2023 WRITING WRAP UP 🎀 Author income report, 15+ rejections, new year writing plans & reflections 

I like what you said about being in your 30s. I’m 32 and beginning to feel like I’m returning to a younger, more true version of myself with more acceptance and knowledge this time.

learnt so much by watching this video Kelley!✨🤍im so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished this year. CANNOT WAIT for the vlogs next year about ur big ya project!💗😊

I love this breakdown and seeing your stats, it's so interesting to break it down into numbers!! Congrats on an amazing year of writing

I’m turning 30 in February and I am also a poet . Thank you for this video , think it was meant for me to watch this ☺️☺️… good luck with your novel 🎉🎉

OKAYYY go kelley !!! so many writing accomplishments this year, all you've done is absolutely amazing. excited to see more on your YA project, the vlogs so far have been fantastic 💫💫

This is such a cool video! Congratulations on all of your writing and publication successes! I’m sure your rejected stories and poems will find homes someday. Some of mine definitely have. Some of my flash fiction that got published this year were stories I wrote in 2020 or 2021 and received many rejections before they were accepted. I loved the poem you wrote in Heartlines Spec, so good! It’s so interesting what you said about getting older and your writing maturing. I just turned 37 on Christmas. I’ve been submitting scripts to contests and fellowships since 2012 (I started writing scripts in 2007), but I didn’t start submitting my short fiction seriously until 2019/2020 (although I started writing it seriously in 2012). I definitely feel like I’m in a better place now with my writing and I even got traditionally published this year (short story in the BEING ACE anthology). But by the time that was published in October, I’d already written hundreds of short stories. I wrote a lot of short fiction in 2022, so I took a break from it in 2023 and focused on my PhD dissertation novel and TV pilots. I also hope to query in 2024, maybe February to April-ish. But I’d also love to get back into writing short fiction, though I want to focus on more long form projects like you are with your YA fantasy! Best of luck with your writing and reading goals in 2024! 🎉🥳

Ahh, congrats on so many writing accomplishments this year! And it does sound super neat to have people seek you out because of your work. Rooting for you next year with your YA fantasy! I’ve heard that Thanksgiving in the US to New Years Day is where things slow down for American literary agents, but I’ve also read about some of the agents that do stay open and use that time to catch up on queries or that you’ll end up in the queue anyway so you might as well with the open agents. Feels very YMMV about it. I can def understand hitting mid-November and deciding to wait to start querying personally. And so many authortubers planning to query next year (same here starting in April) and “may the odds be ever in [our] favor” was the first thing to pop into my head lmao and it feels apt. Thank you for sharing!

Loved hearing about all your projects! I feel like I really know so little about short story submissions and I learn more every time I watch your videos. But WOW you really did write a ton of stories this year which is amazing, but also understand you wanting to concentrate on your novel in this new year. Also very much agree with that statement about your 30s. I feel like it’s better very mismarketed as like when you become “old” but I feel so much better in my 30s. I feel like I spent a lot of my 20s being sad and not liking myself very much 😅

Congratulations!! ❤🎉

Hey ur very pretty Can u please talk about AI threats?

"Your world was not an oyster--you were an oyster, and the shell your only world." Dang, I don't know how often I'll get to use it, but that's going in my metaphorical quotebook. I really like that line. I definitely understand what you mean about turning 30. I'm 28, and I have a fall birthday, so I still have a bit of "plausible deniability" before the reality sets in that I'm only a sneeze away from 30 myself, but really I'm so thankful for videos like yours, that demystify life in your late 20s/30s. There's just something kind of relieving a bit about getting to that age though, that kind of just makes you realize that it's really all just so arbitrary. Like, we're in the 2020s, but we're still acting like it's 1901 in terms of life progression. We don't need to hold ourselves up to those standards, because it really doesn't matter. Anyway, this was a very inciteful reflection. Thank you for sharing, and have a happy new year!

Oh my God Kelley this is such a great video! Thanks for sharing all of this I'm so inspired to write more next year. Seeing progress broken down like this makes a year of work somehow both more achievable and more substantial. Side note: I hope I look HALF as good as you do when I'm about to turn 30 😳. Happy New Year from The Highlands!.

omg you're 30!? You literally look 23

You look so princess-y in this video !! 🥹💛 i love what you mention about not defining success by how much you sell. i think i got caught up in that and felt under-accomplished even though i'm proud of the quality i put out :)) CONGRATS ON ALL THE PIECES YOU WORKED ON THIS YEAR ✨