I debated about writing this kind of publishing round up post because frankly 2024 was an extremely tough year for me, one of the toughest in the past six years. Between struggling with a major burn out relapse, the transphobic policies being pushed by certain factions, working at a job that even my therapist calls toxic at best, and my health situation, let’s just say I was more than ready to kick 2024 in the ass on the way out last night. But looking at my writing for last year, I have some things to celebrate, so thought I’d do that here.
One of the things I realized as I was coming out of The Big Burnout (TM) was that my writing was a keen indicator of my mental health. I’ve been tracking my yearly word count since 2019. That was my most productive year with 679,919 words written. My word count dipped slightly in 2020, but then was halved in 2021, the start of The Big Burnout(TM). In 2022 I only wrote 15,034 words, and in 2023 I wrote 60,272. That was quite a drop, and those 2023 words were written primarily in the last four months or so of the year. Last year, 2024, was the year I began to bounce back.
Yes, my word count was somewhat erratic, and it was easy to tell when college was in full swing and when it wasn’t, but I finished the year with 209,815 words. I’m really proud of that! Most of those words are in my serials available here and on my other pen name’s website, but there were also new works written, or finished, and new worlds and series created.
You can see the short stories I wrote as a Muse Happens member.
I’ve also re-branded and re-released some of my fantasy works and hope to continue to do that during 2025. That project didn’t got as fast as I wanted to, but it did make progress. I’m also going to probably consolidate my old pen name onto this page as well to help bring some visibility to those works. I feel like there will be a lot of overlap in the readers.
I won’t say too much about my 2025 plans because a lot of them depend on how my health and other things go. But I’m looking forward to continuing to write and am pleased I got my daily 1000 words in today. Here’s hoping we all have a gentle and creative new year.
