Tag: end of year

new blog post: my end of 2023 reflection My End of 2023 Reflection
Personal Life · Writing

My End of 2023 Reflection

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I’m not going to lie, I have been putting off writing a yearly review of 2023. By and large, this year has been awesome. My book won awards, I had a record number of preorders on The Reanimator’s Soul, I wrote a whole book, things have gone well– more than well. On the other hand, there were things that happened that upset me and have continued to grate on me all year. My fear is that this reflection will come off as unnecessarily bitter, which I don’t want for you (my readers) or for myself. I don’t want someone else’s assholery to poison my soul and that is something I will be working on as we move into 2024, especially since so many great things happened this year. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Things That Went Really Well

This year has been awesome, and I want to thank my readers for that. Without you all, I wouldn’t have had nearly as good a year. You all were so enthusiastic about The Reanimator’s Soul‘s release in October, and you all put up The Reanimator’s Heart for a bunch of awards/categories. As someone who is a bit self-deprecating when it comes to awards, I was shocked to see my books repeatedly put up. Seriously, thank you all. The Reanimator’s Heart won third place in BBNYA 2023 (Book Blogger’s Novel of the Year Awards 2023) out of over 250 entries. My books are also up for the Indie Ink Awards in several categories, and The Reanimator’s Heart won “best historical fiction” in the Queer Indie Awards.

The Reanimator’s Heart was also Meet Cute Bookshop’s LGBT romance read for September. Hell, MY BOOK WAS IN A PHYSICAL STORE! That alone just blew my mind. I was also interviewed by Geeks Out about my books/writing. More importantly, my books got more fan art! I love artwork so much, and every time I find out that someone was moved to create something based around my characters I am just over the moon. Few things make me happier than fan art. I also commissioned art from OblivionsDream and really want to do that again in 2024.

I don’t want to go into sales numbers and all the nitty gritty of that, but I had a good year in that regard. I’ve been trying to build on the momentum of The Reanimator’s Heart‘s release with book two, and I think I achieved that. I had the most preorders I have ever had, which I did not expect at all. My sales overall have been strong (for me), and I’m hoping I can keep that up in 2024 as well. I’m also hoping that the various awards and such will sort of keep stoking that fire.

Things That Didn’t Go As Great

I need to get better at writing consistently. It’s something I have struggled with this year. Overall, I wrote quite a bit, but I often feel like my attention is all over the place. Stretching my attention muscles is something I really do want to work on going forward as well as getting into a more consistent writing routine. This year had some chaos that I know messed specifically with this. If I’m mentally doing not great, my writing suffers first, and when my writing isn’t going well, I can’t get mentally balanced. It is a vicious cycle.

When I was called for jury duty in July, my OCD kicked up. This was compounded by some assholerly caused by another author who repeatedly made my life miserable by being a bully to me and others I know. The first instance of this didn’t cause me that much angst back in February because, while angry about how they treated someone else, I muted/blocked them, deleted my reviews of their books, and said good riddance. Unfortunately, several months later (when my OCD was already acting up) they reappeared when they got in a beef with someone else I know. The bullying person somehow got access to conversations where several of us talked about our shared experiences of them being weirdly passive aggressive or being a straight-up bully, and they made our lives miserable. I ended up having to lock my Twitter for a bit because I was getting cryptic replies and ghost rts, despite having the other person blocked everywhere. It was stress I neither needed nor wanted.

Going forward, I need to move on. I know I have been stewing on this because this person hasn’t been negatively impacted at all, despite bullying ND people several times this year that I know of, because they sick their followers on anyone who even mentions they have behaved poorly. If you follow me on social media, you may have heard me mention that my hair fell out from stress; this was why. My brain doesn’t want to leave it alone, but it isn’t healthy to dwell and frankly, calling them out on it will only backfire on me. I have to accept that and focus on maintaining my mental health in 2024 and working on my stress levels. Taking care of my brain is something I need to get better about. My plan in 2024 is to forget they exist and wait til karma catches up with them or they pick a fight with the wrong person.

Things I’m Thankful For

Let’s clear the air of negativity by ending with talking about the people and things I am very thankful for this year.

All of you. Seriously, every one of my readers who have read my books, suggested them to others, left reviews, made art, replied kindly to my posts, you all have made my life so much brighter this year. I wish nothing but the best for you in 2024, whether that’s success, prosperity, peace, healing, I hope you get it.

