NEW YEAR, NEW START, FRESH TWIST (Janet Raye Stevens)

Happy February, YAOTLers! A fresh new year is upon us, so no coincidence our theme this month is getting a fresh start. A good theme for me, since I took a little vacation from the blog but now I’m back and…starting fresh.

After the year we’ve just had, seems like a fresh start is in order for us all. Here’s to the new jobs, the moves to a new place far away or just across the hall, the new projects, and the myriad other fresh journeys and adventures you’ll all be taking.

For me, 2021 offers a bright new chance to not only drop pearls of wisdom here on the blog. It gives me an opportunity to embrace a fresh start in my writing too.

First, I’ve got a fresh new manuscript. I’ve been having a ton of fun with this 1976-set coming of age story called My Bicentennial, featuring a plethora of mood rings, pet rocks, tall ships, girls with Dorothy Hamill haircuts, guys in powder blue polyester leisure suits, and 8-track tapes playing a totally 70s soundtrack.

That's my dad on the left;

he never needed to buy a belt in the 70s

Next, I’ve created a fresh new heroine. Deidre Daly, the 17-year-old heroine of My Bicentennial is fresh. I mean fresh, fresh. She just can’t keep the snark in check, but I can’t blame her for dropping the one-liners. Broke, bullied, and obese, she uses humor as both a weapon and a shield.

Deidre *totally* swooned over the Bay City Rollers!

I’ve also taken the first steps on a fresh new journey, not to the 1970s this time, but to 1943 – I’m publishing my WWII-set time travel, Beryl Blue, Time Cop in October. Every step along the way offers fresh challenges, like selecting a cover design that will be fresh enough to catch a reader’s eye, but familiar enough they’ll know in an instant what the book is about.

Yes, people once paid cash money for a rock.

The 70s were weird.

I think that’s enough to keep me busy for a while, but not too busy to wish you all a bright, shiny new year and boatloads of success in whatever fresh endeavors you undertake.

-When she's not donning her 70s disco duds and listening to her 8-track tapes, Janet Raye Stevens writes short stories and novel-length mysteries, romance, and YA.