A Recap of 2025, and Plans for 2026
Long time, no talk. It was my fault, not yours.
The thing is, marketing/promoting myself makes me itch. I don’t enjoy it and don’t plan to do that in this space. My hope is to make this an online journal of sorts. A place where I can share what I’m working on and what I hope to work on in the future. Also, since I’m not actively writing any fiction at the moment, this allows me to still get some practice in, and have an answer to the dreaded question, “are you still writing?” With this space, I’ll easily be able to say, “yes, I’m blogging now.”
So, what have I been up to?
Let’s start with a life update. I’m still married, with three kids. Though, two of the three are now adults, so the use of kids might not be wholly accurate. Either way, whether they can vote and legally drink or not, they’ll always be kids to me. Our beloved Yorkie Dozer passed away. Otherwise, we still have our Shepherd mix Kiba, and our black cat Jinx, plus the addition of two sibling Tuxedo kittens, named Miso and Mochi.
There are studies out there, documenting the impact of creativity on anxiety and stress. I remember reading one in particular that stated the act of knitting had results similar to meditation. After the election in 2024, and the swearing in of a new president in January of 2025, I sought comfort in art. I focused on trying new to me creative arts. Well, newish to me arts. One, being watercolor painting. This art form carried over from the end of 2024, but in my late teens, I did study painting. Considering the fact that I’ll be turning forty-seven this year, I was slightly out of practice.
Still, for the first quarter in particular of last year, I made an effort to paint each day. Now, am I proud of everything I painted? Yes. Did I uncover some vital piece of myself through painting? No. Do I still enjoy painting? Yes. At some point in time, I’d like to become better at drawing, and more so, being able to either draw something from my own imagination, or from the world in front of me. I could somewhat follow along tutorials and my drawings turn out, not awful, but it’s still mimicking someone else.
I forced myself to complete a painting (in a small workbook) daily. I got burnt out fast.
For now, I plan to paint monthly versus daily, and for this year, paint my way through the workbook, Brushstrokes in Bloom. This book was a Christmas gift from my dear friend, Nasha. There are twelve paintings to complete and I hope to finish one each month.
Another art form I re-explored this year was knitting. I learned how to knit ages ago. I wanted to recreate wool sweaters into a fabric I could tolerate, since I cannot handle wearing even the slightest percentage of wool. Problem is, while I mastered the knit stitch, and the purl stitch, I could not figure out how to read a pattern. It was the increases and decreases around necklines in particular.
I could knit, but everything I made looked extremely handmade and not in the good way. One of my goals for 2025 was to actually learn how to read a pattern. Funny thing is, it was time more than anything else that helped me achieve this goal. When I struggled to understand a knitting pattern, the patterns were full of confusing abbreviations so the text could fit all on one page in a book or magazine. The patterns nowadays are PDF downloads and many pages long. My issue resolved itself with the long form way knitting patterns are written today.
It also helped that I selected patterns made by designers many agree are beginner friendly. When it became clear to me I could finally knit all of the sweaters and cardigans my previous self could only dream of, I was knitting like crazy. While I still knit today, I had to slow down because the daily hours of knitting were hurting my fingers, wrists, forearms, and elbows. Like with painting, I have slowed down.
Now, to writing. In 2025, I was writing, but nothing with the intention of publishing. My last book was published in 2018. It was the fourth book in my Fix Series. After that, I did write a middle grade book that I sent to my agent. My agent wanted it to be longer before he tried to sell it. Then the pandemic happened and I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to re-write it longer. During that time period, I wasn’t reading much either.
My mind was on other things. Remote learning for our youngest was an adjustment, and there were other family concerns taking center stage. We also sold our home, and bought another. The move was mentally exhausting, but I don’t regret it. This is now our fifth year in our new house, and it was a great decision for our family.
In late 2022, or early 2023, I discovered fanfiction. Now, being an avid reader, I had been aware of its existence for many years, but never read any prior to the retitling and mass market publication of former fics. Fifty Shades of Grey is a famous example of a book that was originally fanfiction. What changed for me was the discovery of AO3, Archive of Our Own website. While new to me, it was by no means new. Still, the ease at which to navigate the site and download a fic to read made my path to reading fanfictions very smooth.
