Happy New Year!

Hello, everyone! We survived the holidays and made it to a new year. I didn’t make resolutions, I avoided setting ambitious writing objectives for 2020, and I haven’t picked out my writing projects. Why? Because I spent the last few months of 2019 dealing with the fallout from severe burnout and facing several health issues. I decided to keep things simple this year and develop a philosophy I could apply to all aspects of my life.

What’s my big plan? I want to listen, learn, and love. It sounds straightforward, but in reality, it’s often hard to listen when everyone is shouting, it’s challenging to learn when people aren’t careful about the information they’re putting out there for consumption, and it’s hard to love in a volatile environment. So, what sounds simple might require a lot of mental energy as I find ways to mute unnecessary shouting so that I hear individual voices, weed out the bullshit, and ensure love shines brighter than the hate.

Do for Yourself What You’d Do for Others!

The thing is, I can’t just apply these principles externally; I must aim them internally. I’ve spent the last three months reflecting on my health and realized how badly I need to listen to, learn from, and love my body. I got very sick at the end of August, and even though I made drastic and permanent changes to my diet, the symptoms plagued me until I had my gallbladder removed in October. Even then, I still wasn’t feeling well. Biopsies taken of my liver during surgery revealed I wasn’t out of the woods yet and had stage 3 liver disease. There are only 4 stages, and I was fortunate to have found this problem before it reached cirrhosis. I couldn’t see my specialist until December for follow-up tests. None of my doctors early on gave me an official diet to follow. Based on my bloodwork, they recommended a low carb, low cholesterol, low fat, and low-calorie diet. That was the only guidance I received. I did tons of research and modified many keto or low-fat recipes where the carbs or fat content was too high. Giving up sugar and drastically reducing starches was the most significant and hardest step, but damn I feel so much better. I started moving more. After only a few months of hardcore dieting and moderate exercise, my liver had already improved from stage 3 to stage 2, and my enzymes were normal again. My glucose, cholesterol, and A1c were all in normal ranges, and I’d lost thirty-five pounds. My specialist was impressed and wondered how I did it. The answer: I listened to, learned for, and loved my body. I deserve to be healthy, and my only regret is that it took a potentially dangerous condition for me to wake the hell up. I still have a long way to go for my weight loss goals, but I am damn proud of myself. Sharing my personal struggles is very hard, but it might help someone else who needs the push and is afraid to take the plunge into a healthier lifestyle. You deserve good health too.

Hard Work and Hustle!

If you’ve followed me for five minutes, you know that my mantra is hard work and hustle. That doesn’t mean you work yourself into a damn grave! Working smart is still hustling. I can apply my listen, learn, and love philosophy to my current mantra and still be successful. How? First off, I’m going to listen to my brain, body, and my fictional characters. My brain and body will tell me when I need an extra day off to recharge, and I will take it. My stories have always been character-driven, however, that doesn’t mean I don’t need to learn how to wrangle them better into a more cohesive story. That’s where the learning comes in. I started reading craft books in 2019 and will continue that trend (double down) in 2020. You cannot empower yourself and your career unless you learn. You cannot thrive unless you empower yourself. No one gives you anything in this life. No one owes you anything. Bettering yourself doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you; it just means you are working toward living your best life. It means you love yourself enough to want the best. Who doesn’t want to love themselves? If you are surrounding yourself with people who don’t also want self-love for you and encourage your dreams and success, then you need to fix that right now. Find a new tribe. We should spend emotional energy on the people who deserve it. Only you can decide how to divvy it up. Loving ourselves isn’t vain or selfish or stupid; it’s critical to our happiness.

Most importantly, I want to remember every day how much I love writing. That’s why I refused to ink a formal plan. My brain doesn’t see goals as suggestions; it views them as deadlines. I’m not going to change the way I think and process overnight, so I will modify my approach one word, sentence, paragraph, page, and chapter at a time.

I hope 2020 is your best year yet. I wish you joy, love, and excellent health. Until next month, happy reading!

xoxo