I had one piece out in 2018. My short story “Birch Daughter”, appeared in Fireside Magazine in November (and was included in the October issue of Fireside Quarterly): it’s eligible for your consideration.
My father told me that the spell was too strong to break, that I should never trust the forest-folk. But the thought of my mother trapped within a gnarled birch tree in the far north was too much for me to bear. I had to go, even just to see her.
This story is inspired by Finnish folklore; it features forests, bears, and queer women. It’s the only thing I had published this year, and I’m very proud of it.
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This is also a good time to reflect a bit on 2018 in terms of my writing. I used to do rather detailed year-in-review posts, outlining writing goals for the next year, &c. I think, this time, I’ll keep the writing goals within my bullet journal and just reflect more generally on this year.
My main goal for 2018 was to finish novel revisions and to start querying agents. Well: I did that, although due to mental health issues, I was not able to get properly into querying. A lot of my other goals, I did not really succeed at — but the problem was, my goals were too ambitious and I also didn’t realise, at the end of 2017, how rough 2018 was going to be.
But all in all, the main thing is: I kept writing. I took a bit of a break in the summer, when I was healing my poor brain, but I returned to writing again when it felt good. (Writing longhand in a nice notebook, outside in the warmth of the summer sun. I wrote a whole story longhand for the first time in years.) And after that, writing has felt good. After my healing beak, I’ve written a couple of short stories and a Nanowrimo novel draft, and am finding joy in writing. Really, that’s what matters.
In 2019, I hope above all to be more gentle to myself in terms of writing goals and ambitions. I’m working on a PhD; I have anxiety issues; I need to look after myself and stay clear of too much perfectionism and achieverism.
I’ll end with by quoting myself from last year’s year-in-review post:
No matter what, I will keep writing words of hope and kindness in the face of hardship.