A most happy 2021, dear friends! I have at long last returned from my hiatus and am thrilled to be back into the world of blogging. How I missed it and chatting with you all!

We’ve made it, guys. 2020 is behind us and we’re now a full month into 2021. Honestly, it feels rather surreal. 2020 felt like some purgatory state that would last for eternity. My brain is still struggling to retain that fact that is in, in fact, no longer 2020. And though sometimes it did feel like some messed up, purgatorial, YA dystopian novel…I learned so much. For all of December and January my head has been near to bursting with reflections.

So today I hope you don’t mind if I indulge in those a bit. Grab your beverage of choice and maybe a cookie or two and let’s talk life and everything in between!

A DASH OF NEWNESS

First order of business, you may have noticed things look a smidgen different ‘round here. Though I was pretty quiet for the month of January, I was not idle. Like I said, January was a month of reflection, and also change. I’ve changed quite a few things on the blog and across my social media. Nothing drastic. Just some tweaks to more refine my brand. (And on that note, if anything looks wonky on your end, please, please do let me know!)

For a good while now I’ve been wanting to refine my brand, and after an insanely good and helpful session C.J. Redwine did on marketing and branding during last year’s virtual Realm Makers, I finally felt equipped to do just that. I always struggle with matching my brand to my books as I, erm, well, I REALLY like pink and frills. But those things do not reflect my books in any form or fashion. I think people who read my novels are always surprised at how dark and intense they can get, since I’m pretty sure I put off a pink fluffy unicorn/Disney princess/hearts and kitties persona. (But hey, I can write dark stories and wear pink frilly skirts at the same time!) Regardless, I wanted to clean things up around here, find a more consistent look across my platforms, AND hone in on a brand that reflects me and my books.

And it all came down to my new tagline…

Bright Words In Darkened Worlds.

If anything reflects my stories, it is that. It seems every single novel I write has a particular theme in common—the light of hope in the midst of darkness. Often my worlds are dark, ugly, dangerous places. My villains rarely hold back, my protagonists suffer immeasurable pains. But through it all? Through it all there is always LIGHT. “The stars shine brightest when the night is darkest” encompasses my stories best. Through the darkened worlds threads of hope are weaved with bright words. That has truly always been my goal with writing—to reflect God’s light in the dark.

But not just with my stories.

If any times have felt dark, it is these days. And I’m tired of dwelling on that. I’m tired of complaining and wallowing in the hard time. Instead, I want to CHOOSE JOY. Just because the calendar changed doesn’t mean 2021 will be magically better than 2020. I can’t change that. But, this time, I can change how I handle it.

Words can be the most beautiful, powerful things we’re equipped with on this earth. Or just the opposite. I fear often my words can be caustic, pessimistic things.

Thus one of my greatest hopes for this year are to use my words to not aid in bringing darkness to this difficult world we live in, but to reflect God’s HOPE, His LIGHT. Not just with my novels, with all my words, whether through storytelling, blogging, verbally, etc.

So this is me. Or, more accurately, what I hope to be: Bright words in darkened worlds.

But what if 2021 proves to be even darker than 2020? What if harder times hit?

IN WHICH 2020 HAPPENED

If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that a wholesome mental state comes from BALANCE. Which is…kind of obvious, but my workaholic self tends to ignore these practical things.

I jumped into 2020 with a big ol’ list of lofty, overwhelming goals and determination to complete them all. When March came and next thing I knew I was stuck at home for the unforeseeable future, my workaholic brain was like, “Well, now you can do ALL THE THINGS and MORE because you have endless free time.” (And there may have been an evil laugh tossed in there somewhere.) I nodded along and proceeded to spend March, April, May, and June querying, blogging a lot, keeping up with Instagram, doing major, major rewrites on a novel, beta reading a couple of things, writing some Faylinn short stories, joining in April’s Camp NaNo, reading and reviewing so many books, etc., etc. Which all sounds great, doesn’t it?

Except for the fact that I was losing. my. mind.

This stuff is all well and good when you’re in a healthy state of mind. But when you’re an extrovert stuck in the house endlessly and worried about the state of the world, heartbroken that you can’t work at your beloved bookshop anymore, not to mention quite a bit of other personal life stress going on, pushing yourself to the breaking point is not good.

