Posts Tagged ‘new year’

2022 in Review

Posted: December 31, 2022 in real life
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Fuck 2022.

2019 was an unpleasant year for me. Since then, every year has leveled up the bullshit. Even having the audacity to make things global.

This post is brief and mostly pictures because much of it is personal and tender bruises to poke. I also just don’t want to talk about it. This year could largely be summarized by dance and medical adventures. With a lot of life sprinkled in between.

I hit the last year of my 30s. It feels like the pandemic swallowed half the decade. I celebrated with goats and yoga.

I attended Telluride Horror Show, of course. The festival was great. However, the experience resulted in some family drama. I have always had tense and complicated relationships with my close family. I was taken off guard when the same sort of issues arose in my chosen family. It hit harder. But I guess people and core dynamics are all the same.

I returned to a bit of horror modeling, which felt like an old glove sliding on.

I danced and performed a lot, basking in expression and community. I’m not very good, but I do keep finding a spot on the occasional lineup. The events at Club Q hit very close to home, a place I know and have danced at, a community I’m a part of.

And more than me, my family is constantly dancing. It’s a lifestyle for us.

I have had a sprinkling of minor health issues for a while. However, they seemed to culminate this year. They have developed from insignificant and inconvenient to barging into my daily life. I don’t want to go into a detailed medical history, but so many acute conditions have taken over.

I’ll write about it later, but the most recent and noticeable is losing my hair. It has been more traumatizing than I realized it would be.

As part of these health changes, I lost many of my coping mechanisms (unhealthy as they may have been). So I dealt with ink therapy. Getting tattoos seemed to be a way to exercise some control over my body again.

Author-wise, I did finish another novel (using NaNoWriMo to focus) and worked on the previous. I wrote a few short stories. “Enjoy Your Show” is published in The Horror Collection: Sapphire Edition. “Elves Watching” is up on Meghan’s Haunted House of Books.

So pretty productive for a shit show year.

I also finally got back out there and did some vending and signings. None were wildly successful, but I did see more action than most of them.

There were plenty of bright spots in a dark year, plenty of life and memories being made amidst the stressors. I told myself over and over during the year to not let the bad things take over, to not let them steal this time from me that I would never get back. I’m not sure how successful I was, but I did try.

I know the new year is just an arbitrary date on the calendar we made it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t treat it like a fresh start, year after year, and hope it actually takes one year.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

2021 in Review

Posted: January 3, 2022 in real life, writing
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I don’t know how I feel about summarizing this past year–2021. In some bizarre time anomaly that is the current state of things, it simultaneously feels like I was just reluctantly typing my 2020 in Review and as if 2021 alone spanned five normal years. I am not sure how time can sprint by in a blur while raking in painful slow motion. Yet, here we are.

2020 was simple and easy to review. It was shit. 2021, however, was more complicated as so much continued to be messy and challenging while other components attempted to limp back toward “normalcy.” I found myself weak and damaged.

Floundering is a good word that comes to mind. Yet I did flounder through, and when I look back from a more pragmatic hindsight, I can see progress, accomplishments, and healing mingled with my struggles.

When I compare 2021 to 2020, I can truly appreciate the highlights. Right now (and in this post), I am choosing to focus on the highlights.

Followers Release

Perhaps the largest highlight of my year was the release of my fifth book, Followers, by Crystal Lake Publishing.

Crystal Lake Publishing was a pleasure to work with, especially in challenging times when I could not celebrate or promote a new novel in ways I have in previous years.

Followers is a novel that allowed me to question and play with themes and concepts that have come up during my time in the horror genre. It also got me to stretch and grow writer muscles. I feel like I took a step forward with this book. And it makes me want to take another. (I think I did with my yet unpublished WIP, and I stand poised for another with the next I plan to start.)

Publication is always an accomplishment for an author.

Telluride Horror Show

Telluride Horror Show was back in person this year! Vaccinated and masked but in Telluride!

After traveling next to none in more than a year prior, it felt so good to go somewhere. It was comforting to be in one of my favorite places. Even with the precautions, the event maintained itself. Most of the festivities were able to happen unchanged or simply migrated outdoors.

