It has been a good year. Slow and steady. No personal drama. No illnesses. No fires to extinguish, literal or otherwise. No deaths in my family. Marriage is 25 years strong. Weather is doable. Friendships are in abundance. Private time is mine for the taking, but so is social time. I love my tutoring job. The kids I get to work with, who teach me more than I teach them. I love my writing life…90% of the time. And while 10% can seem insurmountable in the moment, it is, after all, only 10%.
The mountain is high, indeed, but I continue to crawl up its side, over rocks and crumbly earth and seemingly impassable streams. The turtle and the hare? I am definitely the turtle. Thank god for the hard shell. Without it, I would never have written 14 novels and self-published five, nor would I be purchasing a keyboard this January to begin writing the musical version of my latest book.
In 2019, I traveled to California to see family, visited Switzerland with my husband, and cried with joy as my senior students received college acceptance letters. I won a third book award, gave readings at three libraries, held four book signings, sold my novels at holiday craft fairs, spoke to two book clubs, attended an author luncheon, promoted a YA, and released my 5th novel.
I was speaking with my husband the other day, and I mentioned how lucky I feel to be a female writer in the USA, a place where women can do everything that men can do, where we are not second class, where we can choose our marital partners, express our sexuality, speak up in public forums, write our books, share our words with the world. How lucky I am that I am in my 50s but feel as though I am in my 30s; that I have decades of wisdom to accompany my writing endeavors; that I no longer believe in the power of whining or self-pity; that I have not become so jaded that I quit my passion in favor of the status quo; that I have a supportive community around me; that I can quit this gig whenever I want, or keep creating until my brain fizzles.
What a great life this is. This life that I chose.
I do hope this holiday season, you remember all of the great things which allow you to be who you are, what you are. That by reflecting on the many ways in which you, too, are lucky, or by celebrating even the tiniest of baby steps, your new year is a perpetual motion of great things large and small. Take note of these things, these moments. It may turn out that you are luckier, and even happier, than you thought.
Here’s to you and your creative endeavors in 2020.
Leslie Tall Manning 