Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot? Looking Back on 2017 with #IWSG

It's the first Wednesday! Which means IWSG Day. Today's question: As you look back on 2017, with all its successes and failures, if you could backtrack, what would you do differently?

After you see what I have to say, be sure to check out other posts and our lovely and generous co-hosts: Julie Flanders, Shannon Lawrence, Fundy Blue, and Heather Gardner!

________________________________

2017 was a bit of re-set year for me in my writing life. I've been driving myself pretty hard for the past three years, putting out a novel a year, promoting my work by participating in author events, judging contests, keeping a social media presence, writing short stories for anthologies and magazines, maintaining my daily writing habit (now over four years in a row!) and keeping up my weekly blog. 

Of course, I was doing all this without having stopped doing anything I was already doing, like teaching six Spanish classes to 137-158 children each day, raising two children and a dog, maintaining a marriage and a home, reading a book every week, preparing our family's meals, and occasionally playing a board game or seeing a movie. 

It's obvious now, looking at that list, that I had written a perfect recipe for burnout. Luckily, I know

the signs, and I staged an intervention with myself. 

I was losing the love for writing. So it was time to remember why it's fun. 

I did that by giving myself permission to step away from the Menopausal Superhero series I've been writing since 2014 and write something different. I wrote a lot of short stories, without worrying about whether I had anyplace to publish them or not, ranging in length from 100 word micro-fiction to flash fiction to near-novella length. I rediscovered my love of poetry by reading a poem every single day and writing about it. I began a new novel that I'm nearing the end of, something completely different than anything I've written before.

This hiatus is going to mean that there will be longer than a year between book three and book four of my series. But, it's also going to mean that when I come back to those characters and that world, I will do so with a feeling of reuniting with old friends. The book will be the better for it. I'll trust to forward momentum to help me find readers for it when I get there. 

So, I feel like my 2017 was spent well. I'm definitely getting my mojo and playful enjoyment back, while still feeling like I'm taking it seriously and making progress. That's the balance I'm always seeking. 

The only thing I would change is that I would give more attention to the release of Face the Change back in July. The poor thing is still struggling for reviews because I didn't put my marketing machine hat on and send out enough ARCs and such. It didn't help that Amazon's mysterious review policies resulted in some of my reviews just disappearing :-( I'm working on that now, slowly, but I feel like I did the work a disservice by not getting the word out enough. 

Looking forward to hearing about how all of you did with your goals and plans in 2017 and how you feel about it now! Please comment below. 

______________________________

If you're not already following #IWSG (Insecure Writer's Support Group), you should really check it out. The monthly blog hop is a panoply of insight into the writing life at all stages of hobby and career. Search the hashtag in your favorite social media venue and you'll find something interesting on the first Wednesday of every month.