My partner. My partner has been going on a journey of their own with their gender, mental health, neurodivergence, etc. This year has been tough for both of us, but my partner has been nothing but supportive, kind, and loving, even when dealing with their own stuff. I love them immensely and cannot wait for another year with them.

My author friends who are my social network, my moral support system, and vast wells of knowledge. I couldn’t ask for better peeps to hang with than all of you. I plan to keep cheering you all on in the coming year.

And of course, my students, who make my daily life so much brighter, richer, and sillier.

Overall, this was a really fantastic year, and I just wanted to thank all of you [again] for making it one.

I’ll be posting a goals for 2024 post soon, so stay tuned for more on that in the coming weeks. I hope you all have a safe and happy new year!

new blog post: my end of 2022 reflection My End of 2022 Reflection
Monthly Review

My End of 2022 Reflection

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I’m sure within the next few weeks, you all will be really sick of new year stuff, but I wanted to do a recap of everything that has happened this year and sort of parse out my feelings regarding 2022.

2022 has been the best year in a while for me. It feels odd for me to say that considering all the negative things that happened in 2021. Last year was rough. 2022 was a year of regaining my equilibrium and figuring out what my new normal is. Where 2021 put things in perspective, 2022 was a year where I actually started moving toward a future I want.

Before 2018, I was doing pretty well as an indie author, but I had massive burnout and depression that year, which tanked my writing and career in general. When I started to finally come out of it and focused on my writing again, the pandemic hit. This year, I decided to make a concerted effort to get my writing and author career back on track, and it worked. I wrote, edited, and published The Reanimator’s Heart, and I even wrote Flowers and Flourishing (a newsletter freebie coming in late January) during that time. What shocked me most this year was how much I accomplished and how much of an impact those things had on the success of The Reanimator’s Heart.

When I say The Reanimator’s Heart was the best book launch I ever had, I’m not exaggerating. I had over 100 preorders (nearly double of my previous best), lots of first week reviews, consistent sales, and so much buzz and support from my friends and readers. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for all the support I’ve gotten for this weird book. Never in my wildest dreams did I think an autistic necromancer and his undead love would get this kind of attention. I just wanted to write a book that appealed to me and was the right brand of weird to get me back into writing consistently again. Oliver and Felipe are a pair I cannot wait to write more of, and I will be publishing book 2, The Reanimator’s Soul, in 2023 (no preorder yet but you can add it on Goodreads). There will be at least one more book in the series as well, maybe two, so stay tuned for that.

My word of the year for 2022 was “rekindle” because I wanted to rekindle my career and my love of writing. I’m still in shock that I managed to do it, but I put in a lot of focused effort to get there. I did the HB90 class as well as Publish and Thrive to remind myself of good practices for authors and where to focus my energy. I advertised my books regularly online and did a decent job of preparing for my preorders campaign for The Reanimator’s Heart. Looking through my goals and notes for the year, I covered a lot of ground, and I am proud of myself for getting my shit together finally.

In a perfect world, I would love to be able to rely less on adjuncting for my income and rely more on my books and/or other creative endeavors. Previously, I’ve applied for lots of full-time jobs and got approximately zero interviews or responses (and yes, many were outside academia), so part of me wants to try working for myself more while I’m able to do so. I enjoy teaching a lot, but the tenuous nature of class quotas, universities deciding to cut or change programs, and just the general misery surrounding the way the humanities in academia have taken a nosedive makes me hesitant to put all my eggs in that poorly constructed basket. With my writing and creative stuff, I can’t control how much I make, but I can certainly influence it and do my best to set myself up for success. The fact that I can change things or make choices that work best for me is the greatest appeal. That and being neurodivergent, I don’t necessarily cope well with many traditional jobs, which sucks. I would love to be able to do so and have more stability, but thirty-one years of life has shown me I’m suited to the structure academia but they aren’t hiring, unfortunately.

When all is said and done, I’m really proud of what I’ve done this year and how I feel going into 2023. I hope this coming year moves me forward as 2022 did, but more than anything, I hope I can look back at 2023 next year and feel the same sense of pride and achievement. I’ll talk more about what I have planned for 2023 in a few weeks, but for now, I hope you all have a happy holiday season and a great new year.