It’s that time of year again. The time where everyone shares their yearly updates of what they accomplished in anticipation of the coming new year and its new goals. I suppose I’m jumping on that train myself here.

2024 was a wild fucking year for me.

So much went right, so much went wrong. It was quite literally a roller coaster upwards to the clouds for six months, then a hard and fast roller coaster descent into the pits of hell in the final six months.

Looking back, I see that even in the broke-my-soul-shitfest that was the last six months, there were some positives on the writing front sprinkled amongst the demons of life.

Though I wrote zero words and worked on zero new or existing projects this year, I still accomplished quite a bit on the writing front. I had three short stories professionally edited in the final months of 2023 that were ready to go, and I began submitting them to literary magazines for the first time this year. All three were accepted and published by different magazines. I successfully grew my follower count across Twitter and Bluesky — not a lot by normal standards of social media, but a lot to me. I participated in five pitch events with my WiP mythological fantasy novel. I began a revamp on my website, which is still ongoing in some areas. I started a writing prompt series after my friend’s passing to honor her memory. I managed to ready seven (maybe eight if I get my ass moving) books this year. And lastly, I made lots of new writing friends through the #WritingCommunity.

It ended up being a decent year for me on the writing front, even if my main goal had been to find my spark to actually write again. I’m still working on that, but this dream is about more than consistent words on the page, too.

So, what did my year actually look like with this roller coaster of absolute highs and the worst lows? Well, I’m glad you asked, because I’m going to break it down:

January – New Year 2024 meant I renewed my reading goal with the annual Goodreads 2024 Reading Challenge. I haven’t once made my bare minimum — were talking one book a month or less — reading goal in years. But I’m a sucker for punishment, even committed myself to rekindling my #WhatchaReadinWed segment on my platforms to hold to it. Let’s just say it did semi-okay for the first half of the year, and then we won’t mention it again. January is when I also began submitting to literary magazines for the first time! I sent out eleven submissions for “Circles of Revenge” and one submission for “Crowing Hennie.”

February – February is a blah month all around. It’s probably the worst month of the year for me on a regular recurring basis. The only thing I managed in February was sending out another five submissions for “Circles of Revenge.”

March – I can’t say March was much different than February or had anything to note that I can remember. I sent out four more “Circles of Revenge” submissions and it was my five-year Twitter anniversary. Not that my page had anything to show for after being on there for five years.

April – This was where things really picked up. I sent out another four submissions for “Circles of Revenge,” four submissions for “Crowing Hennie,” and one submission for “Necromancy’s Birthplace.” I joined my first ever Twitter pitch event on April 3rd for #questpit, throwing my WiP mythological fantasy novel in the running for a coveted agent, small press, or editor like and some hype. Alas, I had none of those, but my first attempt at pitching resulted in twenty-six likes, thirteen reposts, fourteen comments, and around a thousand views. I considered that pretty good for my low follower account and interaction. On April 14th, I got my first acceptance email of the year for “Circles of Revenge” with Livina Press, which published just a week later on April 20th in their Spring 2024: Issue 8. Just a few days after that, on my first and only submission of “Necromancy’s Birthplace,” I received an acceptance email on April 24th from Prosetrics the Magazine. Among all of this, I also left Wattpad behind (which I am still in the process of saving some things from the site), joined Discord, and created my Linktree thanks to all the good news of the month.

May – My incredible luck didn’t stop in April. On May 9th I received my third and final acceptance email of the year for “Crowing Hennie” with Suburban Witchcraft Magazine. The next day on the 10th, Prosetrics released their print edition of Issue 7: Reflections which contained my tale “Necromancy’s Birthplace.” Four days later on the 14th they released their Kindle edition of the issue. It was there very first Kindle edition, and to my, and everyone else’s, absolute shock Issue 7 hit the Amazon #1 New Release spot in not one, but two categories: Individual Artists and Poetry Anthologies. After this, I went on a social media hiatus for six weeks as I traveled a dream come true cross-country trip.

June – Continue the six-week social media and everything else hiatus as I traveled cross-country still. I admit I did plan on having a cool blog post up with some neat pictures from my trip when I returned, but you know, this is where the up, up, up roller coaster decided to nosedive all the way down.

July – Now this month…*deep breath*…was shit. I returned from my trip at the very beginning of the month only to disown a family member and grieve the loss that I would never have the relationship I deserved with them. And I got ghosted by the job that I was told was safe while I traveled. To top it off, I missed out on the second #questpit event on the 25th all because I forgot to turn the alarm function on for the reminder set in my phone. Was there anything good to July, you ask? Sure, I finally broke two hundred Twitter followers.

