Newsletter February 2025: My Lost Year

I completely lost the entire year of 2024, at least as a writer. Every month lost. Every week lost. Every day lost except for my daily journal entry. I’ve lost all of those precious minutes that I planned on using to write and publish Death at the Dance Club, the sequel to Death in Shining Armor. Zip. Nada. Gone, mostly without a trace.

In addition to not working on that novel, I haven’t sent out a newsletter since October 2023 when I was about to embark on NaNoWriMo2023.

I suppose that those of you who used to receive my newsletters might have thought I‘d died, not uncommon when one reaches her 80’s.

Or I was alive but I’d fallen into that vast pit of the forgetfulness called dementia.

Or I’d gone into a senior living facility where I didn’t have time for writing due to all their planned activities like trips to local historic sites, participating in book clubs and group chair yoga and of course having lunch punctually at noon and dinner at five in late afternoon.

None of those things happened to me to explain my lost year. Nope.

Instead, during NaNoWriMo2023, I suffered a workplace injury of rather devastating proportions for a writer. After sitting for at least three hours a day with my legs fixed in the same position during the first few days of November 2023, I suffered what my physical therapist later called a lumbar root nerve injury in my right leg. It hurt so much that I couldn’t sleep through the night even after I took extra Ibuprofen at 2 AM. And before the month was out, my right leg had noticeably atrophied.

Believe me when I say that if you have to hurt yourself, don’t do it during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. Why not? Chances are good your doctor isn’t available, and urgent care centers and emergency rooms are crazy.

Still, my doctor got me some pain medication fast, got me a handicapped parking placard, and sent in an order for physical therapy. I started physical therapy early in December 2023 and continued it for four more months, tapering down from three appointments a week to two to one and eventually, none at all early in May 2024. I’m happy to say that the pain in my right leg lessened and soon went away completely though new ones cropped up for a while.

Anyway, this whole deal depressed me, especially because I couldn’t write much and this is the activity that gives me joy.

Also, during my lost year 2024, besides not working on anything related to my career as an indie author, didn’t promote my most recent publication, Death in Shining Armor, so I’ve had very few sales and minimal reviews, something that drives me into despair.

Even after I got back to normal physically, I found the constant barrage of email and text pleas for donations in 2024 both stressful and paralyzing.

As the saying goes, time is precious and I lost a whole frigging year of it. That’s 525,600 minutes. That’s 8,765.82 hours. For years, I’ve set my writing work schedule to twenty hours a week. So yes, I lost 1,040 hours in the year 2024. As another saying goes, time is money. If I was paid $15, which is what minimum wage should be, but isn’t in the state where I live, I’ve lost $15,600.

And so, Is this the way the rest of my life will go? I asked myself. Will I lose my writing time every other year I spend alive?

Happily, the answer to this is no. I’ve vowed that 2025 won’t get lost for me. I can’t afford it. Recently, I’ve started working on the next two novels in my cozy historical calendar mystery series by rereading the first five books in the series. Tentatively, the new books will be called Mayhem in May and Jeopardy in June.
Meanwhile, you can buy the eBook version of January Jinx is only $2.99.

From Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HSSSBE4
From Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/january-jinx
From Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/january-jinx
And from Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/january-jinx
among others . . .

And Fatal February, the second novel in my cozy historical calendar mystery series, has some really fun parts about celebrating Valentine’s Day in the year 1900. You can buy it for $5.99 from
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017081JHM
Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/fatal-february-a-historical-mystery-novel/id6443075178
Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/x/x?ean=2940166682642
From Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/fatal-february-a-historical-mystery-novel