As the year draws to a close, I find that I fall prey to my tendency to review all that I’ve accomplished over the past twelve months and then wonder how much more could have been done. This sense of not quite measuring up has to be a byproduct of my New England upbringing where we were imbued with this notion of always striving to go one step further in whatever it was we were doing. That sense of needing to continue to push yourself has served me well both professionally and privately, but at the end of the year it can easily create a bit of a damper on an otherwise festive holiday season.
Did I do enough? Could I have done more?
Only over the past half-dozen years have I come to understand the answer to both questions is often yes — and that it’s okay that it is. Becoming comfortable with your limitations, and as a consequence, learning how to balance what is truly important in your life, is a journey that I’ve been on for some time. I think it took the COVID pandemic for me to skip ahead to the end and reformat my worldview. I’ve found this new perspective I’ve gained has been invaluable, and know it has bled into the characters I write; there’s no question I shifted the storyline for Vasily’s personal life as a direct result of spending more time with my family. I also deepened Sean’s relationship with Suzanne a bit faster than planned, for no one — no one — should go through life without knowing love.
Speaking of Sean, I’ve been quite excited with the reaction to his latest novel, Duality. It garnered the most preorders I’ve ever had, and has remained strong going into the holiday weekend. My readers over on Kindle Unlimited also appear to have been waiting for it to drop, which makes me very, very, very happy. Thank you to all who have embraced this latest chapter in Sean Colbeth’s life; his next novel, Bewitched, will be out in 2023, and I’ve already begun work on the sixth book to feature the police chief. If you’d like to come celebrate the release of Duality with me, I had to move the Facebook Live event to December 27; there’s plenty of (virtual) room, so stop by if you can. (I’m told you don’t have to be a Facebook user in order to attend.)
I have two more post before the end of the year, so I’ll save my year-in-review retrospective for them. Until then, I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season.
As a Professional Nerd, it pains me to admit that I am still learning the ins and outs of the technology that runs my website. Part of that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how people were getting notified of new posts to my blog; silly me assumed it was far more obvious than it actually was to subscribe. On top of that, I appear to have neglected the sizable number of people who signed up for my newsletter list — and then never heard from me. My deepest apologies at what was benign neglect; I’ve rejiggered things to make it simple to sign up for both, and will begin a regular newsletter starting in January.
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