New Year. New Focus

And it is February. The months of December and January flew by as I was engaged in work and activities unrelated to my work as an author. During that time I’ve been doing a lot of reflection. I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions but sometimes a new month or year can be a time to refocus.

I spent 2021 intentionally focused on submitting manuscripts, increasing my engagement on social media and consistently blogging. It was an interesting year and brought some successes and disappointments. And so 2022 will have a new focus.

I’ve been writing for 30 years now and I’ve had success. I’m proud of the picture books that have been published and the articles in children’s magazines. I love interacting with students during author visits or hearing from readers. And yet I have not been as successful as I’d hoped. No doubt this is mostly due to my part of the equation that leads to published books, but the other parts of the equation have changed a great deal in my 30 years.

I’ve been a speech therapist in medical settings for 40+ years and here to the equation has changed and I am disillusioned as rising health care costs have led to companies squeezing every penny out of employees with high productivity and a model where documentation seems more important than patient care.

And so I find myself casting a wide net looking for a career change. I don’t know if it will utilize my training in working with people, my writing skills, my love of reading or some new skill I have yet to develop.

 As for writing, I think I will take a hiatus from writing stories for a bit and instead focus on something not for the masses but for my family. A cookbook with recipes and some recipe-related stories. This will be a fit-it-in-when-you-can project, but from time to time I plan to share a recipe or story here.