Wow, this has been both the longest year and the shortest.

There were many times where I paused this year to say “wait, it’s been six weeks since I last saw you? I feel like I was just here…” and many other times when I thought “that just happened last January? It feels like it was so long ago…”

Time is an illusion, and this year made that very, very obvious.

This year has been a lot.

My family has had health issues, including surgeries for both my mother and my husband. I’ve gone down my own rabbit holes, working on defining a reason for my chronic pain (I’m saving blogging more about that until the new year, and my follow-up with my genetic counselor).

I am not going to get into politics in detail, but the rollercoaster, and watching people I considered good people falling into anti-LGBTQIA and anti-immigrant rhetorics has been slowly destroying me. I am not good at being an activist—my mental health breaks down rapidly under conflict—and my usual attempt to contribute to positivity means creating positive content. Queer media. Neurodiverse media. But between how heavy the world has been, and how broken my brain gets while editing, I have struggled to create.

On a better note—this was the year that Missed Fortunes was officially released in book form, and I have finished the final niggly edits for Into the Split, which means the Kickstarter really really will be happening in January.

This means that whether you are only seeking the final book, or if you’ve missed the trilogy from the beginning, you’ll be able to get whatever you need! That includes PHU merch (we’re finalizing designs now).

If you haven’t followed the project on Kickstarter, and you want to be notified when it launches, you can follow it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duckprintspress/the-twinned-trilogy-contemporary-fantasy-with-a-queer-twist

I am so, so excited that the full trilogy will be in print!

Another quick win is that the 2026 Word Tracker spreadsheet was shared earlier this week. If you’re a writer, and you are looking for a tool to track projects and words, this is what I use, and have been using since 2012. I created it in order to have graphs available year round. If you’d like to take a look, I have made posts on multiple platforms about it, which link to both the instructions and the actual shared spreadsheet.

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/tryslora/804202618639581184/2026-word-tracking-spreadsheet
Dreamwidth: https://tryslora.dreamwidth.org/2521328.html
Insanejournal: https://tryslora.insanejournal.com/793444.html?style=mine
Pillowfort: https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/7045070
Professional Site: https://trislawrence.com/2026-word-tracking-spreadsheet/

In other good news for the year, I focused on self care, and have been getting a massage every 6 weeks, which has done wonders for my musculature and pain levels. I will also be returning to PT in the new year once I find one who will be able to deal with the specific whole-body regimen I am supposed to be starting.

I’ve also spent more time working from home (often because I needed to) and hope to be able to schedule to do so regularly. That is also a self care item; turns out being home to work one day a week helps regulate my mental health by giving me solid focus time for work projects, plus allowing me to do the dishes. Win win, far as I’m concerned.

As a bit of an overview, the year started off positive. I had a wall of stickies, with different categories, and projects to work on. I actually did a lot of work those first few months, before overwhelm and anxiety ate my brain. Also time. I mentioned time before, right? Well, a long time ago, I could make use of having only 30 minutes free in a day. These days it takes those 30 minutes to get my brain out of fight-or-flight mode and ready to do something else… which makes it hard to write.

I will say, other crafting helps, but then I’m spending my time knitting instead of writing. Good for brain, bad for productivity!

I’ve also watched a lot of anime this year (my happy place) and if I were more organized, I’d tell you my favorite series. I can say my obsession with The Apothecary Diaries continues. And a lot of what I loved wasn’t necessarily objectively good, they were simply shows that hit the pleasure centers in my brain.

/exhales

Let’s talk about looking forward.

I haven’t done my official goals & objectives wrap-up, or set the new ones for the year. That’s a day 1 problem for me.

However, I can look ahead a bit and see that there remains a lot on my plate.

During winter and early spring, we have house projects—finish organizing the freezers (I got a chest freezer, woohoo!), finish cleaning and organizing the new craft zone, install the final shelving in the library and get the books unpacked and floor fixed, get the wall/floor/ceiling in our bedroom repaired (and buy a new bed since this is good timing for that), and potentially move our son out of his room and into a new apartment (not that he’s living in it now, only his stuff is).

When late April arrives, it’s all about camp for the next six months. Our new site is incredible, and we still have a lot of construction to do to make it more usable and an even happier place to be. But this is also the time when everything seems to pause in order to be at camp as much as we can. And relax. So much relaxing.

I can’t even think ahead to the fall/winter. Not a clue. I know there will still be a lot of work on the house to do. There always is, right?

We have a few trips already planned for 2026—Boskone, Balticon, and right after Balticon will be our first cruise! I’m also hoping to go back to Readercon.

Writing-wise, the next PHU and 7Lakes novels continue to be top priority. Editing is done until next fall (when I will need to do a complete re-read and edit on the first of the soulmark PHU books to ready it for publication).

Tomorrow I will be reworking my schedules for those, planning outlining and writing time, and figure out how to get the books drafted, edited, and either posted (PHU) or published (7Lakes).

And of course, once those are actually in progress, you can read snippets, or even chapter previews prior to posting for PHU, at any paid level of my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tryslora).

I have other things I’d like to accomplish in 2026, but right now, narrowing my focus seems to be the best way to actually do something.

But I will say, I’m hoping to write at least one fic. For fun.

Anyway, I’m off to go bake more cookies (ideally, two more batches, plus putting together a trifle inspired dessert, prior to heading to social to ring in the new year). Come find me on social media if you want to chit-chat or just hear me natter on about life, writing, and fandom. I’m tryslora everywhere!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy end to 2025, and may 2026 bring a better year for us all!!