So here I am almost a year after I wrote my first blog post and I am looking back over 2012.
OMG what a year it has been!
Although I am not able to boast that I have finished my novel, I am proud to say I have ticked off a good number of the goals I set for myself last January. Professionally, I feel in 2012 I stepped ahead several paces. Personally, I will freely admit, it has been a most difficult year.
The first half of 2012, I wrote every day. Some days it was good and more days than not, it wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but I never stopped writing. And I was so very happy. Then as June was finishing off and I was feeling in control of my work and my life—well, as they say—all crap hit the fan and I was asked to once again parent a child. Anyone who has spent time caring for a child will tell you it is the most difficult and most rewarding job you will ever do. I am happy, very, very happy to have had this opportunity, but alas, being a primary caregiver after your own children are grown isn’t the natural order, and consequently, the last six months have been a challenge on several levels.
One of the challenges I faced was in finding both the time and the energy to write. Three months into my new role, life did start to take on a routine and I was able to squeeze an hour of writing here and an hour there, not what I had been managing, but enough to finish off my requirements before receiving a Certificate in Creative Writing from U of T this past November. Unfortunately, my new commitment kept me from my long-standing writing circle and I left the group in October.
It has been a sad year, but it is coming to an end.
Now, as I look ahead to 2013, I am resisting the urge to imagine myself and my novel alone in a rubber dingy, cast out at sea. After all, there is no one pushing me to submit twenty newly edited pages every two weeks. There is no final project requiring me to produce seventy-five polished pages hanging over my head. No agents or publishers are waiting to see my finished manuscript. It is just me, a laptop, and a story that I must tell.
What am I going to do?
I’m going to hug the darling three-year-old I have had the privilege to care for over the past six months. I’m going to take what I can from 2012 and I’m going to make good art.
Then, I’m going to write, damn it.
As always I like to hear your stories. Did you manage to tick off anything on your 2012 TO DO list?
Did you make good art?
Sharon Overend 