Tag Archives: 2019

Reflections: New Year, Here I Come!

Affirmations, KINETICS, Out in the World, Ramblings, updates, , , , , , ,

So, yeah, missed a #summarySunday AND ran late on writing my Obligatory New Year’s post, but better late than never, right?

So, 2019, huh? What’s happened there? Lots of laughs and smiles and hugs and togetherness. But also lots of tears and pain and loss and senseless violence.

Then again, that’s every year nowadays, right?

So, I’m reflecting on my personal 2019, with my outlook now that we’re back in the “Roaring 20s” era. Here’s some key parts of my life from 2019, as I reflect on the previous year:

Smoky Writers Retreat – February-March 2019

I accomplished so many words this year. The biggest goal I achieved both broke me and gave me most of the closure I needed. I FINISHED KINETICS. At least, the first drafts. Obviously, Books One (“KINETIC REBIRTH”) and Two (“KINETIC MEMORY”) are already out in the world. And Book Three… Well, let’s just say there will be a blog post tomorrow or Sunday giving some exciting news about that one. But, the full main series was a total of 5 novels. I finished Book Five’s first draft on March 1st, 2019. My uncle – the man who inspired me to follow my dreams and who helped give me that push toward writing – died March 1st, 2004, exactly fifteen years after his death. I’ve joked about the timing as Jessi and my Uncle Dave plotting the timing of this finale from the beginning. The best part was that I told my husband (fiance at the time) that it would be so cool to finish Book Five at Smoky, because this series started at the 2017 Smoky retreat. Ironic it actually happened that way, and I’m so glad it happened then! My fellow Smokies were there to comfort me, give plenty of hugs, encourage me to still join in on the fun activities of the retreat, and talk to me through my panic attacks and depression crashes as closure attempted to settle down in my body. Couldn’t ask for a better writer’s family.

Ravencon 14 – April 2019

I was so blessed and lucky that I was selected as an Author Guest panelist again for Ravencon 14 out in Williamsburg, Virginia. I’ve been attending since 2009, so this one marked 10 years of attendance. Ravencon is like a home away from home, where I can be with my like-minded creatives.
I met some really cool people, made professional contacts by networking over similar interests, and gave the best advice I could muster to help out the other authors in the audience of each of my panels. As usual, JV Jr accompanied me and kept wanting food. That doll has the “nom noms” to the max, even when she was actually a living person on this earth.

Engagement Photo Shoot – April 2019

If going to Williamsburg for Ravencon 14 wasn’t enough, I invited one of my close friends, Allison, to provide her with lodgings for the whole weekend for free, so she could attend Ravencon the whole weekend: something she hadn’t been able to do in a long time. In return, she spent our last day in Williamburg by taking me and my husband’s engagement photos. The photo shoot landed EXACTLY one year from the day B-Roc (my husband) proposed. Here’s a sampling::

Wedding Day – September 2019

This day was magical. I was marrying my soulmate, my rock, my perfect match. I can’t even come up with the words to describe how amazing that day was, aside from one event that occurred before the actual ceremony. The Bride-to-be and father of the Bride get a horse and carriage ride down to the ceremony location at the base of a waterfall. While passing regular visitors to the park, most of the kids were in awe of the horses. But, there was this one little girl, maybe 2-3 years old, whose Dad had picked her up and moved aside for my carriage to get by. The girl’s eyes widened, and she said excitedly to her dad, “Daddy, look, look! A princess!” Then, she looked at me and waved frantically and yells, “HI, PRINCESS!”

One of the most memorable moments of my life.

Conclusion and Looking Ahead

By the end of 2019, I’d had so many memorable moments, most of them once in a lifetime. However, my life has not slowed down since my wedding. Maybe even before that, thanks to the planning and prepping chaos that happens for every bride when getting ready to devote their life to their perfect match. But, I’ve had family in and out of hospitals, getting surgeries, getting sicker quicker. My baby sister moved out of town before I even returned from my and B-Roc’s honeymoon (Vegas, baby!). My debt is a key issue that I’ve struggled with for years now (shopping addictions suck, man…), and planning how to pay it off and stop spending covered the latter quarter on my year. And, just within the last week, me and B-Roc have started our search for our perfect house to start a new chapter of our joint life together.

I’m going to be entirely honest here, a decade ago, if you told me everything I’ve accomplished, the high school me would’ve scoffed, rolled her eyes, and dismissed it. I wouldn’t have ever believed all the milestones, all the love of two families, all the moments I’d never forget, all the hospital trips. Going to college. Graduating a semester early, get a salaried job three months out of college, still at same job five years later. My first and only boyfriend, an engagement, a wedding, and the loss of an amazing, genuine best friend… I never could’ve imagined it.

But, you know what?

I survived.

And I’ve had a good feeling for the last two months that life was going to be great in 2020. I have this gut feeling that our lives will change in more ways than one. Good and bad, likely, but the anticipation of that gut feeling keeps me motivated, eager to see what changes and news and events are awaiting down this yellow brick road of 2020.

2020?

Bring it on.

This is gonna be a fun year!

