Escapism through writing

Is it a good or bad thing?

December wrap up

Though my plan for December was to have a well-earned rest, I ended up accepting a private commission to write a picture book. I can’t say too much about it at the moment - only that I’m pleased with the manuscript and can’t wait to see what becomes of it. That is, of course, if the client is happy with what I’ve written.

I’d never written on commission before, and after I accepted, I had a brief moment of mild panic about whether it was something I could actually do. I researched and wrote copious notes, started two different versions of the story, and then I had a dream in which I wrote a completely different story. While journaling about my dream, I had the sudden epiphany that the format of the ‘dream book’ was exactly what I needed for the commissioned book. The next day, I sat down to write and it all fell neatly into place. Thank you, random (or not-so-random) dream. You are most welcome to visit me again!

New year’s resolutions

I did a Google search recently about the origins of New Year’s resolutions and discovered that the idea is actually thousands of years old. Ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods at the beginning of the year, usually about repaying debts or returning borrowed tools, (so it was less ‘lose weight and get a banging bod’ and more ‘please don’t curse my crops’). The Romans later picked up the tradition, publicly dedicating their resolutions to Janus, the two-faced god who looks to the past and future simultaneously. Then somehow, over time, these public, religious vows slowly morphed into the private, self-improvement focused lists we know today.

Janus (source: Wikipedia)

I used to be the kind of person who began every new year with a carefully considered list of resolutions. I was also the kind of person who had abandoned most of them by February. These days, I’ve given up on resolutions altogether and replaced them with reflections. Instead of asking what I want to fix or improve, I keep another question in mind: What brought me a sense of happiness in the last twelve months, and how might I invite more of that into the year ahead?

When I asked myself that question this year, these were some of the things that surfaced:

• Walks with my sister and daughter

• Reading good books and poetry

• Catching up with friends

• Long car rides in the countryside

• Journaling

• Flowers, candles, and chocolate

• Working in my garden

• Hot cups of tea while watching the sun rise

But above and beyond all of these, one thing stood out as bringing me the deepest sense of happiness in 2025.

• Writing

As I sat with that realisation, another truth arose: I tend to escape into writing when the real world feels like too much. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? I can’t say for sure but the thought niggled at me.

Last year, I shared a couple of posts about how I wrote a novel in ten days. What I didn’t include in either of those posts was the full context surrounding that experience. During those ten days, I didn’t just write obsessively, I effectively clocked out of my ‘real’ life. At the time, I was overwhelmed by the competing demands of my writing career (including travel, school visits, and networking) while also caring for three family members with serious medical issues. On top of that, I was dealing with some health issues of my own, squeezing my own appointments in between school visits, travel, hospital runs, specialist visits, cooking, cleaning, counselling, and navigating the legal complexities that come with taking over someone’s medical and financial care.

Writing for ten days straight allowed me to push all of that to the backburner. I disappeared into a world where my responsibilities temporarily vanished. But when the draft was finished and I had to return to the real world, it was painful. I didn’t want to face it again.

Psychologists might argue that this kind of compartmentalising isn’t healthy, especially when it’s used to avoid processing difficult emotions. And yet, while writing this newsletter, something else became clear to me: I’ve always used writing as a coping mechanism. As a child, I wrote dozens of stories. I even won awards for my writing at primary school. I wrote my first full-length novel during a particularly difficult period of my life in Year 10 (a time-travel story that was something like Terminator meets Highlander in a YA setting - Oh, Lordy! Just imagine it! 🤭).

But through every season of my life, writing has been my safe space. It helped me survive… and more than that, it gave me an outlet to thrive. So maybe I need to stop viewing writing in terms of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ categories at all. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be justified, measured, or scrutinised. Maybe, for me, it’s simply a constant, like breathing. It’s there, waiting, whenever I need it. And maybe… that’s all I really need to know.

Tan x

My hills life

A quick summery summary today. See what I did there? Here are a few snapshots from my garden this morning.

The flowers are hanging in there, despite the hot weather

I love the variety of summer-flowering hydrangeas in my garden

Book highlight

Last One Out by Jane Harper (Pan Macmillan Australia, 2025)

In a dying town, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his 21st birthday. But Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out. Five long years later, Ro returns to Carralon Ridge for the annual memorial of Sam's disappearance. The skeletal community is now an echo of itself, having fractured under the pressure of the coal mine operating on its outskirts. But Ro still wants answers. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?

This was a Christmas gift from my sister, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. While I’ve read and loved Jane Harper’s previous books, I’d seen a few reviews describing this one as a slow burn and not quite on par with her earlier novels.

I’m very glad I didn’t let that put me off. I loved this book. I devoured it over three days and ended up having a good cry at the end. Yes, it’s slower than some of her other work and can feel repetitive at times, but for me that only heightened the tension and mirrored the main character’s frustration.

One of the things I love most about Jane Harper’s writing is her portrayal of the Australian landscape. She’s a master storyteller, and I could almost feel the heat, the dryness, and the dust of a dying outback town seeping off the page. Combined with her astute understanding of people and her talent for mysteries that keep you guessing, Last One Out is yet another reminder of why Jane Harper deserves her place as one of Australia’s finest contemporary crime fiction writers.

January events

I have no public event scheduled for January.