Laura Bowers

Happy New Years, lovelies, I hope you had an amazing holiday season with lots of love and laughs! Can you believe it’s a new decade?? And a gorgeous one at that … just look at those pretty, even numbers: 2020.

Things feel different for me this New Year’s.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve sworn in past January’s how THIS YEAR will be my very best yet. How THIS YEAR is the year I finally get my crap together and accomplish EVERYTHING on my goals list, how THIS YEAR I will start living the life of my dreams and become the kind of woman I’ve always wanted to be.

But you know what? I’m already living the life of my dreams. Can I make some improvements? Sure, of course, I can and I will, but my life is pretty freaking awesome, just as it is.

And I’m pretty freaking awesome as well, just as I am.

Holy cow, I loved this book.

And I adore Sarah Painter … her Worried Writer Podcast that helps writers overcome self-doubt, fear, and procrastination, her fiction novels, her Scottish accent, everything. She was recently a guest on the Self Publishing Show, another podcast that I love, and I swear … the story she told about her past and current struggles could be my own.

I can summarize my story quickly: All writers have mental demons. Mine has been winning. For far too long.

Wow, I’ve gotten behind with these monthly recaps, with my last one being in April! Our May was crazy. And June is now just a blur. It’s now 8:50 am on July 31st and my to-do list has grown to epic proportions, but I need some chat-time before getting back to work. Setting the timer now for 30 minutes, let’s do this.

Btw, can I say how much I’m loving Grammarly? It’s already found and corrected two errors thus far. Anyway, moving on to:

It’s been on my wish list to purchase a MasterClass All Access Pass for a long time. I mean, come on, the amount of courses they offer for writers is amazing! Margaret Atwood, James Patterson, David Mamet, R.L. Stine, Dan Brown, Malcolm Gladwell, and of course … the one and only Judy Blume? So worth the $180.00 to me … and yet, I hesitated to make the purchase.

Then in December, I saw how Neil Gaiman’s MasterClass would be available in early 2019. What??? Hesitation gone, SOLD! Considering the average cost for a one-day writing conference can be around $150.00, this is a great price for what you’re getting. Plus there are many classes under the Film & TV category that could be wonderful for writers, such as ones by Ron Howard, Shonda Rhimes, Steve Martin, etc.

Cross posted on Joyful Miles.

Wow, April ended up being a huge month for me. First off, I TURNED 50, woo-HOO!!!!! I’m so blessed and thankful for reaching this milestone. #50isfabulous baby!! April is also Camp NaNoWriMo, a huge event for many writers. Unlike November’s National Novel Writing Month where you have thirty days to write a 50,000-word novel, there’s more flexibility for April and July’s Camp NaNo. You get to pick your project and/or word count, whether it’s to edit a novel, do plotting work. For me, my main goal was simple:

To fall in love with writing again.