revisions at the start of the year.

2020 is the year I seriously hope I finally finish this book and start the process of getting it out there. That’s the other thing that’s changed this year. I’m still terrified of people reading my book, but there’s also this anticipation and excitement for people to fall for these characters the way I have. I’ve been working on my SF WIP since 2011, and it’s gone through so many versions, drafts, iterations and it’s finally (well, once I’m done revising) the story it was supposed to be.

You know, when I started this story, I had these grand delusions that I would be able to write it in a year, get it published and use that money to put myself through college. It was a freaking dream and I knew it was unattainable, because let’s be real, that would be like a one in a million chance. Then I think about how if I’d published that draft, that first, very shitty draft, how different it would be. How bad it would be, and then I’m glad I never fulfilled that unattainable dream.

It’s crazy to look back and see how much I’ve changed as a writer, and how visible those changes are in the various drafts of this story. 2020 is going to be MY year, and I’m going to finish this damn WIP and I swear I’m going to take the next steps in getting this thing on a Barnes and Nobles shelf.

So, here’s to 2020 and may all our Writing Dreams come true…now we just got to stick our butts in a chair and write.