Dream, Dream, Dream! (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we’re talking about our hopes and dreams for 2023.

Thanks to the title I just slapped on this blog post, I now have the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream” running on repeat in my head. There are worse things!

Normally I would say that my two top dreams involve writing and music, but something else tops them this year.

Still, I’ll start with books: I want to WRITE again. I was on a relatively brief (or so I thought) hiatus from writing after releasing a trilogy of novels in April, May, and June of last year, because I was exhausted. Those releases involved an unbelievably intense seven months of edits, copyedits, and all the blah blah blah it takes to release novels. (Other than actually WRITING the novels, which I’d already done.) Then I crashed my scooter in October, which took my right arm out of every equation in my life. Like, say, the mere act of typing.

I can finally type again, YAY, but I’m now in the process of recording, producing, and releasing my debut album. But I’m headed to Florida today (when this blog goes live), and I’m planning a week of creative pursuits ... including starting whatever is the next novel. I already have a YA series about a high school for psychics in the pipeline (and I love it!), but sometime this year (and maybe starting in Florida?) I hope to write an entirely new novel. What it will be about, I have no idea!

Next up: music. I released my first single, “Act As If,” in December, and four more singles are already lined up to release in February, March, April, and May. And my debut album, GOLDEN GIRL, will release on June 23, 2023. Life in the album-producing world is as frantic right now as last year’s life in the book-producing world. So my dream? Enjoy the music before, during, and after the release ... and hope others enjoy it, too.

Finally: my huge dream for 2023 is to have a right arm that works as well as my left arm does, in large part so I can play sports again and resume my wild-and-crazy, frantic, happy blast of a life. I dream of waterskiing. I dream of SO many sports. I feel about sports the way most other people feel about having air to breathe, and even books and music (both of which I adore) can’t make up for that.

I know, I know: a writer and musician prioritizing sports over books and music is blasphemy. But I gotta be me.

Whatever cool things you’re dreaming of for yourself for 2023, I hope they happen!

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her at marystrand.com.