Hello, readers and a very Happy New Year to all of you!

(I know I’m the last out of the gate with this, but hey, fashionably late is how I roll.)

So, I feel like most of us can agree the last few years have hardly been the best. You know, globally. I daren’t even say, ‘I didn’t have a great year,’ because I fully expect to hear a roaring, ‘No shit, Strange!’ from the world in response.

I did actually have a few personal, non-COVID related grievances though. I mean, it’s still not a competition, but let’s just say I’m now the oldest living woman in my family at the tender age of 30-something.

Closer to 30. #justsayin.

Anyway, in a truly unique and unpredictable manner, I’m writing this post with the intention of discussing my plans for New Year and my hopes that it, and I, will be much improved.

Are we talking about resolutions, Strange? Yes, dear readers, I’m afraid we are. As well as general plans and ideas.

…still there? Anyone?

Well, for those of you still with me, let’s start with resolutions. When I was younger I used to make a list of like ten that never came to fruition. As I have grown wiser, (I think I mentioned I am the matriarch and therefore automatically the wisest woman in my family now) I make fewer, much more achievable goals. This years are as follows:

1) Eat healthier. No, seriously. Not like, eat less chocolate or whatever, I’m actually pretty healthy as it is, I’m just trying to level up. My rule of thumb is, if I can’t honestly say it’s good for me, it’s not going in my mouth. -Insert fellatio joke here.-

2) Learn a language. I love languages and I can make very polite observations in about five. For example, ‘Eyeh, Baka, ei-tai!’ Is ‘No, idiot. That hurts.’ In Japanese. Spelled phonetically lof course. But I’ve decided I need to finally be fluent in at least one.

3) Make significant progress to making writing my career and giving up my day job. That ones fairly self-explanatory. So long, London Underground!

And that’s it. Nothing too major. But all of it (barring maybe the language one,) is because 2021 taught me one thing above all else; my life isn’t of value to me as much as it is to my family. I owe it to them to live as long and as fully as I can so that my son is not left without his parents in his early-thirties.

In the short-term, I’m currently working on the third and final Sophisticated Beasts story, and it’s flowing easier than some of my previous stories already, which I feel must be a good sign. I’m working hard to apply the feedback I’ve gotten from last year, (particularly from Priscilla Bettis, a horror author who is far too talented and well-known to waste her time giving some newbie erotic author a full and thorough review for every book and yet always takes the time to, anyway. Do check out her new book, The Hay Bale, if you feel like being chilled to your bones!) to improve my writing as much as possible.

I’d love to know, readers, what are your resolutions or projects for the new year? Anything I can check out?

So, here’s to 2022. It literally can’t be worse than 2021, right? Right.

“Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.” Jonathan Lockwood Huie coined that phrase, and the makers of the Matrix swear by it.