December Diaries: Monthly Missives from The Dream Pedlar
Perhaps for the first time in my life, I'm not standing on the precipice of a new year and muttering those old clichés about how the old year has sped past.
These past few years as a parent have reinforced the truth that time is always fleeting; and this realization only takes us by surprise when we haven't been paying attention.
Still, the end of the year is a great time to celebrate, to rest and to reset, and to reflect on how we wish to show up in life in the days to come. There's something about spending our days with intention and attention that changes the flavour of life, no matter what external circumstances we face.
But before we venture into those reflections, here are a few goodies for you to add to the treasures you may have already amassed so far this season.
On Writing
Do you have a Kobo Plus subscription? If you do, did you know that all my books are available on Kobo Plus, which means you can read them (and many other books) at no additional cost?
Find some great fantasy reads on Kobo Plus this month. My titles, Dying Wishes and A Benevolent Goddess, are featured in the promotion below alongside some terrific books by many other authors, but honestly all my books are available on Kobo Plus.
You can also get another of my titles, Erased From Existence, a young adult paranormal mystery for FREE as part of the Free Sci-fi & Fantasy January promotion below that runs until the end of January.
Tales for Dreamers
This month's collection of short tales is my favourite. Five amazing new tales in all! And everything's about magic and wishes and wish-fulfillers — it's that season, after all.
The stories even have intriguing titles: magic's back, an unexpected enchantment, sprinkling magic for wish fulfillment, going on a wish hunt, and fallen angels!
Check them all out here!
I've also added an annual favourite to the collection: a longer short story titled 'all in a year's work', in which you'll find out how the twelve months of the year ended up with different numbers of days!
Life, Unadulterated
Every November/December, I write a post reflecting on the year gone by, writing-wise, that is, and what I'm looking forward to achieving in the year to come.
We often set goals to take us to a future that is somewhat different than the present reality we live in.
Somewhere along the way, I've come to realize that I've been struggling to envision a future in which my days look vastly different from now.
I essentially spend my days writing, reading, going for long walks, and hanging out with family. Relishing the moments of happiness that come our way, and showing up to address life-problems as and when they arise.
It occurred to me that I'd be a very lucky person indeed if I could continue to do this 5, 10, 20, 30 years down the line.
It's as if I'm already living my dream-life now. Have been doing so for quite a while. So I couldn't quite explain to myself why I often felt pressured and behaved as though I were operating from a place of lack.
But when I thought about it, I realized that I do know why I've been so anxious about my writing journey. It's because I had set some quantitative goals for myself, and in constantly looking towards the end-result, I had lost sight of the joy of the task on hand.
It wasn't always like this. Setting goals and having the certainty to achieve them was much, much easier when I was younger.
It's only been in the last few years—since I became a parent, since I turned to writing fiction full-time—that I've found myself reckoning with the arbitrariness and uncertainties of life in ways I hadn't before. The pandemic too must have had something to do with that shift in outlook, I'm sure.
I'm beginning to see that it takes a whole lot of intention, awareness and courage to live a conscious life. Our time in this world is so fleeting and precious that sometimes it's astounding how much time and energy I've spent on things entirely out of my control.
I still find myself drifting in that direction when I'm not paying attention. But it is also undeniably rewarding every time I make the choice to move away from something that doesn't serve me (like doomscrolling) towards something that does (like writing fiction).
So my goals this year are not output-oriented or milestone-oriented but more process-oriented.
They are not set in some distant future, but are more focused on the present moment.
They have nothing to do with anyone or anything on the outside, and are entirely based on how I show up in this world, day after day, moment after moment.
As we step into 2025, what I really wish for is to find contentment in my days as they unfold, the confidence that my words matter and make a difference to people so that I can spend my time writing books and stories without shame or anxiety or guilt, and compassion, both towards myself and others, to accept that life and other people won't always go my way.
So, what frame of mind do you find yourself in as we prepare to leap into a new year?
Or are you one of the wise ones who don't hold with labelling a single moment in time as more precious or significant than any other? I'd love to know!
Books You May Love
This month I've read The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir, which was marketed as a thriller but turned out to be thriller-horror. I usually don't read horror because it scares the bejesus out of me.
Luckily for me, the horror aspect of this tale only shows up right at the end. Until then, I enjoyed the thrilling unfolding of events in blissful ignorance!
What Happened To Nina? by Dervla McTiernan was another enjoyable thriller read.
Nina is a young adult who heads out on a weeklong trip with her boyfriend Simon to a secondary property in the woods that his family owns, but he returns alone from the trip claiming he and Nina had broken up and that he had left the property while she chose to stay behind to come the following day. Only, Nina never comes back home.
The story is told from many different points of view. We figure out pretty early on what happened to Nina, so it's quite a feat on the author's part that she kept the story interesting enough that I couldn't stop reading through till its very satisfactory ending.
The book I really loved this month was The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore.
It is centred around a young girl, Barbara van Laar, who goes missing from her bunk at summer camp in August 1975. It's her family who owns the camp.
Several years ago, her brother Bear van Laar had disappeared from the same area; this had happened before Barbara was born but this incident marks her entire life. The story unfolds in two timelines as both mysteries are resolved in the book.
It's hard to define this book, which intertwines so many themes and genres including historical fiction, motherhood, family secrets, the life of a young woman in 1950s America, a setting in the Adirondacks, teenage friendship, a serial killer lurking in the forest, and also wilderness survival, which is what the summer camp is all about.
As soon as I finished reading this book, I added more works from this author to my TBR pile and can't wait to disappear into her fictional worlds.
And just like that, another edition of Monthly Missives comes to an end, just as another month, another year comes to an end.
I recently came across this quote by American author and philosopher, Howard Thurman.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Reading these lines brought me feelings of liberation, relief and joy, even empowerment, that I hadn't felt in my writing journey for a while.
These words also go hand-in-hand with Jon Kabbat-Zinn's observation (and book of the same name), "Wherever you go, there you are."
So much of our lives is a product of our reactions and responses. It is one thing to know this intellectually, but quite another thing altogether to put this simple, profound truth into practice.
One thing that never fails to provide help and clarity during difficult times is the Serenity Prayer: Dear God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
And these are the blessings I wish for you too in 2025. A wonderful New Year filled with serenity, courage and wisdom, so that you too can go do the things that make you come alive!
Much love,
Anitha