2017: It’s Been Real.

In the past, whenever I would look back at a year, the bad things that happened were what stood out the most. I was therefore justified in complaining about how bad the year has been. And my anger at life, God and everything was justified.

We need justification for a lot of things, don’t we? It makes us believe that what we are doing is right.
In recent years, however, I have learnt to count my blessings. Like that Pompi song I love says…
…count your blessings, name them one by one today…
I am learning to look at the positive of everything and not focus on the negative. I am mostly optimistic. Some cynicism does creep in from time to time…this is life after all…its not all sunshine and rainbows.

2017 has been anything but easy. Sometimes it was down right shitty. A lot of what happened I documented in this post, back in June.
The highlights were: I struggled with depression, loneliness, death of my cousin, my baby sister being in hospital, job issues, self esteem issues, family issues, health issues…you know, life.
Back in my pessimistic days, I would have said, 2017 was not my year. And that would be because I had not counted my blessings.

I grew so much as a writer this year, so much so I was invited to review books for the online book store, Turn The Page Africa
Seeing as I started reviewing books only recently, that’s a pretty awesome feat.
And from this, I got my very first byline in the Sunday Monitor.
There’s a news paper with a book review of Bare, that has a “by Mable Amuron” written on it.

I have been participating in the annual Short Story Writing Competition on facebook for a few years now.
The Gathering, a group on facebook that runs the SSWC, decided to launch an anthology of some of the pieces that have appeared on the page, and this story was selected to be in the book.

Arrivism:
My year of social media growth.
So, I’m totally showing off with these, but Pompi, one of my favourite African musicians, followed me on twitter.
Then the voice of Siri (still amused by this). Then Da Truth. Then 1der Jr, who I’m now lucky enough to call a friend (imagine my silly grin in your head)

His music is just on another level.
You can find it here… free to download.
-I made new friends this year. Awesomazing people that I look at and think, “where have you been all my life?”
-I finally wrote that letter I promised my forever crush, Beaton, sometime in 2016.
But I haven’t received one from him. Beaton, My letter!
Reading:
I’ve done a lot of reading this year. A lot of people don’t believe me when I say that I have read over 100 books this past year, both fiction and non fiction. My dad says it’s a gift, my love for reading. I need to turn this gift into a money making venture, so if you know of any jobs that are primarily for reading out there, let a girl know.

I haven’t really written a lot fiction this year and this is because there’s this one voice in my head that won’t let me be…at all.
Her name is Diana and she is loud and sassy. For real. I thought characters talking in one’s head was a myth, until Diana. I don’t know how the story is going to go but I do know she wants me to tell it. And I hope I do her justice. So yes, that means I’m writing a book this year! Whoop whoop!
The future is unknown but there’s a lot to look forward to, this year.

Happy New Year my beautiful people.