2020 Was The Year…

2020 was the year I –

• Published Lucia’s War in the midst of a strict lockdown and launched on Zoom with a bottle of champagne from Betty O’Gorman’s cellar
• Decided to no longer eat the shit sandwich grudgingly provided to me by Irish literary society with the expectation that I would smile and say thank you for it.
• Got Lucia’s War featured on the ChickLit4Life podcast!
• Entered the An Post Awards, got precisely nowhere, but it motivated me to get the book into some bookshops, which is fantastic 🙂
• Started formally attending a welcoming church after realising two years ago that atheism wasn’t for me. (When I say “formally attending”, thanks to Madam Coronavirus that means in practice logging into a facebook livestream in the couch in my jammies with a cup of coffee. She made a lot of things hard, but some things very easy. The Rev Mike is sound – he’ll understand.)
• Did all this while employed in a real job, and with ongoing commitments
• There’s another accomplishment, but that spills over into 2021…stay tuned 🙂
• Reinforced my political commitments after a hiatus

2020, although positive in many ways, was an arduous year all around, with some personal things too that were sad and difficult for our family to carry. The US election hopefully marks a turning point where things slowly, painfully and partially improve. That’s my prayer, and to do what I can do make it happen.