It’s warmer this November first.

The sun is out, the clouds are soft,

no wind to pierce a fragile soul.

It’s warmer this November day.

The ground is damp, the air is clean,

my backyard’s a safe space again.

It’s warmer this November night.

My words are bright, my hair is down,

my heart’s no longer bleeding out.

It’s warmer, and I remember.

I remember how much can change in a year.

A year ago today I finished writing The Reaper, my first novel. Looking back on last November, I have no idea how I did it. The week before, I had been in and out of the hospital visiting a family member who was dealing with some particularly difficult health issues. My personal life was shifting in a lot of unexpected ways. So there was nothing that made me happier than walking downstairs, as my mom stood in front of a pot of chicken soup, and saying, “It’s done.”

I had written the ending the day before, but that day was when I decided the vital 2,000 words that it took to get there. The final plot twists contained in those 2,000 words did not disappoint. (Even one that my characters included without telling me.) Sure, there were still six months of editing in front of me, but that was the moment that I realized that it was all possible. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe I could write a book, but that moment was the culmination of the blood, sweat, and tears that I had spent that year. It was proof that when I set my mind on a goal, I was going to complete it.

Here a year later, I’m working on my second novel. It doesn’t look like I’m going to finish it by the end of November like I had hoped, but I am going to keep going, because setbacks happen. And this year was the opposite of a failure. My main goals for 2024 were to finish editing my novel, attend a writers conference, and write my first album. I finished editing my novel. I attended a writers conference. I didn’t complete an album, but I wrote three album’s worth of poetry/lyrics. Starting a new whole novel wasn’t even on this list, so I consider all work done on my new novel as icing on the cake.

I wrote the poem earlier this week as I thought about everything that has happened in the last 365 days. It’s nice to know that things are always capable of changing for the better, and they are never capable of staying the same forever.