Today is my 48th birthday, and this year I’ve been very aware of how fast time passes and how much of my time has already passed. My kids are getting older and the two oldest will be out of high school soon and the youngest will be starting middle school. It’s exciting and sad all at once. My personal life has been shifting underneath me for the last couple of years as well so I’m facing down a life where I know I have more years behind me than I have left. And I’m okay with that. Finally.

There was a murder a few weeks ago in a subdivision just down the road from ours and a father of two little kids was killed by a neighbor during an argument. He was only 35. That got me thinking that I feel a lot of times that my best career opportunities have passed me by, but I realized almost every major accomplishment I’ve achieved in my writing career and in my life has come after I was 35. I came to maturity late and only feel like in the last few years I’ve found the right mix of experience, maturity, excitement, and medication to make it all work. And really, 48 isn’t that old.

I was at Bouchercon at the end of last month and it was great for me for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was showing me how much opportunity is still out there for me to grab and that the best days of my writing career can still be ahead of me if I put in the work and the focus and don’t allow myself to get mired in the nonsense that has held me back previously.

Yesterday I had a Tarot reading for the first time in my life and it was very cool. I’ve always been fascinated by that kind of stuff and I know a lot of writers I enjoy and respect are into it as well. She mentioned that my day job would be gone in five years and it would be because I left it not that I got fired. It was really interesting because that lines up with the timeline I’ve been looking at for getting my writing career back on track by finishing this current book and getting it published published as well as some other projects I want to finish and get out into the world. Also, I’ll be finally finishing my college degree at the end of this year and I’m seriously considering going back for my MFA in creative writing. I would love to get back into teaching at some level, but I also love the idea of digging into the theory and practice of creative writing as I’m stretching myself to get better and more interesting as I get older.

I’m definitely not out of time to do everything I want, but I don’t have time to waste on stupid stuff like doubt and imposter syndrome and misplaced focus either.

What I’ve Been Reading: I finished A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson and, as always, he’s one of my favorite writers working at the top of his game. This is a fun and sinister book with some of his best character work. He remains a weird combination of Patricia Highsmith and Agatha Christie and I can’t wait to see what he does next. I’m currently reading West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman and really enjoying it. Much like Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, which I also enjoyed, the meta aspects can get overwhelming and irritating at times, but for the most part it’s a great story well told. Very curious to see how he pulls off the ending.

What I’ve Been Watching: I’m heading to the movies later this afternoon as I always do on my birthday and I’ll be seeing the new Kevin Smith flick The 4:30 Movie. I’m really looking forward to it and it’s getting the best reviews of his career. It looks like his resentment at the industry has finally passed and he’s able to have fun again making movies. I’ve also been enjoying Bad Monkey on Apple+. This was one of my favorite novels of the year when it came out and the show has only made it better. This is one of Vince Vaughn’s best roles of his career and I wish I had ten seasons of 30 episodes of this show to watch. Finally, I came late to Young Sheldon but I saw so many funny clips of it in my Instagram Reels that I had to check it out. It has very little in common with The Big Bang Theory which it was spun off from and reminds me more of The Middle, which I think is one of the most underrated TV shows of all time.