2013- The Year of Uncertainty

Over the years New Year's Eve has become more important to me than Christmas. For me NYE is a time to take stock, to see how the last year went, and to prepare for a new one. It's an exciting time for me.

In 2012 I took a few trips. I attended the Caine Workshop in South Africa. I met a lot of great people and got a bit of insight into my own writing. It was a useful workshop for me. I came out of it knowing myself a bit better and understanding that my way of writing is not the wrong way (something I often thought), it is only my way and that's okay.  I also went to Nairobi and attended the Storymoja Hay Festival.

I wrote two books for educational publishers this year. One for a publisher in UK, about elephants, and The Second Worst Thing for South Africa's Oxford University Press. I took a wobbly walk into self publishing with the publication of three of my Kate Gomolemo Mysteries as ebooks at Amazon.

It was a disappointing year too. I finished the sequel for Signed, Hopelessly in Love, Signed, The Secret Keeper and after many months I had to make the decision to withdraw the book for consideration by the publisher. I'd always seen the first book as a series of three. Now I'm not sure what to do. I like the second book quite a bit, maybe more than the first, so I doubt it will remain unpublished for long. It's just waiting for me to decide what to do with it. I also had to make another difficult decision this year. I parted with a publisher I really liked working with because I could no longer continue to sign contracts that I was not 100% behind.

Both of these decisions came at the end of this year and have left me slightly lost. I'm trying to find a new path for my writing career.  I felt a bit as if I was finally realising the kind of writer I would be, and now the road disappeared. So I've pulled out the bush cutter and am back to finding a new way.

So as I step into 2013 it is an uncertain year that lies ahead. I'm working on a very ambitious project that I hope will meet with publishing success. I'm also attempting to expand my romance writing and am working on a romance novel I'm hoping to submit to THE BIG romance publisher.

Although it is never nice to have to end relationships, I feel in a way the hard decisions I made were needed. Writing is a tough business and when you find a nice little nest where everything is lovely, it's easy to become complacent. I think that was  happening to me. Complacency is the death of a writer. I think it's healthy for me to be uncertain and scared. It is good for me not to be able to see what lies ahead.

So I'm looking forward to this year of uncertainty.
I hope all of you also have a 2013 that you're looking forward to- Happy New Year!

(And with a new year, comes a new look blog- what do you think??)