There was no more appropriate time to go than right after releasing Followers since I included the Telluride Horror Show in the book. While writing and editing and reading and re-reading Followers, I had been dying to walk to streets of Telluride again.

It was the vacation I needed.

And of course, we snuck in an amazing winter hike. Because one cannot survive on horror movies and booze alone… right?

NaNoWriMo

Yes, I returned to the challenge, the torment, the sprint for a second year. Last year, I used the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo – 50,000 words in one month) challenge to complete my novel Green Eyes. A novel I am still working and querying a year later.

This year, I was struggling with my relationship with the craft. I wanted to use NaNoWriMo to find my way back to my passion for writing. I wanted to strip away all the collateral parts of writing–the querying and editing and publishing and promoting and marketing–and return to just the act itself. So I turned to a genre I have never attempted, fan fiction.

Fan fiction can never be published for profit, due to copyright infringement. Since I could never do anything with the story, there was no pressure in writing it, just the creation of the story, just the pure act.

So I took my first and one of my favorite horror movies: Scream. I focused on the original movie from the perspective of the killers, with some before and after. I watched Scream a bunch of times and combed through the script. It was an experience, and it accomplished the goal.

I don’t know that I’ll ever do anything with Father Death. I have mused on polishing it up and posting it to this blog. However, it was fun to compose and brought me back to wanting to write again.

Now, I just have to wait and see how it aligns with Scream 5.

High School Speaking

Odd and out of character, one of my favorite author things to do is speak at schools. During lockdown, I even did it over Zoom. But I did miss it, especially during spooky season when everyone wants to talk about horror.

This fall, I got to return to one high school and talk to classes all day long. There were a lot of masks and distance involved, and the pandemic has definitely changed how students behave and interact, but I loved it just the same.

At these sessions, one of the teachers read one of my pieces to the auditorium. It was multiple layers of surreal. Reading my own work aloud is always a trip, but having another person read as I listened and watched the reactions added another layer.

It was not the same as when I have visited before the pandemic, but the world is not the same. We cannot expect things to snap back when years have passed and so much has happened. So instead of noting the differences, I appreciate how fun it was.

Metal Fusion Dancing

One thing that is better, that I do more of since the pandemic is performing, which seems odd. My metal fusion dancing is unrelated to writing. However, it does share a lineage with my love of horror. I often include horror themes, props, or imagery in my performances. For example, Pennywise or fake blood.

I used to dance and perform constantly with my troupe in Tennessee/Georgia. However, it has been slow returning to the activity since moving home to Colorado. I began finally dabbling and finding my way back to the stage preceding the pandemic and lockdowns. Yet as things have opened back up, I have found more opportunities, producers, and shows. I am seeing more traction.

I also continued to dance with my Southern troupe over Zoom and joined an online metal collective. So dance is firmly rooted back in my life.

Onward…

It would be inauthentic to gloss over the depths of my depression in the past year or the ripples my struggles are still sending through my days. However, that darkness does not mean the entire year has been dark. There were plenty of highlights and joy. The best way to keep my head above the waves is to keep my eyes on those points of light and remember the tide will swell and recede.

So it is onward into another year. No resolutions. No expectations. Just the ambition and hope to continue progress and recovery and hopefully grow the ratio of highlights versus darkness.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

2020 in Review

Posted: December 30, 2020 in real life, writing
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Every year, I do a review blog where I catalog all the writing and festivals and horror-related activities I have accomplished in the year. This year, frankly, I just don’t want to.

2020 was a shit in show. In 2020, I survived.

There will be a wave of blog posts this week, next week that say these same things. So again, I didn’t want to waste the keystrokes. But I am not working this week, so for the sake of consistency… here is my 2020 in review.

2020 began normally enough, but then as the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, it became something else entirely. Largely, everything I would do in person (horror movie festivals, book signings, horror movies, travel) was cancelled. I told myself that I would redirect my energies, that I would use my time at home to actually do the writing part of being an author.

Instead, I just sort of scraped through quarantine; I muddled through remote learning; I floundered through the “new normal.” Rather than redirected, I just kind of existed. At times, I fell apart.

Rather than rehash all the things that didn’t happen because of the Rona or lament how virtual experiences aren’t the same or summarize the rants I have spouted in therapy these past few months, I am going to focus on two simple things from my 2020. Two author things. I am going to step way out of character and silver lining 2020 a bit by looking back through a very restrictive lens.

