Y’all. We are halfway through December. I know, I can’t believe this hellish year is almost over, either!

The new year always feels like a turning point, but that’s never been quite so true as this New Year. 2020 was already slated to be a hard year of transition and challenge. I had my new babe when I rang it in last year (or slept into it, whatever) and I was wrapping up my big edits to my novel with intentions to start querying at the end of the year. I always intended to leave my job and find a new one, but I stuck around longer than planned because, you know, pandemic and whatnot.

That said, I decided not to make any plans, nor goals, for 2020. But, I still managed to accomplish a lot.

Last we talked, I was still reeling from rejections and looming joblessness. I’m happy to report that I did manage to get a job offer, and in fact, it’s kind of the perfect job. I’ll be taking a slight pay cut, but I’ll be building a community engagement strategy and expanding my skillset by running large and small events for our region’s independent schools network. And on top of that, it’s a small (but mighty!) team and every single one of them has reached out to welcome me. It just feels like a supportive, super healthy culture and I can’t wait to be a part of it.

In terms of querying: I’ve put a pause on it. I’ve actually withdrawn about half of my outstanding queries to do one more pass of edits on my novel.

I’ve been going through, line by line, to make sure every sentence is as tight as possible. I’m already happier with it.

I also spent some time with my remaining agent list. I expected to remove some agents, but now that I’ve gotten better at agent research, I was able add plenty to replace those agents. Looking back at the agents I’ve already queried (around 20 with four requests, eight rejections, and eight closed with no response), I would say maybe half of them were actually good fits for my book. Now I have at least 30 who are better matches, and with the stronger manuscript and a new query letter (that I’ve yet to write), I’m hoping to pick up querying again in January, but we’ll see how far along I am in the line by line edit.

The new novel is in a bit of a slump. I’m roughly more than halfway through, deep in the Bad Guys Close In beat. I’m not crazy about these beats. I have a hard time putting my characters’ flaws and negative emotions on display. I expect to get through it, though. My goal is another 8,000 words before the end of the year.

I’ve also begun sketching out my next novel and I’m really, really excited to get into it. Really excited, which is why my goal is to wrap up the first draft of my WIP by the end of January so I can start plotting that one out.

On an observational note:

Ever since I quit my job at the end of October, my creative brain has been firing like crazy. Taking that step, which was so scary, freed me in a lot of ways. That space in my brain that had previously been occupied with stress and self-doubt has room to grow, to generate ideas, and daydream. So, if you’re wavering on the edge of a hard decision, but can’t pull the trigger? My advice: do it. The path becomes clear the moment you take that first step.

Happy writing, creating, dreaming, being!