I love those “year in review” posts and I really love it when the writer is really adept at encapsulating their year in a concise and well-constructed post. And dear reader, if you clicked on this thinking that this would be concise or well-constructed … well.
Anyway … 2024. It is the first Friday in the new year and an unexpectedly free afternoon has me at a coffeeshop, finally putting words to a post that I’ve been noodling on for a couple of weeks (and one with a draft on my other laptop, but I digress.). And while I express a great amount of admiration for those creative types who write inspirational Year In Review (YIR) posts, I’m just glad that 2024 is over.
Good things happened: I went to an obscene amount of concerts. I was elected to the national board for Bouchercon. My dad remarried a very cool person (and my family and I lucked into really swell family pictures because … well, wedding.)
I am still gobsmacked to be part of Shotgun Honey‘s Gauntlet and I was honored to be part of Jeff Circle’s Dossier.
I helped win a campaign for a public school referendum and my oldest kid and I door knocked for local candidates who also won. Relationships deepened and I made some new friends too.
What didn’t happen? Well, there was no meaningful progress on any of my creative projects and as I stare down the calendar of 2025, I feel the need to challenge myself: What am I going to do differently this year that will net more words on the page and my dream goal of publishing a novel?
That is the question, isn’t it?
So in the meantime, I’ll continue to visit here on the first Friday (or second, or third) of every month. And in the background, I’ve been rifling through old notebooks and have at least one very cool project that I’m brewing in my noggin.
Happy 2025!
Shelley
michellekubitz 