She's alive! (And hopes to stay that way for at least the next year!)

Hello! It’s been forever since I posted here on the blog, but I plan to make this a more regular occurrence this year. We’re going to start with a year-end wrap-up and goals for the new year.

2019 has at times felt like it stretched out with painful slowness and at times sped by so fast I felt out of control. So often it is hard to see the big picture of what we’ve accomplished because of our narrow focus on what’s happening RIGHT NOW. I am guilty of always feeling like I’m not doing enough, or feeling like my progress toward my goals is incredibly SLOW. (It’s something I’m working on!) I’ve never made it a practice to do a yearly review of my life, but I did this year. And it stunned me. Keep in mind, I am someone who feels they are never productive enough, never doing enough, not moving forward.

Over the last year I’ve:

• Written 14 novellas (and published 12 of them)
• Wrote over 550,000 words
• Published several boxsets
• Created 20 book covers
• Read somewhere around 125 books
• Started taking a drawing course
• Completed a photoshop course
• Completed a vision quest
• Worked on spiritual wellbeing, mental health, and self-development
• Given a talk on how to turn depression and anxiety into strength
• Completed a 30-day exercise challenge in which I did intense body weight exercises every day for 30 days straight! (and got way stronger/built muscle, and overcame my absolute HATRED for exercise)
• Went out on a big old limb and went from working fulltime in a stressful career to writing full time and working part time as needed, taking HUGE steps toward my dream of becoming a full-time author
• Got up the courage to friend and interact with other authors online—ones who I read and admire (ie: I stopped telling myself I wasn’t good enough to/ stopped being so embarrassed to put myself out there and people!)
• Worked on raising a family
• Made big strides in my personal relationships
• And probably so many more things that I’m missing!

 Lessons:  

One of the most important things I’ve learned this year is that the most valuable thing you can do or achieve is to be able to sit quietly, with yourself, and just be happy in that moment, for who you are, where you are, and the breath of life that fills your lungs. Apart from that, the only thing that matters is that you strive to learn and grow every day, and experience this life fully (the good and the bad), the way you were meant to do.

Goals:

My biggest goal moving forward into 2020 is this: 

Whenever I find myself saying “I wish I could ___”, I will immediately take some step toward that desire, even if it’s a very tiny step. 

For example, I’ve always wistfully said, “I wish I could draw.” That's the stance of a person who doesn't feel like they can make a difference in their own life. I'm not that person anymore. 

This month I have enrolled in a course to learn how to draw characters and intend to complete it in a serious fashion. As much as we don’t want to hear it, “I wish I could,” is meaningless. Wishing isn’t enough to accomplish anything, though it is a great place to start. Wishing without taking action isn’t fair to that small voice inside you whispering of all you could see and experience, and be. So, my goal is to listen to that voice and go where it directs me, even if in really small ways. Hopefully more joy will follow. (And yes, learning how to draw is a small thing, but this is me teaching myself there is no reason I can't do anything, if I just devote myself to learning).

Things I’m looking forward to/goals for this year:

• Continuing to create and dream up new worlds 
• complete the Reluctant Necromancer series
• work on audiobook versions of RN, as well as the Gesa’s Menagerie series
• write two more new series (one spin-off from the menagerie world and one new, frighteningly different world that I can't wait to share with you).
• Continue to push the boundaries with my life and my creative work (busting out of the tropes and genre boxes and being more inclusive and open-minded wherever possible)
• Cultivate a more personal relationship with my fans online
• Make meaningful memories with my family
• Create more joy wherever I can
• Travel and experience new places and ideas!
• Continue to work on fitness and health (not focusing on weight, but rather on strength, energy, and wellbeing)
• Read more non-fiction
• Continuing to discover and live my truest version of myself

What about you? What are your goals for the upcoming year? What are some accomplishments from 2019 you haven’t given yourself enough credit for?