We’ve made it to the end of 2018. Thank goodness, amiright? It’s been tough at points, but it’s also been joyous. I’ve decided to break this down into People, Places, and Things to help me manage.
The year was long and so is this post so strap in!
Let’s start with the first one.
People
The ways we are losing space as Sex Bloggers has been trying. I failed at Share Our Shit Saturday. For a host of reasons, I didn’t manage to do it even monthly half the time. It’s okay. I did take time on twitter to highlight posts that caught my attention.
I waffled with the best way to talk about the people and posts that I’ve enjoyed. Making lists is hard because someone always feels left out, right? Molly did the Top 100 and bless her and Michael’s heart for doing that labor in a way that attempted to be as fair as possible.
Go check out Molly, Michael, and the Top 100 list for people to enjoy.
Others have their lists of tops. Rebel, Kilted Wookie, May, Floss, Mrs. Fever, etc.
I know I’m on some lists and not on others, which is the great thing about us all finding blogs we like.
Here’s a list of blogs I found myself going to often in 2018 (in no particular order).
Some superb photo stops have been Missy of focusedandfilthy and Exposing 40.
A few people I wanted to point out specifically because I’ve either followed them for a long time, they’ve been one of my cheerleaders, I love them dearly, or respect them.
May More: She is such a lovely woman. Encouraging, cheerleader, sexy lady who has gone from not really writing a lot of fiction to publishing her work in a lot of places.
Rebel: managing Wicked Wednesday and the yearlong spectacular that is Smut Marathon, she is the sweetest woman you’ll ever talk to online. Also encouraging even when her own personal life has been tough, she is a joy.
Hy: I’ve followed her for a loooong time. Meeting her for the first time this year face to face was amazing. She’s a firecracker and a fabulous writer. She also deserves her happily ever after when it comes her way.
Kayla: another long time cheerleader and someone I’ve known from almost since she started forever ago. I don’t know if people realize how driven and dedicated she is. I’ve literally watched her build an empire and it’s incredible to watch. One of two woman I aspire to be like.
Molly: the other woman I aspire to be like. What doesn’t this woman do? Sinful Sunday, Kink of the Week, Top 100, organizing Eroticon, etc. She is formidable and gets shit done. I know I don’t say this much, but I have such a deep love and respect for this woman that I don’t think I can explain. She is my friend and I hope she understands one day how much she means to me.
Michael: I’m not sure what to say that hasn’t been said by me in my many twitter affirmations, my about me, my Daddy/kitten stories. I do love him more then I can say. I know I just gushed about his wife, I feel all those things for him and more. He’s amazing and I don’t think a lot of people understand how much. Believe the hype. He is a good man, Dom, and Daddy. He’s made my 2018 better than it would’ve been otherwise.
Places
I spent a whole month with Michael and Molly, and I got to visit them again in October for his birthday. I like spending time with them both so I’m happy to say that 2019 will have more opportunities to do so!
As an aside: Their relationship makes me happy. I’m the third and I don’t always get to spend time in their actual presence, but I love seeing them together. Their love gives me so much joy.
Spending time with them meant not only cuddling and play with Michael, but so many gorgeous photos with Molly.
My favorite photos taken by the talented Molly Moore.
Oh! I travel for a living so I went to a couple of new places this year, but one place I feel worth noting is going to France for the first time. We did a day trip and literally walked over 35k (THOUSAND) steps in one day. That’s 16-17 miles.
Things
This is about my own writing. I’m shit at tooting my own horn and can be critical of everything I do if I’m not careful. It’s taken a lot of help from one very patient man to get me over many of my hangups and it’s very much still a work in progress.
I wrote a lot this year. My post total was 247, which is combination of fiction and non-fiction.
Top posts for 2018
A nice combo fiction and non-fiction, yes?
I wrote for a couple of people, too!
A Little Different for GoTN
Two posts I did for Godemiche were Yes, Miss and An Easter Tale.
Smut Marathon
I participated in Smut Marathon this year. I’ve not done the best job of talking about this, but I still have a lot of complex feelings tied up in the competition.
Writing confidence has been a struggle. I’m so competitive and critical of myself so I struggled a lot throughout. I couldn’t trust that my work could cut the mustard. Every round resulted in such severe anxiety at times that Michael had to devise rules to help me cope. I felt inadequate compared to others and worried about the feedback I’d get.
In the end, I finished 7th out of 85. It seems like a feat of which I should be so proud, but all I could see was I finished last out of the finalist. No one remembers 7th place no matter how nice it may seem. I feel bad for sounding so Debby downer because many others got bumped, but it’s going to take me a little time to get to the place I need to. I decided I’m not going to participate next year because I already struggled with my placement this year and the idea of doing worse does awful things to me mentally.
Ultimately, I am very glad I participated because I learned things about myself, what I need to work on, and I wanted the discipline of that long term challenge. I wanted to say a special thank you to Rebel for the exceedingly hard work she put into managing that competition. If you’re wanting to exercise your writing muscles and find out things about yourself, I encourage you to participate.
2019
My goals? Keeping it as simple as possible. I want to put my writing in front of more people and hopefully they’ll publish me or give me money. I’ll push through rejection and come out the other end successful.
I want to find a better balance between my fiction and non-fiction. It’s very easy for me to hide behind fiction here, but I know not everyone likes that.
That’s all, folks! Kudos to those who made it this far. You’re the real MVPs.
Happy New Year!