My gateway fic was Measure of a Man by Inadaze22. This fic is an enemies to lovers, reimagining of the characters from Harry Potter, ignoring the epilogue. In it, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy meet again as adults many years after the battle at Hogwarts. It was slow burn and I loved it. Then, I dove headfirst into reading tons of Harry Potter fanfiction, then Star Wars fan fiction, then Jane Austin fanfiction.
Interesting tidbit about fanfiction, the reason the majority of these books aren’t sold is the source material is still under copyright. Now, there are loads of Jane Austen variations for sale at every bookseller, because it is considered open source material. The Other Bennet Sister, is being made into a miniseries by the BBC. I consider it fanfiction. So, if you have negative opinions about fanfiction, please consider it more kindly in the future.
By now, I’ve given multiple examples of how I fixate on something and then proceed to overdo it on said thing. Well, this is no different. From reading, reading, and reading a ridiculous amount of fanfiction, I did the only rationale thing I could think of. I started writing fanfiction. I wrote two. One was over 92,000 words, and the other over 108,000 words. While I don’t have a list of the exact word counts of my published novels, none are as long as either of those fics. During that time, I was also off and on (more off than on), writing a fantasy novel. I haven’t completely abandoned it, but I’m not sure if I’ll get back to it or not. This blog is my writing practice until I decide to write something else.
Now, back to reading. In 2025, I read so much I got burnt out. I read very little the last four months of the year. I’m reading again, both print and audio. I read Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop and listened to Tiny Beautiful Things. Both were lovely. I’m currently reading One Heart Justice and listening to The Little Book of Hygge.
Another thing I did in 2025, was join a MahJong group in my neighborhood. When I was a little girl, one of my aunts taught me how to play and gifted me a set. Over the years, I had forgotten how to play, so this was a fun reintroduction. I discovered the version she taught me was the Chinese one, and the version I play now is the American. Either way, I think of her each time I play. If you’ve ever considered learning, there’s a great app called MahJong 4 Friends. It lets you pick which version you’d like to play and offers suggestions to help you along.
To summarize so far, in 2025, I overdid it painting, knitting, reading, and writing.
Whew, well done me.
Now, for fun, in 2026, I’m learning some new skills. On Christmas Day, I was given an antique sewing machine from a neighbor of my sister. Like knitting, sewing has a language of its own and I’m enjoying learning it. So far, I’ve made two pairs of pants, one wearable and one not, and a skirt. I want to make fun clothes this year. Another skill I’m learning, is embroidery. This skill might come in handy with the whole make fun clothes agenda.
In addition to these, I’m trying my hand at winter plant sowing. To do this, you plant seeds in an empty milk jug, and the jug acts like a greenhouse during the winter months. There is an order to which things need to be planted based on your last frost date. I’m focusing on flowers and so far have planted coneflowers. They are native to my area, so in theory, they should thrive. More to come on how successful I am with my seeds. In the past, I would claim a black thumb, and while not green, I believe I’m solidly somewhere in-between now.
With everything else, I’ve also decided to start a personal hand written journal in cursive. I don’t plan to write daily, but weekly or every other week.
Lastly, in 2025 I was so heartbroken over the political shift in the U.S., that I believe I aggressively tried to settle my nerves with focusing on my creative passions. I tried to paint, knit, read, and write my way to mental peace. While it possibly worked in the short term, it is not a long term solution. November 2025 was a bright spot in the year politically with the election victory of my state’s first female governor, there is more to do.
Currently, I’m taking action with my dollars. I am boycotting businesses I morally disagree with and supporting those I do. I’m also donating funds to organizations defending our constitution and the rights of citizens and immigrants. I was raised on the idea this nation is great because we are a melting pot. I plan to continue to remain hopeful for the future of our country, while counting down the days to the midterms.
Those are my goals, but I could be forgetting something.
This was a very rambling post. A warning, that is unlikely to change in the future. My hope is to update these monthly. We’ll see.
In them, I hope to tell you how my sewing, knitting, embroidery, painting, gardening, mahjonging, reading, writing and being a pro democracy fan is going. I want to take my lessons from 2025 and not overdo any of these.
Until next time,
Carey