Today marks one year in New Mexico, and what an amazing, life changing year it’s been. You can read prior posts here and here and the whole lot of them here if you’d like to catch up.
To sum it up, even though there were some bumps in the road, and I’m still in transition to my new life, I wouldn’t change it for anything. I know I’m headed in the right direction.
The Whole Health Journal started out as an exploration of my life and as a build up to a memoir I was planning to write, but I’m changing gears. Rather than get stuck in the past, I want to live in the now and create fantastical realities of my own. I want to explore answers to questions I’ve had about life and spirituality, and I want to explore the why in just about everything.
I spent 2021 figuring out how I was going to express myself to the world. I have a Medium account, this Substack account, a blog on my website, social media, and I also started writing for Newsbreak.
Needless to say, I was feeling all over the place, and I couldn’t decide if I should keep them all or focus on one outlet. After months trying each, I just decided to focus on the Whole Health Journal (which is this newsletter). I think it offers more possibilities and is the best outlet for my work.
I’m about 20,000 words into writing the first draft of a fictional novel. It’s fantastical in nature, so I plan to write posts about research I have to do. I can’t go into detail on what it’s about, but the information I share with you in this newsletter will give you an idea.
On a macro level, it’s sort-of like Harry Potter meets Frodo for an epic adventure to save mankind and the universe, but the characters are women and there is no blood and gore - just angels, spirits and a demon or two. And even though the book is fantastical and nonviolent, it’s fast-paced and exciting while also being social commentary on life today.
You’ll get insight into the various drafts, edits, and characters here in the Journal. Perhaps you’ll even be able to help define and/or refine the book’s characters and plot - I’ll probably need feedback at some point.
The second focus of 2022 will be writing posts about becoming vegetarian or vegan. There are many reasons to go plant based, and I’ll explore them throughout the year while giving easy tips on how to transition or simply how to put more plants into your life.
The goal is to create some type of publication by the end of the year - most likely an ebook. I figure I might as well write something I have experience with that would be helpful to others - and it’ll also help me learn about publishing and marketing an independent book in the 21st century.
From that perhaps I’ll write about the process of creating an ebook - seems “everyone” is doing it these days. I could give you tips in case you ever get the desire or urge to do one yourself.
All of this will help me to define and refine my writing voice, which is so crucial for a writer.
I have so much to look forward to in 2022, and I’ll hope you’ll join me or continue being part of this slowly growing community. Feel free to leave a comment below and share what you’re up to next year and what changes you’re making in your life.