What 2024 has in store...

I'm getting my own reality check, you guys

Over a career in journalism, I’ve written and edited at least two dozen New Year features. You know, the ones that promise you a fresh start and new outlook with the change of the calendar? In recent years, I preferred a New Year, same you, only better approach, but it was still the same mindset. That you could change your life like you change your living room around after every Christmas when the decorations come down.

It’s the human condition to think that we can finally alter our lives on January 1st every year and of course it doesn’t always go to plan - people end up drinking a week in to Dry January, back on the cigs by Black Monday, out of the gym routine before Valentines. But while I’m realistic about it all, I do enjoy the promise of a fresh calendar year - maybe because I’m also a January baby.

This year, I started January by ending a long stretch as editor-in-chief and a shorter one as Managing Director of a magazine company. I wanted to send my final issue to press in the early days of the new year so it wasn’t a case of everything changing on January 1st, but it was close. I had simple but very important goals for the year.

1. Write the novel I’d just been contracted for (a lifelong dream come true).

2. Pass my drivers theory test, even without any real resolution to actually driver (ever).

3. Prioritise my mental and physical health.

4. Only do work that served me, and that I found interesting and motivating.

Facing in to the final month of the year, I would say I’ve achieved them all. There were a couple of wobbles along the way - I haven’t even got my provisional licence yet because I keep forgetting to get an eye test, for example. But I did pass the test! I did finish the novel (which you can pre-order here, plug plug)! I did put my wellbeing first, and finally sorted out a lot of health problems I’d been experiencing. And I would say that 95% of the work I’ve done this year was exactly what I wanted to do. Sure, I could have taken on a bit more freelancing. I could have spent more time in the gym. But I feel, and I hope, that this year of relative peace and tranquility was preparing me for the forthcoming one.

I am VERY excited for 2024. My novel finally comes out in April, and with it will (hopefully) come a barrage of publicity, signings and all that’s involved in promoting and selling your work. There are exciting weddings on the schedule, fabulous trips to look forward to, another novel to write. It’s a year that feels full of possibilities and potential.

But I’m also quite fearful, and plagued by doubt. Because who knows what’s in store? Bad things happen. Professional endeavours don’t always live up to high expectations. Risks don’t always pay off. I’ve been very lucky in 2023, and now the pressure is on to keep ascending, keep striving, have my hard work pay off in the long term.

Being a novelist is a dream job. It is quite literally MY dream job. I’ve been on cloud nine since Penguin gave me a book deal. I loved writing Reality Check, really enjoyed the entire process. It’s fun, it’s meaningful and I’m personally very proud of it. But now, the proofs are out in the world for judgement. The sales are being monitored. I’m scared, you guys.

Last week, I was honoured to attend the An Post Irish Book Awards as a guest of Eason. Everyone was SO lovely, SO excited about the book and SO welcoming. It was a strange day for me, the evening before we buried my grandmother, so I perhaps wasn’t as bubbly as I usually would be. But the whole experience frightened me just a little. It made the whole writing a book thing feel VERY real. It really hit home that selling books is as much of a business as anything else. And I realised that this is a whole new community I’m entering into, a whole new world to learn all about.

Creative purists would tell me that my job is done, now it’s in the hands of the publishers to make it a success. I disagree. I write commercial fiction and I want it to be my job going forward. Thus, it must sell - the clue is in the word commercial. And with my experience in media and PR, I know I can help sell it. It takes a lot for people to part with their money, and the book being good only goes so far - readers have to know about it, hear about it, enjoy it, tell their friends, read it at book clubs, talk about it on BookTok, bring it on their holidays.

I’m too scared to even call myself an author yet. The imposter syndrome is real, and pervasive. I’m constantly thinking in what ifs, and although I don’t want to bring about any negative energy, I’m also kinda petrified that I’ve counted my chickens before they’ve hatched. A nasty voice in my head is telling me I’m just not good enough.

It’s a process like any other, I guess. I’ve gone from a career in which I was super confident and experienced to one I’ve longed for from afar for my entire life. Of course I’m going to be nervous. But I won’t just manifest success - I’ll work my hole off for it. I want to be able to say I did everything I could.

Of course, it could work out. Three to five-ish years from now, I could be sitting in my dream office - one that’s not also a laundry room, storage facility and where my desk doubles as a dressing table. I like to think about that office when I’m feeling doubtful or unsure - I’d like, as Virginia Woolf said, a room of one’s own. I envision it having a wall of bookcases, floor to ceiling, and an overstuffed, leopard print couch for me to loll on dramatically when feeling blocked. Soft lighting, a fabulous rug, plants galore and a big TV to watch my stories. But most of all, a desk that is just a desk and a room that’s just for me, in which to do my work. Bliss.