August – I kicked the shitty month that was July to the curb, sort of, and refocused in August. Starting off with getting myself a chibi author profile pic (made by @kamidiox on Twitter) in place of professional head shots that I could display across my social media. I also began an entire website revamp, which is still ongoing in some spaces. On the 25th, “Crowing Hennie” finally released in Suburban Witchcraft Magazine’s Issue 6. I finished the month out with another Twitter pitch event, participating in #UnhingedPit on the 29th. While it once again garnered me none of the coveted likes, I still had better engagement in some respects than my previous pitch event. Across three posts, I totaled forty-five likes, nineteen reposts, nine comments, and around fifteen hundred views.

September – At this point in the year, I was all about the pitch events, and there were a lot happening in quick succession. I started off the month joining in the #YouDeservepIt Twitter event on the 5th, still shooting my shot with the same WiP mythological fantasy novel I pitched twice now. With each event, I was getting better and better engagement, resulting in eighty-one likes, forty-eight reposts, twenty-six comments, around seventeen hundred views, and sixteen new followers this time. No coveted likes…yet. September is where NaNoWriMo imploded over AI standpoints, and I, among many other writers, cut all ties with the organization. I also broke three hundred Twitter followers and attempted to join my local library’s weekly writers’ group. I only joined once, a little shy, and, well… This is where life took a darker turn down even further. At the end of the month on the 28th, I lost my dear friend, fellow writer and Pagan, and unofficial mom to me, P. T. Wyant.

October – Grief became the understatement of the century this month. I was reeling, trying to process, dealing with funeral arrangements, and all around feeling how short life really is. I attempted and failed to participate in the #writeoberfest2024 event that was meant to try to replace NaNoWriMo’s implosion, but I just didn’t have it in me to pen any words. I did, however, get my first coveted like on October 4th when a small press liked my #YouDeservepIt pinned pitch from September. It gave me a little bit of hope, even though my inquiry about the like never got a response. On the 11th I had the second chance in just a few months to see the Northern Lights in my hometown, and I grabbed it by the horns this time. I froze my ass off, but I managed to capture one of the bucket list items of my cross-country trip I didn’t get a chance to see. Finally, I finished out the month by rebranding P. T. Wyant’s weekly Wednesday Words flash fiction prompts into Wednesday Words Reborn, #WWReborn, and continuing them on my own blog on the 30th. Doing so allowed me to honor my friend and continue her writing legacy, and doing so right at Samhain, the Witch’s New Year, was all too appropriate to let slide by.

November – Ahh… November… How shitty you were for Americans. We aren’t even going to mention that little piece of hell news. However, one consequence of the hell news was the mass exodus of writers from Twitter to Bluesky. While I was one of the original Bluesky members back when you needed a code, I didn’t really pay attention to the platform much until now. I started to commit a little bit more energy to Bluesky, and within two weeks I broke five hundred followers. Of course, the Starter Packs with thousands of writers jumping ship helped, but it was the first time I’d ever broke five hundred followers for anything. Additionally, I managed to break four hundred Twitter followers in the same month, all thanks to another pitch event. #Questpit returned on the 3rd and I gave it another go. The results this time were astounding to me, amounting to an incredible one hundred and fifty-nine likes, ninety-nine reposts, thirty-three comments, nearly two thousand views, and a whooping ninety-three new followers! Sadly, yet again, no coveted likes, but I was still floored by the engagement. I missed out on the next #UnhingedPit on the 13th by being too late to the party to even be noteworthy, mostly because I had finally found a new job after three months of searching. Finally, November was the month of social media growth as my website/blog here finally surpassed two hundred subscribers.

December – While December technically still has a few days left for something to happen, I have next to nothing to report about it. No pitch events, no new milestones, no nothing. Except for the fact that I just lost the job I’d finally landed, the day after Christmas to boot. Merry fucking Christmas to me. At least I did one positive thing this month by signing up for a lifetime membership to Weeknight Writers.

So, yeah, there’s my 2024 Publishing Wrapped recap. Sprinkled in with a little bit of other news, too. One massive roller coaster of crazy highs and some of the worst lows I’ve experienced in a long time. Next year I’ll have to remember to write these things down month by month, that way I don’t have to go sifting through a whole year’s worth of social media posts for all the notable things. It’s a good thing my social media posting is, was inconsistent or I would have been sifting for a whole lot longer than a couple hours.

And if you’re comparing your accomplishments to my own, just remember, even the smallest of wins are worth celebrating in this industry. If all you did was write this year, celebrate that. If all you did was think about writing or make friends amongst the #WritingCommunity, celebrate that, too. I’m proud of you for whatever you accomplished, no matter how small.

How does your 2024 wrapped look? What will you be celebrating from this year?