I found my joy had begun to slip away. Without realizing it, I had become a robot—constantly working, but with no life in it. My creativity was next to zilch. Every single thing I did, from blog posts, to rewrites, down to something as simple as an Instagram caption felt like pulling teeth, every word dry and agonizing to drag out of myself. Suddenly this life of writing was nothing but a burden, draining me day by day by endless day.

All the joy was gone. And I was tired. So, so tired.

By June I had had enough. I knew I had to make a change. Life was, clearly, not going to change. But I could. It’s not like I had deadlines nagging at me. Everything I did was in MY power.

So in July I decided to step back from quite a lot of things, and even went as far as to write a list of fun things to do so I wouldn’t 1.) be tempted to keep working or 2.) flit away the month (two things I’m terribly prone to do).

July proved to be one of the best months all year.

I breathed again. I found myself enjoying life. And I discovered that I was coming back to myself. July also had something extra special: Virtual Realm Makers! Spending three days immersed with fellow writers and learning from such amazing authors and professionals brought back that spark of excitement for storytelling again. I talked about the conference experience in THIS POST, so I won’t repeat all of that, but it was really the beginning of change for me.

The second half of 2020 found a much happier Christine than the first half.

I knew I couldn’t go back to the drained, depressed state I had been in. So I allowed myself more days off, allowed a more lax schedule, took more time to do fun things like movie watching and video game playing (the latter of which I had practically given up for a good decade now, always thinking I “don’t have time” for video games).

And, miracle of miracles, I still stayed productive and on top of things. Which, of course, is how it works. Productivity is so much easier when you’ve also, ya know, given your poor brain a break. (But, again, my workaholic mind chooses to forget such practical, helpful facts.)

Through August and the following months, I managed to finish rewrites of The Nether Isle without too much trouble, hand wrote a flash fiction piece just for fun, and, all the while, a new story idea was heavily brewing in the back of my mind.

I was finding balance and joy in the writing life again. And just life in general.

Then NaNoWriMo began to approach, and that new story idea insisted, under no uncertain terms, that I’d be writing it for November. And I felt more excited about this story than anything I had written in years. This book, of course, was Dusk’s Broken Shadows. But the slightest trepidation kept niggling the back of my mind. It had been such a dry year of creativity, could I really spend thirty full days writing a ginormous novel? Would it just drain me more?

On the one hand, I was thrilled to have something that would fill the humdrum days that 2020 had become. On the other hand, what if it was grueling?

All the fears flitted away by literally the first day of NaNo. Somehow I pounded out 9k words in the most glorious, exhilarating state; possibly one of the greatest writing days in my near 20 years of writing. And the rest of the month proved to be just as magical. I always adore NaNo, but this was something different. The plot, the characters, the themes—they were everything I needed. And in an euphoric 25 days, I wrote the entire story and felt…full. Sometimes NaNo can be prettyyy draining. But this time? This time it brought me back to myself.

It was then that I realized: I had been missing so much of myself. For years, actually, without even realizing it.

I thought about my teenage and early 20s self, and how excited she’d get, obsessed even, over a new story idea. Though, yes, I still get pretty happy over starting a new story, it hasn’t been the same. Not for many years now. That childlike wonder, that freedom of creativity, got dulled somewhere along the way, and it wasn’t until, of all times, living through 2020 that I had even realized it was gone.

I really had fallen into a robot-like state. All work work work without the thrill of life. But during the second half of 2020, the old Christine slowly began to return, and by NaNoWriMo I felt like her again. While, at the same time, like a new person. A, hopefully, better person.

REFLECTIONS

2020 was a hard year, one of the hardest I’ve ever experienced. And yet? And yet it taught me so much.

I think in all the bustle of life, I didn’t realize I’ve been missing a part of myself. I had to slow down, to really reflect on my life, to reach out to God to find that JOY of life again. Because I am not a robot, I am a God-breathed human being, and it’s OKAY to just have fun sometimes.

