The year is drawing to a close, and as I’m starting to look forward and make plans for the next few months, I find myself looking back on 2025.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen my big news from this week: I finished the first draft on the manuscript I started in November! It’s messy, it needs a lot of work, and it’s nowhere near ready for people to read, but it exists now, and that’s such an incredible feeling.

It’s rather appropriate, I think, that I finished draft one only days before the year ended, because while I was only actively working on it the last few months of the year, it really was the result of a whole year’s work.

As much as I’m an introvert, I’m a person with a lot of passions and hobbies, and a lot of them take up time. I spent most of my life involved in theater, and I really love to craft (knitting and cross stitch, most often). Add in the D&D game I run and time to read or relax, and my free time disappears very quickly.

There have been plenty of times over the years when I’ve decided to try prioritizing writing, to varying degrees of success. And while I wish I knew why it worked so much better this time around, all I can say is that something just clicked.

I found a sustainable blogging schedule. I set up a dedicated writing space and created invigorating writing habits. I started writing again, not just daydreaming.

And I worried – of course I did – that the burst of creativity I felt wouldn’t last, that the habits I tried to form wouldn’t be sustainable. But somehow I made it work.

It wasn’t smooth sailing, by any means. I had to make adjustments as I went, had to accept that some days when I should have been writing I just couldn’t, but honestly, I think maybe the reason I did make it work was that I didn’t expect perfection this time around. I knew things would be rough, and I allowed myself to skip days if I needed to, to write badly, to be distracted (but only on rare occasions).

Holding myself to impossible standards never accomplished anything.

Instead, I tried to focus on the joy I have in the creative process, the fun it is to just sit down and make something. To let my imagination run wild and see what happens.

If I had to sum up my creative year in a word, I think it would be acceptance, which I know sounds like a less-than-great thing. But it really is the thing that fueled my success.

I had to learn to accept that I couldn’t do everything, so I had to pick what to focus on. I was once again reminded that, in writing and publishing, the finished product looks different from the early version and is the result of work from many hands, so I couldn’t reasonably expect the first draft to look like a final one. I also came to accept that I could and should be proud of my work, with no excuses or qualifiers.

As far as 2026 looks, I’m taking a bit of a break from my current manuscript, now that the first draft is done. I’ve learned the value of letting something rest and coming back to it when it’s not so fresh in my mind, but later in the year, I’ll start diving into edits. I might start brainstorming or working on a new project in the meantime, but I also might take some time to further work on my D&D campaign (though my players might not thank me for that!). I’m trying to balance the different types of creativity I enjoy, so if you follow me on Instagram, keep an eye out for some of the more hands-on crafts I might dive into.

What accomplishments are you proudest of from 2025?

Until next time, word nerds!