Book #5

If nothing else during this abysmal year, I got a novel under a publication contract with Crystal Lake Publishing. Crystal Lake Publishing finally had a submissions window and accepted my novel Followers.

I am thrilled to be working with a new publisher and see this novel come into the world, especially during such a strange time.

In Followers, Sidney escapes from the disappointments of her life into the horror genre and conversations with online followers—until those virtual followers bring horror into her real life.

NaNoWriMo

I have never participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) before. I have always been too busy to commit to writing 50,000 words in one month. Yet a pandemic and successive quarantines seemed like the perfect opportunity. By November, I seemed to have adapted enough to actually begin to utilize my time.

50,000 words was much more challenging than I anticipated. It sounded so easy until I was grinding. It took undivided commitment on multiple occasions from me. Yet it was also nice to imagine what it would be like to write more. I proved to myself I could do it… and finished my novel in progress in the meantime.

During NaNoWriMo, I completed my novel Green Eyes. Green Eyes is my first meandering out of the horror genre since I have been published. Instead, I felt compelled to approach more real horrific topics.

As I cross into 2021, I will need to start editing the manuscript and finding a home for it. 2020 has taken the strive out of me. I am giving this book time, working it at a more natural pace. Maybe it was a lesson I needed to learn.

Happy New Year!

I don’t think the rolling of the calendar will magically change things. I don’t think the numbers humans assign days will influence global events. Yet I am still ready for the arbitrary close of the year. Even if it means nothing, I am going to attempt at the fresh start nonetheless.

2020 was not a completely loss. Every experience is worth something, but I am still looking forward to putting many experiences from those months behind me.

If nothing else, I will keep writing…

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

My 2017 in Review

Posted: December 30, 2017 in horror anthologies, real life, savages, the rest will come, the waning, writing
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When it comes to the state of the world at large and current events, I am with the majority in being ready and excited to say goodbye (and fuck off) to 2017. What a rollercoaster mess of a year.

However, if I refine my focus down to something a little more narcissistic, the assessment of the year brightens. For my writing, 2017 was a pretty damn successful year.

Last January, things would have never appeared so optimistic for my authoring career. I began the year released (with my two novellas, Savages and The Waning) by my first publisher. I went from having two books published and available to being featured in an anthology or two. From there, it felt like starting over.

However, starting over did not take long. Within the same month, my novel The Rest Will Come was accepted by Limitless Publishing. This rejuvenated my confidence and allowed me to focus on something positive and productive. It was ultimately released in August.

Not far behind that, I had a short story, “Hatch,” included in Collected Easter Horror Shorts in April.

Then, in October, things exploded. My poor rejected Christmas horror short “Santa’s Workshop” was accepted by Horrified Press into a future holiday anthology. My short story “Black Widow” was published in Collected Halloween Horror Shorts.

And my short story “Adam, Eve, and Mr. Bubbles” was published in the anthology Demonic Wildlife.

In November, my previously rejected short story “After the Screaming Stopped” was accepted in the upcoming Graveyard Girlz anthology by HellBound Books Publishing.

In December, I had three horror drabbles accepted into the upcoming 100 Word Horrors anthology.

Also, and perhaps the most exciting, HellBound Books Publishing released the second edition of my second novella, The Waning. This release was especially thrilling because it got one of my released books back on the market and because my friend Phil designed the badass cover art. Holding this edition was particularly special.

Then, to top it off, HellBound Books Publishing just offered to publish the second edition of my first novella, Savages. With this last contract, all of my finished and submitted works officially have homes. I no longer have released, rejected, or orphaned works. Every piece submitted is published or has a contract to be published. This is a HUGE accomplishment. This is what 2017 was for my writing.

2018 will already see the re-release of Savages and the publication of Graveyard Girlz, 100 Word Horrors, and possibly the holiday anthology from Horrified Press. Additionally, I am planning on submitting to three different anthologies before summer and am working on a collaborative novel with Kevin Kennedy. I also hope to start on my second solo novel, though I have not yet settled on a concept.

In short, I intend to be busy. 2017 was kind to me, at least as an author. I intend to build on that momentum.

Christina Bergling

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