Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! As much as I love the holidays, January is quickly becoming my new favorite month. I love fresh starts and checklists, and it helps that the kids are still fairly interested in the Christmas presents they got. It’s also the only month in Arizona where I’m not sweating in my sweaters.

This month I’m (hopefully) wrapping up the first draft on my YA speculative rom-com. I love finishing first drafts because if I’m honest, first drafts are my least favorite part about writing. It’s much more fun to see the story get stronger and stronger than it is to see it raw and bare. 

It’s also been really fun to add in connections to Alice and Wonderland because my book’s Alice has a virtual Wonderland her dad created for her before he died. Have you set any reading goals this year? I use Goodreads pretty consistently, but I haven’t bothered using their goals before, so I decided to try it out. According to Goodreads, in 2021 I finished reading 40 books, so I’m going to push myself a bit without being unreasonable and set a goal of 52 books in 2022. One per week sounds reasonable, right? Come find me on Goodreads and set some goals with me! Books I read and loved this month: The Holiday Switch by Tif Marcelo: If you’re still on a holiday break and you’re in the mood for one last YA Christmasy story, this one would fit the bill. The setting was an adorable little Christmas town that thrived on holiday tourism, and that was my favorite part of the story.   Renegades by Marissa Meyer: This one took me a bit to get into because it started out with a lot of cheesy superhero talk. I listened to it on audiobook, so maybe that was the problem. But once I got deeper into the story I really enjoyed it and I look forward to finishing the series.  I know – only two?! Yes. I read a couple others I didn’t love and then I read a couple non-fiction books, but it was also December, and free time was spent doing family stuff. Have you read any good books lately? If you’re like me, you made an impossible number of New Year’s resolutions and you’ve already broken half of them. I intended to write 1000 words a day, every day, in 2022. I failed on day one because we were driving back from the mountains and the day got swallowed up with family activity. Whoops. What resolution have you already broken? Or, even better, what one have you still kept? Either way, give yourself some grace and remember every day is a fresh start – you don’t need January 1st to roll around to do better at something.  Until next time,

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