The New Year from Hell

It’s the day after Christmas and my list of deadlines is still so long. Everything needs to be done by January first and I need to complete them or I'll be a joke. I knew I should have taken on less jobs this close to the New Year, why do I never think ahead?

I have a blog post that needs to be finished or my fans will stop being interested. I have a client from my website who needs their short story edited. A YouTube video to finish filming and edit before uploading it. Then I have that writing competition I promised my friend I would enter which I haven’t written a single word for. Geez I need a break, I had better get started.

Where do I start?

Blog post I guess, I need to write about how I celebrated Christmas this year. The hassle I went through to get all the perfect presents for my nearest and dearest, wrapping the gifts with cute paper. Cutting the ribbons and adding bows. Decorating the tree with my mother and putting the gifts under the tree. Then helping make the dinner.

The glistening turkey with the perfectly crispy skin, the soft, succulent gammon boiled in water infused with oranges and the beautiful beef joint. All the trimmings, crispy roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and the delicious gravy.

Finishing that up with how the best part of my Christmas was seeing the look on my mothers face as she opened her gifts, seeing how happy it made her to get exactly what she wanted.

Perfect, I’m done and post. That only took me... 10 HOURS?!

How am I going to finish everything on time?

Just don’t look at the clock, keep writing. You’ll never be a successful writer if you don’t work hard for it and all I want to be is a successful writer.

It takes me the rest of the day and all of the next to finish editing my clients short story. It needs to be perfect because repeat customers are how you get good reviews. There’s nothing like a good review to make it all worth it, it’s all a step in the right direction. I write all of the editing notes I have in a blank word document, sign the letter with my website address, my blog website and send the email away. A few moments later my client responds mentioning how grateful he is that I was able to take his job on so late in the year and get the work done so quickly. Following the email was a notification of a 5 star review on my website. It was all worth it in the end, the struggle wasn’t for nothing.

Three days left of the year and three days till I need everything done. I can do this! I believe in myself and that is how I know I’m going to finish all that I need to do.

Next on my list is to do my YouTube video. I have had a holiday themed video to make a run down of Christmas and the run up to New Years Eve planned for ages. These types of videos are very popular at this time of year because everyone is in a festive mood. I’ve filmed all the Christmas parts of the videos so now I just need to film a New Year montage and a vlog section. Then I can edit the video and upload it tomorrow.

I set up my camera and I start with the vlog section. I talk about how I’m going to be celebrating New Years Eve this year, who I'm celebrating with and my outfit.

This outfit took me months to decide on and I've been so excited to show it off.

A dark navy blue, sequined dress with no sleeves which I will partner with thick black tights with wool lining, black heeled boots and a black faux fur long sleeved crop jacket. My hair will be curly and pinned back with a dark blue sparkly clip.

My makeup will be navy blue into black smoky eye with a light topping of silver glitter over the top, thick eyeliner and a set of false lashes to accentuate my dark blue eyes. As I am putting the outfit on to emulate New Years Eve for the video I can feel myself transforming into someone else as the outfit allows me to feel like a party princess. Someone who looks this elegant everyday rather than only on special occasions.

Usually I don’t dress up this much and never really wear makeup this dark and extravagant but after the year we just had I wanted to get all dressed up for myself, even if we can’t leave the house to celebrate.

The end of the year is the best time to reflect on the past year, miss all the stuff we couldn’t do, the people we lost and all the consequences we had to go through to prevent the spread. Yes, I can admit that there were hundreds of people who put their feelings and their lives ahead of others and to those I hope they soon realize what was caused by their carelessness.

I’m just hoping the next year will be full of love, happiness and health for everyone and with that I am snapped back to reality.

It's 10pm on December 29th and I need to finish editing this video so that I can upload it tomorrow. I end up staying until 3am editing the video to perfection before crawling to my bed. When I wake up later that day and upload the video I watch the first 1000 views crawl in as I respond to comments.

Then I click away to the writing competition page to see the deadline for the competition. It's 11:59pm December 31st. I have just over 24 hours to write an entire short story?

PANIC!

I text my friend and I say that I’ve been too caught up with my other priorities and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to write an entire 5000 word short story in that short of a time. I can tell she is annoyed, she told me a week ago about this competition, I promised we’d enter together and here I am texting a day before the deadline to say I wasn’t entering anymore.

The feeling of guilt over takes me and I quickly form a text.

I’m entering, I made you a promise and I'll stick to it. There's no chance I'll ever win but I'm going to enter!

When she replies she tells me I need to choose a prompt from the website and she’s ecstatic that I decided to enter with her after all.

So I go to the website once more and there’s a choice of three prompts.

Write from the perspective of a mouse on an adventure.

Write from the perspective of a lion breaking out of a circus.

Write from the perspective of a judge conducting a trial.

It’s hard to choose because I feel like all three prompts could relate to how I’ve felt the last few days but I decide to go with the one about the mouse.

I write from my perspective, as if I am the mouse. My adventure starts off as something that I fear I’ll never complete but step by step I realize that I am getting closer to the summit of the mountain that I decided to undertake. I am making slow progress but every step is progress.

Writing from real life is one of my greatest strengths as a writer as it's hard to get it wrong. Being a writer is powerful, getting people to feel the things I want them to feel makes me feel a strong connection with my readers.

The clock is ticking down, three hours… two hours...thirty minutes left.

I make the final touches to my story, re-read it and make final edits. Then I click back onto the website and I submit my submission.

This has been a tough challenge to end my year on but it has also been one that gave me loads of growth as a writer and made me realize what matters.

My friend was happy that I made it in time and when I showed her my story she said she was sure I would win.

We will just have to wait and see...