The most hilarious part of all of this is that playing video games is what really brought the realizations about. Yes, video games. One of the greatest highlights of my 2020? Playing through Kingdom Hearts 3 (which is, in fact, the 12th-ish(??) game in the series…don’t ask). I’ve been obsessed with the Kingdom Hearts games since the first one came out in 2002 (yeah, it’s been a while). Which, coincidentally, is around the time I was really getting into writing. I think playing these (many) games throughout most of my life has been a big influence on my love for storytelling. But I also love so many others games. With a big gamer as an older brother, video games have just been a major part of my entire life.

But, alas, as life got busier, I near about gave up playing them, never able to justify spending valuable time doing such a thing.

Then, ya know, 2020 hit. And it seemed everyone was trying to find things to occupy their time. As I attempted to think of some fun things to do for myself come the second half of the year (that didn’t involve work), I turned to an old love: video games. I had no idea that was exactly what I needed. Having a both interactive and relaxing activity was just the thing my tired, stressed brain needed. And something about it tapped into the old Christine. The teenage Christine that just loved to create and got so excited over the smallest of things, before adulthood dulled her.

Playing Kingdom Hearts 3 especially helped, because not only was a revisiting some of my favorite, beloved characters, it was also, unknowingly, helping me plot what would become Dusk’s Broken Shadows. I had kind of wanted this story to be Kingdom Hearts-esque already, and playing through a KH game gave me SO MUCH inspiration. I’m not sure DBS would be what it is if I hadn’t taken some time out this year to play through KH3. And writing DBS brought me so much joy. Basically, it was a happy domino effect.

But more than that, playing games made me realize taking time to do fun things IS PERFECTLY OKAY. I had mostly given up video games because I figured I could be using my time better elsewhere. Which, yeah, is true sometimes. BUT. As people we need to find hobbies to relax our brains, and as writers pretty much every single thing we do in life enhances our storytelling skills. So many video games through the years, Kingdom Hearts especially, have inspired me with my writing. We don’t have to be writing in order to enhance our craft. Just LIVING is how we grow in telling good stories. From something as big as traveling across the world to as small as playing a video game—these are the things that help us become better writers. In fact, I wrote a whole Instagram post on this very subject a few months again.

We tend to feel guilty when we’re not writing. But LIVING enhances our writing, and we should never, ever feel ashamed about that.

I honestly think God wanted me to play Kingdom Hearts 3 during 2020. Which may sound like the most absurd thing in the world. But you know what? He doesn’t want us in constant robotic work states. Yes, He wants us to live fulfilling lives and not while away our time, but there is BALANCE in that. He took the 7th day to rest for a reason—because He knew we need rest. It was when I finally began to slow down during the second half of 2020 that I found myself coming back to Him.

God can speak to us through stories of any kind, even video games. (In fact, the whole theme of the Kingdom Hearts games is light in the darkness…there could be a reason that’s such an important topic to me. *sheepish grin*) And He wants us to relax and have fun now and again. Having fun is not a sin (I mean, ya know, as long as it’s not a sinful act of fun). God takes joy in our joy.

Structure and to-do lists are all well and good, but if it’s taking us away from living and enjoying this one life God gave us? Then something needs to change.

A WORD FOR 2021

Each year I always choose a word to live by, something to focus on and grow in as the days pass by. Intentional, Brave, and Peace have been my words for the past 3 years. But for 2021, I’ve chosen a word a little bit different…

ADAPTABLE

That is my greatest goal for this year: to become adaptable.

This may seem a bit backward from most people’s goals. Usually goals are to help us become more structured and focused, which are GREAT. But 2020, and really the past few years, taught me we can go too far with it. Or, at least, I certainly can. Don’t get my wrong, structure and to-do lists give me LIFE. I’d pretty much lose my mind without them. And, over the past few years, I’ve refined my schedule and lists and workload, and that’s not something I want to lose.

But me being my obsessed, workaholic self, I’ve realized I’ve become a slave to being productive. I tend to let my to-do lists sway my life far more than God. Which, obviously, is a PROBLEM.

