A very Happy New Year 2016 to everyone! Yes, I’m late to the party, but don’t blame me. Took THREE days to get from Delhi to Toronto and I’m still a bit zoned-out. Thick fog in Delhi meant that I spent 10 hours waiting for the plane to take off, and missed my connection in London. Where I ended up spending the night. And where did dear old Air India send me the next day? Not to Toronto, oh no, that would have been too simple. I went to St John’s. The one in Newfoundland. One of my favorite cities! I got to walk up Signal Hill and gaze into the foggy distance and admire the heaving Atlantic. Spent the day there, got a late flight to Toronto, arrived feeling a bit shattered, but happy to be home. Of course, I’d have been happier if it wasn’t a freaking -16 C outside.

So, time for some sobering writerly stats. I just checked the Submission Grinder, and goodness, I had 72 Form Rejections and 47 Personal Rejections in 2015! Also 9 Acceptances, and 8 Publications. I wrote 7 new stories (instead of the 12 I aimed for). Actually I only wrote 6, but in the last days of December, driven by a desperate desire to improve my statistics, I managed to squeeze out one last one. And hey, don’t forget, I also edited one novel. Yay me.

I haven’t yet calculated how much I earned from my writing in 2015. Not enough to live on, that’s for sure. In that context, here is a conversation with my kids – I don’t remember how it started.

Kid 1: You aren’t a writer. A writer is someone who makes their living from writing.
Me (flailing): That’s not true! I am so a writer.
Kid 2: Besides, you’ve only written one story, Chaya and Loony Boy.
Me: That’s not true! I’ve written many stories.
(Disbelieving looks).

Chaya and Loony Boy IS the only story I’ve read aloud to my kids. It’s a story about a girl and her magical doll, and is about the only thing I’ve written that I deemed fit for their consumption. Although they didn’t much care for the ending.

The story was published in Exile Editions’ Playground of Lost Toys in December 2015. And I’ll be reading from it this Sunday. Playground of Lost Toys has its Toronto launch on 17th Jan, and I’m looking forward to meeting the editor, publisher and many of the lovely authors. Come and join us for a fun literary evening – it’s free!

So do I have any resolutions for 2016? Not really. Just going to continue trying to do what I love, and hope for the best.