No Year Recap, No Resolutions. Let’s Just Hibernate

I’m sure there’s someone, somewhere out there who had a great 2024, but I don’t know them. Everyone in my circle is tired and behind on stuff they mean to do (or need to do), and just generally exhausted after so many crises this year.

This time off has been an absolute mess between Shawn’s issues and our Hail Mary pass for Libby’s health and literally just as I got the last of the bed put together on Thursday (the frame was about four hours), the plumber called about a work order, which no one gave me notice about (an issue from the inspection in the summer so…not like I would have known to expect it, either, because it’s been six months). After madly cleaning all night–again, I have been living in total chaos putting furniture together and moving stuff from room to room–they didn’t come Friday, which means now they’re coming Monday. I can’t even wind down ahead of Christmas now (which I am, of course, spending alone, because there is no one I can trust to not infect me with the plague; good thing I enjoy my own company, I guess) because I am so anxious, as I don’t like people in my home.

I am very lucky–I have this new bed, I have a new laptop, I’ve cleared out some junk, I’ve gotten various cats to the vet and been able to try new treatments for Libby. My cats are (mostly) healthy. I’m not dead. I have people in my life who care about me. Wonderful people bought my books this year and I have new readers, a couple of which actually liked the new book. I keep focusing on that even as I continue to feel like three nervous breakdowns in a trenchcoat.

But I feel like I am broken when I’m not writing. Technically the Waverly 4 revisions this year was like writing a whole new book, since I doubled the word count, and I’ve written a lot of shorter things, but I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin and getting more and more resentful daily. I’m absolutely miserable but my brain just gives me gibberish when I have a WIP out. This too shall pass, but it’s just amplifying what a mess everything has been.

Though I continue to be resentful about the situation the last few months of the year that put me in this position of burnout now, I’ll deal with that in the new year.

So I have no countdowns or recaps. I can’t remember what I read or watched or played (other than Silent Hill 2, which I am replaying right now). I figured out why Demon Fall wasn’t working and I don’t have to throw out the 21K I’ve written but I have to rearrange it and write new stuff earlier, and so that’s going on hold again for Waverly 4 revisions. I am positive I will have to move the release date but I’ll see what, if anything, I get done over the next ten days as I unplug again.

All I’d personally like out of 2025 is to not lose any pets (or if Libby is going soon, that she’s comfortable and at peace), to keep a roof over my head, and to get some joy back from writing instead of feeling like I’m broken. And for my friends in the US to not die horribly with round two of that fascist fuck in charge. And to not have the Cons in fed government here.

That is probably asking for too much at this point.

Happy Solstice (which is Maya’s birthday and the last day in The Taiga Ridge Murders; the longest night of the year is a good time to read it if you haven’t). Let’s hibernate, hold onto what we can, and hope things are a little better soon.