BrooksBlog: Happy New Year, Everyone!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

It is not quite 2021 – that happens tonight at midnight on the west coast for me – but I thought I would get a leg up on this note to all you wonderful readers before I decided to bag it for another time.  So easy to push things aside these days.  Time doesn’t seem to matter, and I find myself looking to focus on what really does – which is the book writing end of things – while skipping past the stuff over which I have no control.

Let’s see.  Can’t go out to eat.  Can’t do much visiting with friends.  Can’t go to movies.  Can’t go on tour or to conventions or to bookstore events.  Can’t go on vacations because I am not willing to get on airplanes and we can’t go overseas and Hawaii still requires vaccinations and isolation and nowhere to eat there either.

Right?

But what I can do is stay home to write this letter to my readers, so I am doing it.

And instead of griping about this past year or the state of the nation or the mess in Washington or how it was better when I was a kid or whatever, I am going to try very hard to focus on positive things only.

On my desk sit two new as yet unpublished books from Jim Rollins and Peter Brett, which I am anxious to read.  Upstairs are unread books by Marie Lu, John Connolly and T.J. Klune and I have a few others either on order or coming from my publisher.  Down the hall is a room filled with possibilities to choose from simply by accessing streaming video for movies and television – but especially the Great British Baking Show.

On my computer is a book I wrote in 2019 but decided to hold it back because everyone of my publishing team and I agree it still needs help – probably through extensive re-writing.  But also on my computer is the finished new fantasy novel Child of Light which will publish in September and about which all those same people are very excited.  Finally, also on my computer, is a sequel which I am eight chapters into and will publish in 2022.

So my cup is full, and I have a feeling I am not yet done trying to fill it further – not only in this coming year but also in the years to follow.  So if you are not too terrified or discouraged by this past year, I encourage you to do what I have done here and list the things you have to look forward to in the next twelve months.  Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

An end to Covid and sheltering in place;

A return to social interaction on a regular basis with real live people not images;

Vacations anywhere you want to go;

More books, movies, games and lots of smiles;

A sense of peace and hope.

All these await you in the year ahead, and I wish them for all of you.  You know how much I care and respect you.  As fans, you are the best.  The vote is in, the ballots are counted, and you won by a landslide.  Yes, we are connected by books.  But by so much more.  We share a respect and an admiration for one another.  We have a community that is strong enough to withstand all the stuff we have been dealing with for the past few years.  We know the future will be brighter and our passion for reading stronger.

I look forward to seeing you down the road.  You are in my thoughts and prayers.  And every so often you are there in a picture or comment on social media or in one of Judine’s photo memories or even in an unexpected moment of reminiscence.

Judine and I and the rest of our extended family send their warmest hopes to you and yours.

Please stay well.