Hello and Goodbye

Happy New Year, WWKers! I do hope that you had a fine end to 2015 and have had a stellar start to 2016.

I said goodbye to 2015 by staying up to 9:30 (I'm such a wild child) reading a few pages of Lauren Groff's amazing Fates and Furies. I said hello to the new year by attending what was basically a moving meditation—high-intensity interval training with mantras thrown in—at a friend's studio. At the end of 75 minutes, sweat dripping down our faces, we were asked to write down three words we wanted to focus on in the new year.

My words for 2016 are above: create, imagine, believe.

Oh, and there's "work" with an asterisk because all of the things I want take work and nothing less and I felt that part needed to be documented too. We were told to put that little sheet and a 24/7 token into our wallets as a tangible reminder of what kind of energy we're putting forth in the new year.

I absolutely love this idea. I love the thought of focusing on single words rather than specific goals. Mostly, because many of my goals take other people to solve them and it's not fair to myself to make a resolution that revolves around others' actions. I'm in control of myself and nothing else—a hard thing to remember sometimes...especially after the 2015 I experienced.

2015 was a year of change of me. I said goodbye to my younger and only sister at the end of 2014. I lost my grandmother three weeks into 2015. While I was on bereavement leave for my grandma's funeral, some jerk blasting through an unprotected left turn totaled my car. I was fine, but when the tow truck driver came, I broke down and started crying. I really felt like I'd hit a major low. Personally, professionally, and now literally, I felt like I wasn't going anywhere.

Exactly three months later I had an offer for my first book deal. Hard cover. Major house. Amazing imprint. Fabulous editor.

Everything after that has been amazing. I'm on an uphill climb out of that valley and I'm up so high now that when I look back on 2015, it doesn't feel like it was a bad year at all. Even though it began with such loss, it was actually a dream year.

2015: the year of new adventures ahead.

But with new adventures bring change. I'm on a different path than I was even a year ago and I need to respect that. And I need to make space for others who desire to bring change to their own lives. Therefore, I've decided to leave the WWK.

I am very conscious of what a wonderful resource the WWK is for mystery writers. It's a wonderful community both within the readership and the blog internally and I want to make sure I'm not filling a spot that someone else can use. My book deal is for YA fantasy, not for the mysteries I have locked in Dropbox, and it feels selfish of me to squat on a space on this wonderful platform when someone else currently writing mystery could benefit on so many levels from joining.

I will be back often to say hello to the WWK in the comments and keep up with the mystery community—my first love. The words in this space are always inspiring, thought provoking and interesting. I couldn't imagine my life without them. I'm very grateful to have been a member of the WWK for so long and I really enjoy each and every one of the writers and readers.

Take care, WWK. Love and light to all of you and have a very happy 2016.