If the title sounds familiar, it is – a line taken from Deck The Halls but I didn’t add any fa-la-las.
Maybe that’s because I’m not in the most festive of moods.
2021 has been a rough year in many ways and I’ve lost too many people who were dear to me.
Topping the list is Bill Sontheimer and fortunately that’s the only family member lost this year.
But the list of friends is long.
I would list them all but then I would have to share a story about each one and that would take far more than one blog post. The most recent were Diana Ross and Paul Richardson, both friends.
I came to know Paul through my newspaper work, first meeting when he was the Public Relations Director for the City of Neosho and I was a reporter. Long before my editor days, I always knew I could rely on Paul for news and information from the city. He also could write and soon penned first the city’s column for the paper, then after he and the city parted ways, he wrote a column for both my papers. His columns were always the most popular with both – more popular than my own or anyone else’s. He had a style and a way with words that was unique. He also was a big man with a bigger heart. He made the Neosho Fall Festival what is has been in recent years, revived it from a decline into a great event, drawing visitors from far away as well as here in Neosho.
Diana was a friend from my college years. We were both editors on the first Crowder Quill, the campus literary magazine that has become a tradition. From there, our friendship endured over more than forty years as we both wrote on occasion for The Ozarks Mountaineer, talked about writing, shared new authors we discovered (Silas House is one of my favorites), and sometimes she edited for me.
I last heard from her in November and had thought perhaps we could once again work together in the coming year but that was not to be.
I’m always reflective at the end of a year and usually look forward to the next.
Here’s some words from a column last year:
I’m not one to make New Year’s Resolutions – in part because all too often, they are easily discarded and forgotten before the month of January has ended. And, for reasons mentioned before having to with an inability to predict what may come in any given year – for an example look to the year just past, the year that perhaps should remain nameless and forgotten if only we could. January is also the month in which I remember the loss of my father in 2009 and my husband in 2019. I still like to consider each new year a blank page on which to write, I have lingering concerns what fate, not I, might scribble.
I do, however, make plans. My plan for 2021 is to have at least one new novel out by year’s end – more if it proves to be possible. There’s a back story, of course, and that’s the fact that after I signed my first book contract in 2010. The first contract was with Champagne Books for Kinfolk which published in 2011 although the contract was signed in 2010. Wolfe’s Lady, with Evernight Publishing appeared in December 2010. Between then and the publication of my last published novel to date, Still Waters Run Deeper in October 2017, there were around 30 titles, some full-length novels, and some novellas. My books have been published not only by those listed above but also by Clean Reads (formerly Astraea Press), World Castle Publishing, and the now defunct Rebel Ink Press. All were published in electronic format and several more in paperback and one in hardback as well as the other two formats.
I recently made a social media post about why I haven’t had any new works in three years and counting but it has everything to do with my late husband’s health decline. I never stopped writing – just had a stronger focus as well as a full-time job that grew increasingly demanding of my time.I have several works in progress – WIPS we authors like to say – now and at least one should be complete in time to submit, hopefully find acceptance from a publisher and be in the hands of readers this year.
That’s the plan – not the promise or the resolution, just a plan. I know all too well that the best-laid plans of mice and men can ofttimes go awry (Thank you Robbie Burns) but my intention is that this plan will succeed.I still don’t make resolutions although I plan to get a military marker for my husband’s grave this year.
On the writing front, I more than realized my hopes to have one novel out by the end of 2021. My releases this year have been The Cure For Love, The Conjure Supper, The Cowboy Gladiator, and A Time For War, A Time For Peace, all Romance on the Go titles from Evernight Publishing. I also had two novels, both full length accepted by World Castle Publishing, Where Dreams Come True and Scrooge and Marlee. I started edits on the first today – both will be out sometime in 2022. I also am waiting to hear on a submission to Evernight as well.
I have another ready to submit and working on several more.
This year, after not working for most of 2021, I began a new job with Communications Solutions in late October as a retention specialist. I also began receiving widow’s social security benefits so cut down my hours at the job. As the writing picks up, it will come first – always. I’ve worked too long and hard to reach this point to backslide now.
Of course, 2021 has been year two of the pandemic which at this moment shows no sign of ending. Other issues with the economy, the world, and so much more have made it a problematic year but I hope for better in 2022.
After all, without hope, where would we be?
Not a place I’d like to visit so it’s onward and upward as the old year soon passes into the new.
