My dear friends! I hope 2023 treated you well!

Here is my year in flashes, and in no particular order.

1. Exactly a year ago, I started this blog again, after like a decade of silence. It’s been a delight to share my news with you all every month. You have no idea how much it means to me to know you are out there reading along and following me on this sweet journey. ❤
2. Exactly a year ago, I published a blog post titled “I Did A Thing Today.” That was when I finished a great glorious mess of a first draft which some day might (or might not) shape up into an actual time travel horror novel. Building on that triumph, 2023 has become a Year of Consistency when it came to writing. (And not just writing.) In fact, I don’t think I’ve missed a single writing day? Note 1: I count research and brainstorming as writing. Note 2: some days this meant spending five minutes on it. Some days, a few hours. What mattered was showing up.
3. You might or might not remember I told you about a new first draft I had started this summer. How I flew through the first half of it in June and July, then slowed waaaay down, when job started again, but still I plodded along. Weeeell, in the first couple of weeks of this month, I finished that, too: 87,000 words, 327 pages, baby! It started off as the most polished first draft I’d ever written, but I’m not gonna lie, it got wilder and woolier and rougher towards the end. Still, I did it, and it’s not perfect, but it’s not too awful, and it’s unique and twisted and totally bananas, and really really fun, and deep, too, and it’s trying to say some pretty important stuff, and I cannot wait to get back to shaping that baby into something special.
4. You might or might not remember I told you I went to a conference in Canada, and that I’ve been pitching MONSTERS CAN’T LOVE, my golem love and horror story, to some apparently super interested agents. Well, wildly excited as they seemed to be, I’ve collected a bunch of rejections since then, lol. Once I got over the dashed hope, I realized how grateful I am for those rejections, because in many ways, they make me a true Working Writer. I am also grateful for those rejections because they helped me detach even more from the superficial pursuit of trophies, those shiny society handouts that can be super fun, but are so much less important than so many other things in our glorious human experience. In the end, these rejections led me to deeper, stronger freedom and independence.
5. 2023 has been a true Year of Growth. I have dug so, so deep and cleaned up my mindset pretty damn nicely. I’ve become so much more aware, authentic, brave and free. I’ve made HUGE strides in surrendering my perfectionism. And now, I am ready for 2024, the Year of Living!

What is your intention for this coming section of the calendar? I would LOVE to know.

Mine is to live in the present moment, and as I keep showing up, to CREATE, and to do so as an act of celebration, for the pure thrill of it. To live, and write and sing, first and foremost, for fun. Just because I can, just because I like it. To keep learning my craft, because it feels sooo good to stretch, and to keep stretching, because it’s cool to see just how far I can go.

I am wishing every single one of you reading these words a meaningful, joyful and wildly creative year!!!

Love you so much!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Katia