2023 was for some, not enough.
I get that, but after the last five years feeling like that I took a few steps back, and decided I wasn’t going to keep second guessing myself.
Hold up. This isn’t another 2024 resolutions page. Because these goals are already won, and I’m going to carry them into the new year with the determination that 2023 gave me.
After “meeting my heroes” I hit a funk so bad I wanted to give up writing. For good. Seriously. And that seemed impossible with everything I was doing.
I sold a short story to Grendel Press coming out June.
I had Echo of the Evercry coming out in July.
I’d committed to the Write Hive mentorship program with the most amazing mentee.
And when I sat back, in the latter months of this year, I’m not just kicking goals. I’ve become the person my writer self aspired to be all those years ago when I started writing. But moreover I’m a better person.
My writing goals were smashed this year when I;
- Became a Futurescapes Alumni
- Completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing
- Got into and am on track to complete the Australian Writers Centre “Write your Novel” program
- Released the first NA fantasy, the book of my heart
- Sold not one, but two short stories, one published, one to be published
- Became involved in a Neurodiverse Anthology
- Got my first paying client for editing worked
- Am booked out for edit work for the first five months of 2024
- Became a mentor for WriteHive 2024
- Embraced Tiktok and have so many wonderful followers and made new friends
But here is the stuff you don’t see, because you don’t know all of me.
- Got a promotion at work that helped my workplace in epic ways I can’t talk about, but made a huge difference to the way people see me and what I am capable of
- Packed up a whole damn house and moved 800kms (500 miles) in one go
- Joined a gym, and while its cool I lost 10kg, whats even better is I can deadlift over 100kg (over 220 pounds)
- Bought a house and learned how to be a plasterer, painter, plumber… (?!)
Because the reason I’ve not being doing my monthly blog posts, or really anything, is that I had to sit back and look at my life, and what I wanted out of it for me. For the autistic dreaming coming to terms with what that meant.
A professional in the publishing industry hurt me so badly I didn’t think I’d ever recover. I wanted to quit more than any other time in my life and if you’ve followed me for a while, you know its been on and off for a while because this industry is hard.
So when it came to deciding who I was going to be when it comes to my writing career the answer was very simple; I wasn’t going to be afraid.
So what I self published. I’m so damn proud of the person who dared to dream because she got me here. I considered taking it all down because being self published “hurt my image” as an author. That agents and editors in trad circles weren’t going to take me seriously, and my work wouldn’t be picked up by a big five editor. That authors who came form self backgrounds weren’t considerable for the traditional publishing market place.
Yeah, they said that.
I’ve stopped letting those words grow in my garden after someone pointed out that it was poison.
And when I realized that, when I sat back and saw how far I’d come, I decided rather than try to make the dreamer who self published, who struggled with so much, disappear, I wasn’t just going to embrace her, but her vision.
I have the power now to relaunch my Last Prophecy Series, recover my Queen of Spades series, release everything as paperback, and forge on with my stories.
MY writing journey.
The whole reason I started, and the reason I didn’t give up.
Not even when my hero turned into a villain.
Because in the end, they’re just another person try to make their own way. They are just assessing the industry as it is, not how it is to me. And if Amazon published over two million titles in 2023 then what I do… doesn’t matter. In the scheme of things that’s two million authors trying to forge their own path.
I wrote this knowing that I’m building bricks out of the ruins of my 2023 and what I thought my publishing career was going to be. I’m not making this about who I think I should be to others, but who I’ve always been.
A writer.
A storyteller.
A champion of stories.
If the path we walk is forged by the flames that challenge us, I ask you, why not now? Why not you? What else are you going to let the world take away from you, when there is nothing left to lose anymore?
Writers always say there are many paths to publishing; I say make your own. Even in the ashes of failure. Find what’s left and make it the foundation of who you will become, so the writer ten years ago who couldn’t dream of who I’d be, here and now, sees the writer ten years in the future, and that person couldn’t exist without the person you are today.
Here’s to power through 2024, prouder than ever. Here is to the writer 2023 couldn’t kill.
E. J. Dawson 