December Was For Loving Things
I think my purpose in life is to love things. 2025 made me forget that, but December helped me find my way back.
2025 was hard. I was introduced to some new ways publishing could disappoint me, and to be quite frank, I did not handle well! Turns out combining severe anxiety, autism, and rejection sensitivity can make this industry difficult to handle. Who knew!
Anyway, the Heated Rivalry hyperfixation hit when I was in the middle of trying to make progress on revisions for what I call my chocolate factory book. Though, I had been struggling.
There were so many times when I opened my document and chose to stare into space, simply because the only thought I had was how much I want to quit. I just, could not make my brain work, and god I tried. It’s like the harder I fought to get stuff done, the harder the brick wall I slammed against was.
So when I was hit with a different idea, one very shamelessly inspired by my descent into Heated Rivalry insanity (Hollanov more like, it’s not a hockey book lol), I figured working on it on the side couldn’t hurt.
Why not? The holidays make any writing hard for me anyway, so I figured it wouldn’t really be anything.
Oh boy. Oh fucking boy.
I vomited out an entire draft in a month. New genre, new heat level, new POV.
I usually set a 2k a day limit for myself, simply to avoid burnout, but I found myself, so often, wanting to keep going? I was, enjoying myself? Writing was, fun? AND i was doing this while also continuing to work on my revisions? What the actual hell?
It was just, completely mine. Horribly written, full of plot holes, and with huge sections of complete nonsense, but it was 100%, completely mine. There was nothing but me and my unhinged love of the gay hockey show driving me forward.
There is so much about the show that made me fall so deeply in love, from the respect everyone involved has for romance, the source material, and the fans to the utter care that went into crafting such a stellar story (THE CONSTANT MIRRORING I WANNA SCREAM). And I could talk for hours about how much to the compassionate depiction of Shane’s autism (and Ilya’s care with both it and him) meant to me.
It sounds kind of ridiculous, but I really feel as if this show helped me work my way back to my creativity. Something I’d been terrified I’d lost. And I am so disgustingly grateful.
So thank you Crave and Heated Rivalry for making me insane. It meant a lot.
I’m not quite sure how I decided to finally start listening to Conan Gray. Maybe because I started listening to Maisie Peters since my friend, Birdie, infected me with her disease. And I was currently watching Heated Rivalry with my other friend, Hali, and knew she loved him, so why not?
It just seemed like something I should do since I seem to collect music from my friends.
Whatever it was, I finally decided to give him a shot and oh my GOD.
Listening to his music was a religious experience. How I felt has to be what Christians feel when they listen to choir music.
And the fact that basically every song fit the aforementioned Hollanov book I was writing? Well, that was just an extra bonus.
Now, choosing any kind of favorite song is impossible, but some highlights for me include:
Actor - inject it into my VEINS I wanted to sob and punch something at the same time.
Vodka Cranberry - my friend Emma convinced me to listen to this one and I had so many breakdowns about it. Like holy shit, I sob every time.
Nauseous - this one is also devastating but I also love it because I am always nauseous. :)
It’d be impossible to talk about things I loved this month without talking about books. I got to read some INCREDIBLE ones and it’d be a disservice not to mention them.
Tidespeaker by Sadie Turner
The Library Of Amorlin by Kalyn Josephson
The Hyacinth Labyrinth by Jamie Pacton
You Should Have Been Nicer To My Mom by Vincent Tirado
The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Loving things brings me such a sense of joy. I love being able to experience art. I love appreciating art, I love going insane over art, I love connecting with people over art, and I love being yell about the art I love.
I’m so glad that December was a month full of all of that. After the year 2025 was, it was so needed. So thank you again to Heated Rivalry and Conan Gray and all the books I read this month. You all made it so much better.
