First off, 2023 was a much better year in the Doore household than 2022. Last year was the year COVID finally caught up to us, resulting in multiple months of recurrent illness and a general feeling of blah. I had to cancel my physical attendance at the Chicago WorldCon, which I’d been dearly looking forward to, and the writing project I’d been working on since 2020 (hah) just dragged on and on and I felt like I’d never finish it. Plus, the parenting anthology that had also been conceived of in 2020 kept having hiccup after hiccup and nothing seemed to go right.
But where 2022 was a year of slog and disappointments, a year where I felt ever more disconnected from my writing and the broader community, 2023 has been a complete turn-around.
Which feels paradoxical, considering Twitter continued its downhill trajectory throughout the beginning of 2023, culminating in such a terrible — and toxic — user experience that I ditched the platform entirely by June. Enough other writers and readers had jumped ship by then that it was well worth it to let Twitter go. But, on the converse side, folks have congregated largely on BlueSky, largely on Discord, largely else-web, and while I miss having one place to find them all, there’s something newly invigorating about all these smaller, more lively communities. There’s less doom and gloom and more conversation.
On that community side, I was also incredibly fortunate to get to go on a mini writing retreat in November with some other authors. Six of us converged for a weekend in chilly Minneapolis to write and chat and write and eat and write and just be. It was everything I needed rolled into a few days: not just time to write and think away from the pressures of parenting and dayjob, but time spent around other creatives, friends. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face, but the writing community is the real joy of publishing.
Community is also how I’ve been able to keep returning to the page, morning after morning, even when so many of those mornings have been interrupted by children or sickness or dayjob. Writing is such an incredibly lonely, isolating job sometimes–here I am, alone, ahead of the sunrise, just me and my words. Which is why something as simple as the 5am Writers Club–a group of writers united only by the fact that we are all awake and writing at 5am, whatever timezone that might be–has been extremely encouraging. Or the sprints I share with my authors’ chat, who cheer me on even if I only manage 20min, 40min, every morning.
The key to longevity in this business is consistency, and the last few years have been anything but consistent. But with all that support, it’s been easier and even pleasant to keep trying. And slowly, the children are growing, the illnesses ebbing, and I’m able to string a few mornings together, and then a few weeks of mornings, and even 400 words a day adds up eventually.
Which led to me finishing, if eventually trunking, one project early this year and then completely rewriting and revising a separate project over the summer. That’s two projects done after three solid years of being unable to finish anything. Two projects almost entirely worked on between 5 and 6am most mornings, most weeks, most months.
I don’t know what 2024 will bring, nor will I dare try to guess. But if I can hope for anything, I’ll hope for two things: my quiet, 5am writing time, and my boisterous, wonderful writing communities. ❤
K. A. Doore 