What did I accomplish in 2015?

I wrote very little in 2015.

This is in large part because of how 2014 ended, and how 2015 began.  I don't want to rehash, as I don't want people caring about me just because they're feeling sympathetic, but here we go in a nutshell:

My mother went into a nursing home last November, and I was almost too busy working on a manuscript to realize how big a moment that was.  Then she died in March, and I've been working my way toward finding it acceptable to write again ever since.

I've put so much pressure on myself to find some measure of success as a writer, so much emphasis on finding someone to help me make it a paying career, that it's really become something of a mania in my life.  But the truth is, some things really are more important.  Life itself, for instance.

Slowly, I started working on projects again.  Lately I've been reconsidering my potential future in comics (which has been a potential future for about a decade now).  Just before Christmas I found out I'd lost another contest.  I let it bother me until finally, I accepted the idea of perspective again. 

If it's not going to happen, fine.

What's bothered me so much about the writers blogging community is that everyone seems to think success is out there right here and now, and they support each other so blindly they never even stop for a second to think that it really isn't, and if it isn't that it's not the end of the world. 

But in July, I met someone new.  Brand new.  My sister's bouncing new daughter.  Between her birth and my mother's death, my life has been on a completely different roller coaster these past few years.  I returned home to Maine to help my mother, and it became a full witness to the end of her life.  Now I'm living in Virginia, helping my sister raise her daughter.  Three years ago, I would never have imagined any of that.  Three years ago, and two years ago, and a year ago, I still thought of my life in one way.  Now, it's become something else.

Some people shudder at the phrase, "art for art's sake."  And my pursuit of it has made my journey incredibly difficult over the years.  Now it means something else, too.  See you next week to discuss that.