New Year's Recap
2024 was on par with how crazy my life can be and well worth the ride. I will probably stay as busy, but I don’t think I’m going to push a book out of me in a year. I might have another in that time frame, but it is over half done in the holes of doing this trilogy.
A “little” recap of the year.
January - start Council of Light with the goal of having it released in November. It was a test. Lost a week because Windows update fritzed and I had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall from scratch.
February - Truth Bearer released, and I was on a roll drafting Council of Light. As always, hubby and I went out for a fantastic meal for Valentine’s. Our first date wound up on Valentine’s Day without us even realizing it until we got out and about that Saturday.
March - a blur of writing and expecting spring. There was a follow me painting class in here somewhere before Easter.
April - more blur of writing, but the draft is nearing the end. Start a refinancing for some things for the house.
May - I foil the get the book done by November by hopping into a coach certification plan, but I get the draft done. Financing approved, so I paid my coach certification off. We got a lawnmower, and some other needed things.
June - a bit of a blur of resting from book drafting, but getting more into the coaching training. I know I did some business things and hired some marketing help. We tried selling signs and books at a to-do for a local private school. Lots of people and fun, but we only sold one of my friend’s books.
July - we celebrate my birthday and have a good month. I start all the fun of self editing while continuing the coaching program.
August - finish writing coach certification and plenty of editing. Lots of we did not expect that! First, all the costs for changing out the propane tanks from two small ones to one larger one. Second, SO MUCH WATER! Our stream swelled because of remnants of a hurricane a bit before Helena that dumped on my part of the Catskills and made a beaver dam break. We had to trim the maple and get a tree that speared between the maple and the corner of the house out of there. BONUS: the tree remover also cleaned off our roof for us. We have a huge pine with all the droopy limbs that dumps needles and cones all over it.
September - work on figuring out this coaching business and get my book out to beta readers for the first round.
October - beta reading time flowed into this month. Had a lot of great feedback that led to a LOT more rewriting and editing than I expected. It was worth it!
November - plunge toward the holidays with more editing and into round 2 of beta reads and finishing up some content editing to boot. We celebrate our 17th anniversary in style with too much good food. Hubby and I wind up spending Thanksgiving apart just because that worked best for family and everything going on. His having to drive into Jersey out of our boonies made two days not so great, but the two with his family in between were great.
December - final edits, formatting and Council of Light, book 3, went into preorder just before Christmas with a release date of January 28th, 2025. I had my first two coaching sessions that went well. We had the washer die on the 23rd and on the 29th we had a new one that came with a dent. That dent gave us a 20% reduced price, can’t be seen where it is sitting, and did not mess with any important part of the machine. It had a short cycle while empty test run and then a full load right after that. Christmas was quiet otherwise, with most of the family happenings on the weekend before Christmas.
A lot of volunteer driving for him and networking online with my writing and coaching groups for me worked around this. I also built a website while my beta readers scoured my work. We still found simple ways to enjoy ourselves and just relax.
January is full of book launch and a conference I am going to live. This will be a test for my multiple sclerosis and my first time on a plane in almost two decades. Also, it will be my first time out of NY/NJ in a decade. Yeah, life changed a lot in 2011 with the multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
Feel tired reading this? I bet you do, but this is how an abundant life with God looks for me. Lots of wonky bad and good that comes out on the upside most times if I don’t freak out, just be myself, and let Jesus pilot the ship. He truly cares about even the littlest details of our lives. Without Him, I would not be where I am now as an author and a coach.
2025 is looking exciting, but I am not setting due dates for anything at a level I tried this year. I have plans for a serial fiction on my Tales of Karnum and Beyond Substack and I have around 50K words to finish drafting a book already in progress. If that takes until the end of April, that is fine. That might work well as I figure out what this coaching gig will entail. I already know what it takes to keep up this blog and my monthly wrap up newsletter. Research into a Kickstarter for special edition hardcovers and how to get them into audio format will happen first quarter. From there, I can determine when and how this will happen.
Yup, I have my plans, but God will direct my steps. When He does, I get successful years like this one even if some of it I would have rather skipped. There will always be trials mixed in with opportunities and blessings. I’d be worried if there weren’t.
So here is to all of us having a glorious 2025 with God as our pilot.