So here we are at the closing point of yet another year and what a year 2016 has been. The word tough springs to mind and in all honesty I will be damn glad to see the back of 2016.
Brexit, Trump, the rise of right-wing extremists as main stream politicians and the legitimization of racists, sexists, and homophobic rhetoric has had a profound effect on me, on both of us in fact. For the first time in my adult life I am genuinely scared for our future and that of my children. We have, in the west, come to take peace for granted and now that seems to no longer be the case.
In addition in the UK we have the continued attempts to monitor and even restrict certain parts of the internet. If the current UK government gets their way there is a good chance that this blog, my work that I love with a passion, will be at best altered drastically and at worst gone for good all in the name of protecting the children from the evil corruption of sex. The fact that education has been proven time again to do that is apparently no relevant, no; the best course of action is to censor the internet at huge financial and personal cost to people. There is a real chance that 2017 could be the year that ends my sex blogging career. That makes me sad in ways I do not have words for.
Personally 2016 has been a mixed bag. There have been some fabulous things, my son passed all his national exams, exceeding my expectations, got a job and passed his driving test. My daughter continues to grow into an intelligent, funny, beautiful young woman even if she has been infected with the teenage years. The mumbling drives me NUTS!
This year has also seen Michael and I, along with Girl on the Net, take over Eroticon. That has not been without its challenges though. It has taken up a huge amount of our time and also financial investment and has most definitely had a detrimental effect on my ability to write, particularly fiction. Lack of time is one of the problems but a head full of spreads sheets and to-do list seems to be the biggest hurdle. I need mental space to write fiction and right now, there is no room for anything else.
Michael and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this year. It has been a wonderful 5 years and I would not swap my life with him for anything else but 2016 has also presented us with challenges. My sex drive continues to be higher than his. He even wrote about it on his blog, but this year I have felt that mismatch more than ever before. It is a subject I have shied away from writing about for fear of hurting his feelings but he has encouraged me to stop doing that and so I shall attempt to tackle that and maybe some other subjects in 2017. Watch this space to see if I take on that challenge or not. Taking on Eroticon and having 2 grown children in the house has also seen a decline in the amount of kink play that we do. In the past children went to bed and we had evenings to ourselves. That is definitely a thing of the past. Add to that a hugely increased work load for us both resulting in less free time and us both falling into bed at night fairly tired. None of which is conducive to getting your kink on. I don’t like it and we have talked about making sure we use our time more effectively to change this from now on.
Fuck this all sounds depressing. I am fairly sure you don’t come here to be depressed, I know I don’t but I do come here to express myself and sometimes I have a tendency to self censor when things are tricky, challenging, sad, difficult etc. That is also something I need to work on because bottling things up does not for a happy Molly make.
So on to 2017.
I have plans. I am not one for writing resolutions, they are far too rigid and create a doomed to failure situation. I prefer to keep things a little more fluid.
Clearly Eroticon 2017 is going to be a massive part of next year and if all goes well (fingers crossed but never legs) that will turn into working on Eroticon 2018. Hopefully having done one will make working on another easier and we will definitely have a much longer time frame to manage the project in.
I have taken on an increasing number of writing jobs through 2016 and I am hopeful that these relationships will continue and maybe I can add a couple more along the way. As a result I have decided it is time to branch out here on my own site and so I am going to start hosting guest blogs here and yes I will be paying contributors. I can’t afford to match the payment a commercial site can offer but I believe very strongly that no one should be working for free and so I will be paying a small amount to each contributor for their piece. If you are interested in pitching something to me then watch this space as more details on this will be coming soon.
Those are the big ones but I also want to manage my time better and allow myself time off. I plan to gift myself a bit of time each week to read a book, take photos and keep fit. I have failed to shift any pounds this year although I have definitely built strength and stamina so that is something I will continue to work on.
Life is a rolling program. Nothing actually changes when one year turns into another but in an uncertain world taking a few moments to reflect, look forward and make some plans is a good thing. No one is promised a tomorrow, I think 2016 has bought that fact into sharp focus and so the one thing I do plan on doing more than anything else is to enjoy what I do have because the truth of the matter is what I (we) do have is pretty fucking awesome.
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