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Hello 2018!


Hello 2018!

How y'all doing? The New Year is upon us! For me 2017 was a tough year of motherhood, of getting to know my two-year-old (who turns 3 in April), and coming to terms with what it means to have and to raise a wild child. It's been a tough year of writing trying to write while I mother 24/7. It was a year of creating short stories for competitions that did not impress those who judged them, and some polite rejections from literary agents abroad.

2017 was the year of letting go of one-sided friendships that had grown stale over the years. Twas the year of letting go of self-scrutiny and just going with the flow. What I'm most grateful for right now is my husband. I simply wouldn't have been able to survive last year if it wasn't for him. His support and encouragement carried me through it. And even though he was pushed to his limit at work, he always had something left for me and our daughter at the end of the day. Some days were worse than others. Some days he had to rush home even though he had unrealistic deadlines to meet, like the day Abigail had a febrile seizure, which was without a doubt the worst day of my life. Or the day I had food poisoning and he had to drop everything to come home and take care of me and our daughter. Made his ears bleed with my passionate rants about writing, my opinions on current issues, and about my enthusiasm for plant-based diets. Not to forget the heated debates on anti-theism, on home-schooling and unschooling, and the overuse of the words digital nomad which drove him nuts. Our talks about travelling the world and the possibilities of immigration. Discussions about the origins of life. And the scary conversations about having another child or not. And the list goes on.

I've been using Agent Hunter and submitted queries to three UK agents during November. One replied with a please send me the entire manuscript. This has never happened before and I've been working most nights after 8pm to scan through it. Half of it is first draft quality and I didn't expect a reply so soon. Yikes.

This is the year: the year to spend more time with those that matter; of creating quality fiction both literary and commercial, of breathing life into the themes and genres that drive me; the year of living loud and proud of who I am and what I stand for. This will be the year of reclaiming the Wild Woman in me and inspiring others to do the same.

Happy 2018 to you.

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