“Unplanned, Unpaid, Unforgettable: My Creative Shift in 2025”

  

 

This year surprised me in a way I never saw coming. The plot twist of 2025 wasn’t a big achievement or a sudden breakthrough—it was actually the steady wave of rejections. Articles returned, poems declined, book‑review requests unanswered. At first, every “no” felt heavy, and the financial side of my creative journey remained disappointingly quiet.

But somewhere between those rejections, something beautiful happened.
I began reading simply for the joy of it—not for deadlines, not for paid reviews, not for any expected outcome. I ended up reading 25 books this year, many of them children’s books. They weren’t assignments, yet they brought me the purest kind of delight. I felt as though I had returned to the heart of why I love literature in the first place.

The biggest push came from my mother. Every Sunday, without fail, she would set aside the book‑review section from the newspapers she buys. She would send it to me through anyone passing by our house. “Read different reviews of the same book,” she told me. “Notice how each reviewer sees it differently—the focus, the tone, the style.”

Those weekly bundles of paper became tiny lessons in perspective. They taught me to see books from multiple angles, to understand the craft behind reviews, and to keep improving without obsessing over money or outcomes.

So the unexpected twist of 2025 was this: rejection quietly guided me back to the joy of reading for pleasure, and my mother’s gentle encouragement helped me rediscover the deeper purpose of my creative path.
In losing something, I reclaimed something far more valuable—my well‑being, my curiosity, and my love for words.

( This blogpost is a part of # blogchatterwrapparty2025: https://www.theblogchatter.com/campaign-registrations/are-you-ready-to-wrap-up-2025-as-a-story-worth-rereading)

(PROMPT: Chapter 2: Plot twist of 2025- Share one unexpected thing that changed your year creatively or personally.)