New Year 2021

I feel like this year has been a deep dive into the "What are you doing with your life?" question. It has definitely reframed it for our family, and I doubt many people would be answering that question with anything similar to this time last year. 

Without all this craziness, I doubt we would have moved to Texas to be near my husband's family. We are both ready to head back to California, but there have been some nice things about it too. 

The last few years my husband was working like crazy to build something secure for us. This year he has been able to relax a lot more. It forced him to take a step back, and think about the kind of guy he wants to be going forward. 

It's definitely made him more needing of my time and attention. Last year at this time, I was practically begging him to step back from his crazy workload and do things with me. Now it's kind of the opposite. I'm trying to clean something or cook something, and he shows up wanting to participate. Yesterday he stopped me while I was vacuuming because "The vacuum sounds weird. Lemme take a look at it." 😆 I was like, "No! Stop! Let me just finish!" 

He's messing up my daily flow. 

Wattpad: 

This year definitely zapped my creativity. I had hopes of fixing three stories that had bad endings or no endings. I was going to redo Tabula Colton, Kasper, and Ahmed's Cub. I think they would work well with Wattpad, but need major re-writes. I've done almost nothing with them other than grammar and spelling. 

So much of my inspiration for storylines and characters came from being out and people watching. I got a ton from dinners/adventures out with my husband's clients and friends. He meets really interesting super wealthy people. This year has shut that down. 

I like the wattpad format though. I love all the interactive comments and getting so much feedback on my stories, but the readers are very different from nifty's audience. 

I get a lot of the readers who start out loving the series, but being a little concerned for the controlling character (Ali, Ari, Navid, etc...). They post a ton of comments and things are going well, but then they hit that one point in the story where it is clear that the main character is a submissive. Then I get a lot of negativity because they bonded with my characters and care about them, but don't accept the submissive/dominant relationship. I usually leave the comments unless they are too rude. 

I have a new storyline that has been growing in my head the last two months. I've written nothing on it though. It's a hunky younger guy who gets with an older guy who is super alpha in his daily routine, but super submissive in sexual situations. I'm just not feeling the pen-to-paper on it yet though. 

I hope 2021 brings a return to normalcy. I want my creativity back. I know I am completely privileged to have a husband who has kept me home and safe this year. He has gone out of his way to make COVID something we see on the news and not in our family. I am so so so grateful for that. I am grateful that I am healthy and safe even if I'm bored and blocked. 

My husband keeps saying, "Some seasons we aim for stars, in this season we aim for life." He can be a real fortune cookie some times.