23 on 23 in ‘23

Welcome to the first (admittedly belated) post of the New Year! Every year I offer a wrap-up, a summary of the year gone past, tied up in a neat little bow. This time I offer 23 thoughts on this, the 23rd day of the 23rd year of this millennium / century.

Because it’s a new year, and hence changes and new beginnings are afoot.

Here goes:

1. I do a year-end wrap-up every time. you can read all the past ones, but this year I want to do something different.
2. Instead of focusing on the quantity and quality of writing, I’d like to share that my mental state has vastly improved, thanks to a combination of reasons.
3. This means that though I wrote and read less, I enjoyed it even more.
4. Now I understand what the quote about life in each breath rather than breaths in a life.
5. Time is short and so is life.
6. So, I will need to make some changes to this blog.
7. And I don’t mean design, layout or any of the other funky stuff that makes blogs visually appealing.
8. It’s the frequency of posting, and the kind of content.
9. I will switch to posting once on the last day of the month with the main focus on writing resources, which is still in demand.
10. In addition I will pop in on odd days to declare publication successes.
11. On that note, I have two acceptances that brightened up my December!
12. One of the stories will be published later this month and another in April.
13. I’d like to send out tons of submissions for stories I wrote last year, but alas, they all await my editorial red pen.
14. Fresh writing is on hold at the moment, but ideas are streaming in.
15. I might also stop by to share brief reviews of books I’ve recently read and finished.
16. A nice example would be the bestseller The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins.
17. I swept through it in 3 days!
18. A murderous twist on a favourite classic of mine, I loved it for the parallels to Jane Eyre, even though it is indeed a little predictable as the reviews accurately stated.
19. I’m also reading a book by a dear friend: The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai, #1) by Damyanti Biswas
20. This is another cracker of a thriller I expect to finish by this weekend.
21. Another dear friend won a contest!
22. Congratulations to Maggie Nerz Iribarne for her trio of stories Three Sisters that won the contest at Defenestrationism.net!
23. And that’s all I have for today!

See you next week with my usual dose of submission calls, writing tips and all things literary!

Edited to add: an earlier posting rendered some weird formatting apparently. Please do click through to the post to read it in its entirety.