So I’m not going to do a blog post of my yearly goals like I usually do. I do, in fact, have a list, and still have quite a few lofty things I’d like to accomplish. BUT I’m not holding myself to them, and I don’t want to announce them and feel that pressure that I HAVE to get them done. I think I did a lot last year that I probably should have let rest until I was in a better state of mind, but since I told the whole world those were my goals, I felt this needless pressure to accomplish them, instead of just finding joy and letting God lead my days.

I have this ridiculous notion that if I write a thing on a list IT MUST BE DONE OR ELSE. Instead of just, ya know, living. 2020 clearly showed us that we can’t prepare for everything. Life and circumstances change, and we have to change with it. But, man, I struggle with that. Every day I wake up and plan out what I’m going to accomplish that day, and if one tiny thing butts into those plans, I become a total grump. I truly do let my tasks enslave me, for absolutely no reason. If I don’t get a blog post done on the day I had planned, there is always tomorrow. My life isn’t going anywhere, as far as I know, and getting upset over plans changing is just a waste of mental energy.

I just need to LIVE.

Creatives need adaptability. A schedule is great, but sometimes we have to go where creativity sparks, to shift and change as our muse does. Some of the best, most fun writing I did last year was completely spontaneously handwriting a flash fiction piece. I want to do more of that. To just let inspiration take me where it will, even if it’s off the track of my goals and schedules. I think that’s where I get my best stories.

I want to enjoy being a writer again. Somewhere along the way, I’ve turned this life of writing into a chore. Though, yes, there will always be days where we just have to sit down and do the thing, even if it’s grueling. That’s just a part of the creative life. But if there are never any days of joy, what’s the point? I love storytelling. I love blogging and immersing with fellow book-lovers on social media. I love creating stories. Is it hard keeping up with things? Yes. Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY. But I fear I keep forgetting that, and making something joyful into a grueling day job.

Again, I’m not giving up my schedules and lists. Those things keep me sane and actually give me more brain space. But what I do want to give up is being so honed in on them I miss out on LIFE.

As I reflected on last year, an astounding realization came: The days where I wasn’t productive were the days I now look most fondly on. And the months like April and May where I was insanely productive, I kind of regret. I have this terrible sickness where I feel so deeply guilty when I’m not working (thus the whole giving up video games and such). I have in my head that I am just worthless and wasting time if I’m not doing something productive every day, if I’m not keeping up with all the things at all times. But God didn’t create me to sit in front of a screen for all the days of my life. Again I say: Having fun is not a sin.

Somehow it took 2020 for me to realize this. All those days I spent having movie marathons with my sister? The many, many hours I poured into Kingdom Hearts 3? The TV shows I went through? The 50 books I read? I don’t feel a lick of guilt about any of it. I’m glad I did those things. They were the things that kept me sane. It was the overworking days that I feel like should have been handled better.

NOW. I’m not saying we should spend our lives indulging in laziness. I find if I spend too much time not being productive, I actually get depressed.

It’s all in the balance.

Every part of our lives needs balance. Work and play especially.

And that’s why I want to be more adaptable this year. I want to accomplish things, but not to the point that I am enslaved to these the empty check boxes of a to-do list. I want to make more time for play, to see my family more, to not get upset when my plans for the day derail and I have to put off a task for another time. I want to bring freedom to my creativity.

That is my goal for 2021 and my plan for fighting back the darkness.

Somehow 2020 both brought me back to my old self and created a new me. I know I’ll fail a lot. I know I’ll end up overworking myself some days and probably not do enough other days. I know just because 2020 is over doesn’t mean life will magically be better. I am still jobless, still trying to not leave the house, and have endless unknowns ahead. But God is still there. He is my rock and anchor. He has my future, and that is the most comforting, hopeful truth I will ever need.

So here we are, 2021. I pray this will be a year of forever seeking adaptability, hope, and light.

I think I’m ready.

Good gracious, so sorry for the monstrosity that is this post. I just had far too many thoughts! 2020 gave me too much to think about, clearly. XD BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. I want to hear from you guys, because, goodness, how I have missed our delightful conversations in the comments. So tell me all! How has 2021 treated you so far? What are your hopes for this year? What’s something you’re looking forward to? Anything I can pray for you about as we dive into this year?