Bernadette Benda

Good morning. Or good afternoon. Or whatever time of day you are reading this.

But congratulations. You nearly made it to the end of 2020, a year no one saw coming, or at least I certainly didn’t see coming, since I wrote this piece of gold at the beginning of the year:

“2020 is cool. At least the first few days have been treating me alright. It’s abnormally warm, which I guess I’ll take over sub zero temperatures and wastelands of snow (though this means I don’t get to don all my fur and gloves and scarves and became a mysteriously old woman whipping past on my snow mobile). I hope this is a year where I DON’T crack the phone on my screen twice and need it twice replaced (there went my moolah).”

I think I just committed treason for saying 2020 “is cool” and lo and behold, I did indeed crack my phone screen. Again.

But as wild, boring, and disappointing as this year was, I also was very blessed this year. My own home remained stable, my family grew closer together, and no one actually lost their mind. Or…we’re pretty sure no one did.

I always like to look back at my end of year blogs from the year before, where I proudly announce all my glorious plans and goals for writing. I had some pretty substantial goals last year and was happily surprised that things turned out fairly well for the Worst Year Ever:

• Query Her Name Was A Ghost (DID IT!!!)
• Finish the Michigan Triangle (yep. The first draft is finished and I haven’t touched it since)
• Edit Lily’s Real Name is Leviathan and Oh, Wonder Why the Sun Fell (so I edited Lily and shoved it in a drawer. I rewrote Oh, Wonder Why the Sun Fell and must edit it now…)

So overall. Not bad. I mean…I checked off everything on the list…right?? Oh, wait. I dug through my blogs and found another list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2020:

Make writing a priority: Um…yes??? I mean writing has been a priority for a while now, BUT, I think this is an ongoing goal. Not to necessarily make it more of a priority, but write MORE. Schedule MORE time to write (and more consistently).

Journal MORE: DID IT. I journaling a TON this year which you’ve probably heard about ad nauseum so I’ll move on.

Make. A. Plan: LOL. This was meant to mean making a plan for my writing projects and make better plans for editing/revising.

Well, on the editing and revising front, I guess things kinda did go better (though I did end up totally rewriting something accidentally). I didn’t edit so haphazardly this year, so I got that going for me. BUT as far as having a better plan for my projects, THAT did not happen. It was still very haphazard, though I DID get a lot done so hey, it works.

Blog more: Um…yeah?? Yeah, I guess I did this.

Switch up the time of day I write: WELL. This ended up getting a whole new meaning. 2020 turned my schedule into absolute chaos, so I ended up writing in the mornings, afternoon, evenings, nighttime, and just all through the night. I have no schedule. I don’t understand the word schedule anymore.

(no but for real the goal for this year is to get back on a consistent schedule. Of a lot of things)

AVOID BURN OUT: HA. ha. ha….this was the year FOR burn out. I mean I was burned out on like day 5 of lockdown.

But I will say this: I never felt burned out with writing. With life? Yes, I was/am very burned out. But not with writing. Instead it’s just a feeling of constantly wanting to write more, but running out of time, OR having a hard time sitting down and focusing because I am otherwise burned out and hence the whole scheduling problem. It all comes together.

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In general this year was….weird. But I did write A LOT. Wrote a whole draft, finished a draft, wrote a half a draft, edited a novel, queried a novel, and two blogs a week and….yeah wow. In general I am grateful that 2020 didn’t suck as much as it could have.

Here’s to next year *tips glass*