This year was not a writing year. I’m not sure what happened, but it was pretty disheartening throughout the whole year because I felt uninspired (and coming up with story ideas is what I’m good at and has been consistently the smoothest part of my writing journey), exhausted and frustrated. I forced myself to write. I came up empty. Each day I hated myself more. 

Why couldn’t I finish my manuscripts? Why aren’t the words coming out right? When will I publish my books it’s been years and everyone keeps asking about it but I come up with nothing year after year and continuously disappoint people?!?!

A few months in, I had to throw up my hands in defeat. And accept that I will not meet my writing goals this year. This was a year I had to learn to prioritize my mental, emotional and physical health. I didn’t stop writing completely, I just wrote for about two months out of the whole year. 

Two months out of the whole year?! How disappointing was that when two years ago I managed to write a blog post a week and last year I wrote the first drafts of three trilogies for my productivity to tank to writing for only eight weeks of the year?!? 

My spirit wasn’t only crushed by this realization, it eventually died. And I grew numb to life, to creating. 

This year was also not a reading year despite my desire and enthusiasm to read so many new books. I’ll give myself some grace since I did manage to read more than last year.

I felt like I tried to tackle many projects, but, in the end, I produced nothing. No writing, no reading. It was a slow year unfortunately. I attributed this to my perfectionism sneaking its way back in, stagnating progress and success. And I let it. I was so oddly tired (from who knows what really) that I made every excuse to not push forward, to not do work, to let my goals fail. 

On the bright side, the silver lining to all of this, I was forced to take a break. Probably a necessary break that I didn’t want to admit I needed. So that moving onto the new year, I hope to have more clarity, inspiration, peace and discipline.