The year 2020 has been a Rubik’s Cube of emotion, an ever-changing combination of sadness, inspiration, confusion, anxiety, and connectedness. There have been days of merriment, days of not wanting to get out of bed, days of frustration. Sometimes the right squares aligned, and other times the colours were a contradictory jumble.
I have experienced all of these. But for me, 2020 has also been something more: the year I dedicated to writing my debut novel, Provenance Unknown. (This decision had been made long before the Covid shutdowns and quarantine.)
Today, my emotion is pride. Despite all of the uncertainty this year, I have completed the manuscript and carried out my rounds of editing; now, the novel is in the hands of my beta readers. Writing a book was a twenty-five year old goal and no matter what the rest of 2020 brings, I have accomplished that. In the New Year I will start on the path to getting published. In the meantime, however, I am taking a well-deserved break — even if it is a short one.
Those who know me know that I won’t be able to stay away from writing for long. Once I’ve had a chance to recharge, I will go back to playing with shorter works for a while. (Poetry? Articles? Songs? Plays? It’s wide open!) Whatever I end up creating, I will of course post it here.
I also have most of the plot for a second novel rattling around in my head, and eventually it will demand to be written. I’m not sure how long I can keep it at bay so it may be sooner rather than later. We’ll see. Several times lately I have said that the stories control me rather than the other way around; I’m getting better at listening to them.
And I’m grateful that I can share them with you. Thank you for your encouragement and support over the past eleven months or so. I hope that when you read Provenance Unknown, it will at least partially pay back that debt.
I wish you a healthy, happy, and safe remainder of the year, and a fresh start in 2021.
Sonia
Sonia Nicholson 