Last January I had great hopes for all that I was going to achieve with my writing, but I've had a few failures as well as a few wins.
So let's unpack it and see what happened.
I planned to write and publish 3 novels. I only managed two. I was also going to write and publish more blog posts and articles, and a few ebooks, but I haven't managed all that either. Why?
Well, late last year, we had to sell our home and move into a rental house until we could find a house to buy.
Then in December, we'd booked a one-month holiday in a house in the country, thinking it was a place to relax and get plenty of writing done. Instead, we fled from there after only 9 days because the place was a filthy tip and the garden was so overgrown it wasn't usable. Plus, there was a rooster on the property that woke us up at first light every morning with its loud crowing.
We then spent the next few months house hunting, which was so time-consuming.
Eventually, we found a house, but we had to spend 2 months renovating it, which meant spending 12 hours a day working on the new house, plus taking one day off a week to do "normal" things like cooking, shopping, cleaning and laundry. As you can imagine, we were exhausted.
But even though we moved in two months ago, the work on the new house isn't over. I've spent every weekend making curtains, and I also have 2 roman blinds to make too. I’ve also been doing some cleaning on the outside of the house.
Plus, we've had to adapt to living in a new suburb, which includes finding our way around locally, settling into a new routine in our new home and getting to know our new neighbours.
Thankfully, our lives are becoming more normal again now, and I've even organised the cupboards so that I know where everything is. And there were all the other disruptions, like attending dozens of open homes, eating up all our chilled and frozen food to empty the fridge freezer before it was moved, all the trips to the DIY store to keep restocking the building materials we needed, choosing and organising flooring and carpets to be fitted, and organising the removalists. We also had to go back to the rental property to do a final clean and mow the lawn.
We also had fun things to do, like dealing with lawyers and all the forms and legalities of buying a new home.
As you can imagine, all this was not only time-consuming but also an extreme distraction to my life and my writing routine. But I did write and publish 2 novels, and sold many books too. So despite my low achievements, I still had an income, and I have a beautiful house to live in.
The good news is that I'm never moving again-NEVER!
Even if the house falls down or this turns out to be the worst neighbourhood ever-
I'm going nowhere.
The Big Question
The question now, though, is what am I going to change to make next year more successful?
Right now, I don’t know, but what I do know is that it won’t be disrupted by moving or house hunting or 12-hour days doing house renovations, so I know that I’ll get so much more writing done than I did this year.
But I am going to give it a lot of thought between now and the end of the year. I’ve already started making a few plans, but I have several more weeks to finalise exactly what I want to be working on next year.
I do know one thing for sure about what I’m going to be doing.
I’m going to stay home and write most of the time.
It's my mission, after all.
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