Here's to a Better 2021!

"I'm going to write a blog post the first week of January," she said, "I'm going to update every week," she said.

Haha.

Um, yeah. Apparently, I lost track of that super fast.

But. That's okay.

One of my goals for this year is to update more often, on a more consistent basis. I'm thinking every other week? Maybe work up to weekly? I'm still not sure. I'm giving myself some grace for this month, but starting now I'm going to be better about updating.

Honestly, I get pretty frustrated because I just run out of words sometimes. It just makes it so hard to write. To be completely honest, I'm never sure what to talk about. I saw one of my friends over Christmas break, and like always, she called me out on some stuff. She also made one very excellent point that's been sitting with me.

"It's your blog. You know you can write whatever you want to, right?"

I think right now my focus has been on quality too much. I need to remember, quality also comes with practice. The best way to get more practice? Increase quantity!

So, that's my goal.

I'm not going to go completely crazy with it or anything, but I am definitely going to make more time and effort.

One of my other goals this year is to start a podcast. I'm trying my best to figure out how to do that, and I don't know when I'll start (probably closer to my birthday), and that's something I'm really excited about. I think I want to do a book review podcast. I may throw in a splash of personal stuff, but we'll see how it goes.

I also thought about making a website for the podcast, but quickly realized I would be better off with an author website, that possibly has a page for the podcast. nce again, that's something I still need to debate and plan out a bit, but I'm excited to do it.

I'm also working on a vision board! Well... Kind of. It's been on hold because the printer broke. We just got a new one this week, and I haven't had a chance to really sit down and print stuff out.

I'm also determined to make 2021 an amazing year. I hope you'll join me on that venture.

I've made the decision that I'm no longer going to stress myself out with the things happening in the world. The area immediately around me is what I can impact, so that's where my focus needs to be. We have people in positions of power because God put them there. He uses everyone to His own will. It's not my place to worry about it, it's His.

Along with all of that, I'm really considering reclassifying what type of book Secrets in Ashes is. The more I researched YA, the less I liked the thought of my book being there. I actually think I'm going to shift it into an adult novel. But, that does require some revisions. I have a few I wanted to make anyway, so I'm going to go in and really take a look at it and see what's best for it. I'm about to print out another big copy of it to make some edits. We'll see how that goes.

Prayers of the Wicked, the sequel to Secrets in Ashes, is coming along okayish. I've run into some pretty nasty writer's block, so I'm doing my best to sit with the story and figure out where it's coming from. I think it may be stress induced? So, I'm going to do my best to work through that. It could honestly just be I'm frustrated with the story, or it could be the scene I'm working on. I think it's probably just the scene. It's really frustrating because I'm having trouble visualizing it.

I feel like I'm working on a lot of different types of projects right now, but I'm actually feeling really good about it. It can be really difficult a lot of days, when the fatigue becomes too much for me to deal with, or the pain is just a lot (like today), but I'm learning to realize I'm allowed to look okay and not feel okay. I am allowed to not feel okay. And that’s okay. It's difficult when I have things that I want to do, but I'm really trying to focus on loving myself and showing myself grace. I think sometimes (or most of the time) I feel things in big ways, and that's part of the reason I'm so hard on myself. My feelings are just really big. It's hard to find a balance of feelings and logic, a lot of times. It tends to teeter-totter pretty drastically too.

That being said, I'm trying. I'm doing my best, and that's all I can do right now.

What about you, friends? What are some projects your working on right now? What are some ways you're trying to improve this year?

There's a lot I'm trying to do, but I'm really excited to see where life takes me.

Until next time, friends!

Natalie