2020: A Year of Doing

I know it's been awhile since I've come on here, but various things have fallen between the couch cracks in the last few months. For me, life in 2019 was maybe one of the hardest (personally) that I've had to endure. I experienced more tears in that year than while giving birth to my four kids - combined. I kept my face brave, endured it with my family and support of friends who knew how things were going, and kept prayers going on a daily. 

This year, I thought as January was looking up, would be different. However, I'm not so sure. Everything just stings from 2019 still and I feel like I need a ton of daily affirmations just to get through the days. My husband's hugs are the best and he doesn't even know it.  

I will say, and I never thought I'd say this, I found a soft jazz instrumental music station on YouTube for one of my clients at work, and holy hell, it has been my own life changer. The comments have stated how the music helped several through depression or anxiety. I found my mood calmer when listening to it, too. I'm not a jazz listener. I've tried. I can do vocal jazz. But instrumental? My ears say no. This soft jazz though, like big time elevator music, has stabilized me every time it's on. When I'm cooking, working, studying, whatever I'm doing. My youth group even said they found it very relaxing and chill. 

Aside from all that, in my writing path to publishing, I'm awaiting some agents with partials/fulls with big crossed fingers. It's a shame this is taking so long, but requests for more came right before the holidays, so I imagine agents have a lot of catching up to do. And normally, I try to keep this all quiet and hush-hush. But honestly, I'd rather be transparent about it and find solidarity in others doing the same or having been there done that. In the end, it'll all be worth the wait. Right? Right???

Luckily, I also have 70k words drafted in my YA dark fantasy, and my goal is to finish it before the summer at close to 80-95k. Finished meaning off to betas after my own edits. I know it would've been done by now if work and personal stress hadn't gotten the best of me. So, if my Viking fantasy doesn't pan out like I hope, I'll have another to query this year. My comedic Kpop romance went to the side for now, but will be continued once the dark fantasy is off with betas. Gotta have something to do in the meantime, right?

One word to summarize 2019? (suckfest, that's mine)

A book and/or movie you loved in 2019? 

(A Song for the Stars by Ilima Todd, Sadie by Courtney Summers; movie...not so much)

Any word for 2020 to motivate you? (convinced; various predicators say this is my year; why argue??)

Love your guts,

-Tammy-