Keep your eyes on this blog, Vikans. Big news this weekend, as well as (hopefully) some helpful things I may have for y’all!

Keep Faith, everyone.

And, as said in KINETICS – a phrase perfectly aimed at the anticipation for the new year of 2020:: “Assume Nothing.”

– Chrissy

Wow, New Year already?

Career, Dear Diary, KINETICS, Out in the World, Ramblings, , , , , , , , , ,

What happened? 2018, gone just like that? Where’d the year go?

When I realized what that meant, I felt like I’d barely accomplished anything of value in my life. Had I written stuff? Yes, I had.

However, the kicker for me was this…

I hadn’t published much of anything.

Granted, three works got published, but without really any noticeable success, either reader-wise or sales-wise. “Account of Secrets” and “KINETIC MEMORY” both were released in January 2018, with the 5th CHAOS ACCOUNTS story (“Account of Risks“) released in July 2018. Yes, these are published works, but my mind believes that even with those releases, there is a lack of accomplishment or fulfillment. Especially because the last two months, as 2018 started coming to a close, my inspiration and motivation to write weakened, due to anxiety of holidays, day job, and prepping for my wedding in Fall 2019. (Getting engaged was one of few high points in 2018, let me tell you.)

I feel a bit weird about all of that in general. Think about it for a second. 2017, after I lost JV, was my most productive and active year of my writing career thus far. I wrote the first 4 CHAOS ACCOUNTS stories and published 3 of them. I also published a prequel ebook (“KINETIC TRAGEDY“; only available on Instafreebie) and the first KINETICS book (“KINETIC REBIRTH“), as well as written that whole first book, its sequel, and the fifth CHAOS story, rounding out that series’s first Arc.

Move onto 2018. I wrote as much as I could, but the inspiration and motivation started to wane and weaken. I ended up transferring to a merger company that my day job joined with, a company that started business early 2018. Since I had to learn a completely new system and way of doing day-to-day activities, plus having to interact with people of lots of different personalities and work ethics. That was a HUGE learning curve, and I think that stress and elevated anxiety was probably a root cause for lack of activity.

Now, like I said above, I got a LOT of writing done in 2018, at least in the first half or so. Highlights:

— Finished writing AND personally editing first drafts to the third AND fourth KINETICS books, as well as written 1/3 of the fifth and final installment

— Wrote a couple thousand words for CHAOS ACCOUNTS #6, as well as began formatting for the first CHAOS ACCOUNTS collection, for Accounts #1-5 (Aiming for physical copies of this as well)

— Worked on editing old WIP projects

— Started writing new WIPs – one that I’m presently working on in hopes of traditional publishing (hopefully)

However, still hardly any publishing credits for most of 2018. I have a good amount of finished projects, as well as dozens of WIPs. You want proof?

Image may contain: screen and laptop

Yeah, looking at that makes my head spin too.

The above and below screenshots are a spreadsheet that catalogs progress on any projects I’ve written for as far back as New Year’s 2011. That means today marks eight years of consistent writing, and hopefully useful words and maybe eventually books / ebooks. I created this Spreadsheet around 2014/2015-ish, and any projects I’ve made progress on since then actually keeps track of my word count each day for whatever project I wrote for. I’m OCD to the max, I already know this. 😉 But, the above is almost all my projects, either WIPs, completed novels, or spin-offs/sequels to earlier projects in the first two categories. Any project since 2011. ANY.

Now, the top right of this spreadsheet made me feel at least slightly accomplished when I did my end of the year WC check:

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Yes, you are seeing correctly. Eight years of monitoring my word counts, and in the year 2018, I reached over 1.1 million words written, either in completed works or the word counts in my present WIPs, since 2011.

Then, looking through my project tabs, I mentally remembered plot lines to the WIPs I hadn’t touched in years, smiled slightly. Those 1.1 million words created so many great ideas and so many happy memories. Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to share them with you.

I replacement of a New Year’s resolution (as no one keeps those anyway), I will be even more meticulous when it comes to my writing schedule. I’ve added tabs to that massive spreadsheet, where I will also record each day’s word counts. I’ve added a reference tab as well, where I outline the minimum word count I’d like to achieve each month, and even broke that minimum to how many words per day I’d need to reach the monthly goal. I chose different minimums for each month, varying depending on what activities I know will be going on that month, outside of author-dom existence. Hopefully I can stick to this OCD recording better than I have my blog in recent years.

I will also attempt to save money to eventually roll out KINETICS #3 and #4 in the coming years (as self-pubbing costs money, and I really don’t have a huge fanbase. Actually, to be honest, might only have a handful of them. Wish I was more visible…).

And, as always, I will write. I write for my readers. I write for myself. And, I write for my future, as well as the futures of anyone that cares to grab digital and / or print copies of my books and stories. As an author, the best part about getting your stories out there is to have people take a leap of faith and join your characters on their journeys. And, even with the minimal readers I have now, I will always write stories. Because, maybe one day, I’ll look back and be happy that I took a leap of faith too, hoping people might enjoy my stories. And, hopefully, that dream might become a reality.

Here’s to an exciting and unpredictable year!

2019, bring it on!

Have Faith,

– C.