The end of the first month of this new year seems a fitting day to write a writing update post.
There hasn’t been a lot of writing this month. There wasn’t a lot of fiction writing in 2025 for that matter either. Journaling? Painting? Oh, I filled four notebooks with words and many art experiments with pastels, acrylic inks, stickers (so many stickers). I even managed to snap one of my plastic and ancient palette knives making marks.
I digress.
2025 was a great year for my writing. Participated in a Strong Women Strange Worlds reading and attended a great in person event, The Write Women’s Book Fest. Memory Lost won 3 PRISM Awards and after that–I fell off the writing earth.
Personal life challenges, doomscrolling to witness the relentless onslaught of world horrors affect my mental health, throw in recognition jitters and doubt about what genre I want to write in? The self doubt and the I don’t wanna is real. My brain gets in the way of doing the work.
People reading my writing is amazing but terrifying. What if whatever I publish next is complete caca? Entirely possible. Or maybe not. It could bring someone some laughter, distraction or even joy. I have to remind myself of that. My readership is small but mighty. And I love every single one of my readers for giving my words a chance.
I will work on letting go of self doubt and just keep writing one word after another. I will listed to Anne Lamott who wrote:
“HOW TO WRITE: DAY ONE
Decide to stop not writing.”
One day at time and one word after another.
In my last post, I had promised to let folks know when Love Bound to the Sea would be in print. It is now available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
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