2022: A Year in the Life of Lilly Avalon

Friday, December 30, 2022 No comments

Hello lovelies,

It's been a long year, hasn't it? I honestly thought that 2020 and 2021 were bad enough, but then 2022 came along and decided to make a mockery of the previous two years.

At the beginning of the year, I was psyched up to get more books published in 2022. The plan was to publish 2 books as Lilly and 2 as Jessica (my IRL name). Things were going well in the first part of the year. I was able to finish one book for each name.

Then the day I published my Jessica book (June 21st, first day of summer), I caught COVID. My husband had already gotten it, so I knew I would likely be getting it, too. It knocked me out for a week, then it took a couple more weeks for the brain fog to dissipate. Then the engine on one of our vehicles decided to blow up and we were unable to get it fixed. Not long after, my neighbor started to deal with some health issues. I helped her out as much as I could, but it became serious, and she needed to go to the hospital. She unfortunately passed away within a couple of months.

All of this was extremely overwhelming and made it difficult for me to focus on anything, let alone writing and publishing. I originally intended to push back my remaining two releases by one month each, but when everything continued to wreak havoc on my life, I ultimately had to acknowledge that it just wasn't going to work out this year. If I would've pushed myself, maybe I could have gotten one of them written and published, but the quality of the story wouldn't have been good.

So, 2022 was a bit of a mess to say the least. However, I did manage to publish one short story, Somebody to Treasure. It was first published in a limited-edition anthology in August, then I published it on its own in September. It may not be much, but I'm still proud of myself for being able to do it.


Despite the setbacks, I still had some good things happen in 2022. I joined Radish and four of my books are available to read on there now. I met my Goodreads reading goal of 27 books this year. I've also spent lots of time with friends and family, getting to see my mom for the first time in person since before the pandemic. And I was able to be creative with my cross-stitching and crocheting projects.

Now that 2022 is coming to a close... it's time to start thinking about 2023! I'll be posting my goals for the new year by January 2nd, so make sure you return to read that post!

Here's to a great year!