Love is Enough: My Wish for 2023

I’ve spent the day feeling and living like a writer. First, two local writers were kind enough to meet me for coffee in Santa Fe; we had a lovely conversation that rolled on for three hours! I left feeling full and hopeful. Then I came home and worked on an overdue copyedit (ugh, how I hate being late, but it was all I could do to get my grades in and make this move happen, alas).

I had talked w/another writer friend a day or so ago about indie pub and versions and how I was re-writing the novel I’d spent almost 2 years querying in a way that seemed more suitable for indie pub. I hadn’t had much to do with the re-write since early last year, honestly. I’d been trying to write two novels in tandem, Books 1 and 4 of a six-book series I plan to indie-pub. On my Patreon, I’d shared draft chapters from Book 4 as well as essays and poems. But the fact that the Patreon wasn’t growing bothered me immensely, and it felt like all my efforts were in vain. I decided to scrap it to give myself space to work on writing without worrying about a deadline. Ultimately that backfired, because I didn’t write at all. Nothing worth sharing, at least.

I buried myself in all kinds of other things and made all kinds of excuses as to why I couldn’t write. It’s unsettling now to see what I did to myself by slow degrees, how powerless I felt, how much of a failure. I was teaching people about writing and could see everything they needed to do, but I couldn’t do anything for myself. Perhaps 2022 will go down as the year I creatively trapped myself in carbonite.

Anyway, fast forward to today. I was working on other things when I felt that craving, that summoning. I finally gave in and read the bits of draft I have—about 100 pgs of the rewrite—nearly all in one sitting, lost again in my characters and their world. And while it is rough and there are mistakes, on the whole I found myself liking it, liking the things I’ve changed. I especially like the addition of a second PoV; it adds the depth and richness I was hoping for. I think once again I was waiting for external validation—I can remember in fall sending the previous version of this in one last desperate gasp to an agent who liked it but ultimately passed—that never came.

Ultimately, the point is that it doesn’t matter what other people think. I have the skill and experience to know when I’m satisfied with what I’m making and can only hope that when I send it out in the world, it will find its audience. I believe it will. And I believe I’m ready to get to work again.

And that really is my only wish for 2023: to love the work enough to do it again. It feels like I might manage that, at long last. May this also happen to you--that you find what you love and love it enough to let it shine forth again.

(Well, OK, I hope we find a house of our own, too, but I’m trying not to be pushy ;-)).