My goodness. I planned to blog regularly throughout 2021 and I only managed to publish one post for the whole year!

As I sat down to think about my writing goals for 2022, I began to wonder why I only wrote one blog post last year, and I think the answer is: way too much happened last year!

THE BOY FROM THE MISH was published in February. I had so many events and commitments in those first few months that blogging quickly became the last thing on my mind. It’s pretty amazing to think that my life changed so much, yet so little at the same time. I was on this amazing high for months, then by the end of June, the second NSW lockdown happened and I was stuck inside my apartment, with a 5km travel limit. I was unemployed and multitude of commitments were cancelled. My savings were drying up and I landed back on Centrelink. I found myself falling into this dark hopelessness.

I’d done Sydney Writer’s Festival, Brisbane Writer’s Festival, Headland Writer’s Festival and One Book One Community in my hometown of Bega, where in February, I also launched my book with a large group of family friends, and community members. And suddenly, I was stuck in my suburb and my apartment. The only people I interacted with during this time were my housemates. All my planned events were cancelled, and the worst thing of all, my creative well was all dried up. I fell into a deep writer’s block and I couldn’t write more than a few sentences at a time. I began work on three projects and only one of them was decent (and I plan on finishing it this year!).

I was struggling to come up with even slightly creative ideas and I was beginning to feel like a one-book-wonder. Maybe I only had one book in me. Maybe TBFTM was my peak. I was depressed and I knew it.

Like so many of us, I struggled hard during that second half of 2021, but I also came to the end of the year with a great burst of creativity, a great new job and, corniest of all, love. Looking back, I realise all that struggle was contained to three months, but it felt like years while living it.

I choose now to look at 2021 as a great year. I published my debut young adult novel and it exceeded any expectation I had in the bookstores. I achieved my dream I’d had since I was a child. Reflecting on 2021 came with this thought: What the hell do I do now? I’ve already achieved my dream.

I’ve realised now that you have to create a new dream, a new goal, once you’ve achieved one. I remember hearing somewhere once that you need to keep chasing, and when you’ve caught that thing, you need to create something new to chase. I have a feeling it was Matthew McConaughey who said that, or something similar, but it feels really true to me now as I set my writing goals for 2022.

1. Promote ‘Ready When You Are’ in March.

TBFTM is being published in the U.S by Scholastic as ‘Ready When You Are’, in early March. I have a couple of events and interviews booked in already – the first being an in-conversation with none other than my own American publisher, author David Levithan. I honestly can’t wait to embrace the early mornings when I’ll need to be alert and in enthusiastic-energetic-excited-author mode. I’m so excited for Jackson’s story to reach American readers.

2. Complete edits/revisions on book 2.

I’m thrilled to be publishing another young adult book with Allen & Unwin in 2023. I’m double-thrilled to be working with the same editor I worked with on my first book. I haven’t made an official announcement yet as the book only has a working title at the moment, but for now, I can say it’s another young adult story with an Aboriginal teen at its centre. It sounds so cliché to say, but this character walked into my life one day and told me to write his story. I resisted for a while, but he came in at a time when I was feeling very passionate and angry about a lot of things, and writing his story really helped me understand how I felt about those things. It helped me understand what I wanted to say. I’m currently working on my revision, in the early stages of editing. I’m so excited to how this story is shaping and really can’t wait for it to get out in the world!

3. Finish middle-grade fantasy.

I started work on a middle-grade fantasy in early 2021 and I was so excited by the story and having so much fun writing it until the Sydney Lockdown happened in June/July 2021. The story centres around a group of four Aboriginal kids and their stumbling into another world. I’ve come back to it a few times, added a few hundred words here and a few hundred words there, but the momentum has stopped for me for now. I am very excited by this story though. Normally, I would give up on a project when I find myself in this situation, but this story is so fun and adventurous and scary and personal at times, that I need to finish it once I’ve completed my revisions for my YA book. Whether it finds a home or not, I owe it to myself to finish the story that made me feel like I was a child experiencing the magic of writing for the first time all over again.

I might be stretching my ability a bit here, but I started writing another young adult manuscript just before I began revisions on my 2nd book. It’s only 5000 words at the moment, but it’s different and fun and I’m feeling very confident about the story. I don’t usually know how much I care about a project until I get to the 20000 word mark, so time will tell. That being said, I did write a 50000 word manuscript and then one day, say to myself, “this is shit”. It’s left unfinished and shitty in my laptop.

4. Blog more.

I want to blog at least once a month. This is my January post. If I can at least get one in for February, I’ll have doubled my 2021 stats!

Here's to 2022.

Gary