by Patricia Bradley, @PTBradley1

How in the world did 2022 whiz by so fast? It seems like it was just last week that I had trouble writing 2022 on my checks, and now here we are with another new year!

The first week of January is when a lot of people, me included, take stock of what they did in the preceding year. As I look back over the past year I see wins and losses. The wins are fun to think about, the losses, not so much. Then I think of Nelson Mandela’s quote: “I never lose. I either win or I learn.”

So, what did I learn from my losses this year? 

• Don’t give up.
• BIC (Behind in Chair) Typing. (self-explanatory)
• Sales aren’t up to me—once I’ve done all I can, how many people buy my book are up to God.
• Not everyone will like what I write 

But I think we can learn from our wins as well. What did I learn?

• If I practice BIC, Typing, the words will come, eventually
• If God calls you to write, He will give you the words. You just have to show up, ready to take dictation.
• I CAN learn how to do social media—it’s just connecting with your reader, just like connecting with your friends
• Connecting does cost something—your time and interest in the other person.
•  Encouraging others doesn’t cost anything, just like it doesn’t cost anything to be nice.
• Encouraging others reaps BIG dividends.
• When I get stuck in a scene or that muddling middle, take a walk and let the boys in the basement go to work, or in my case, the girls in the attic.
• Give God the praise and thank Him for THE END!

So, I want to encourage you to take Nelson Mandela’s words with you into this new year. 

“I never lose. I either win or I learn.”

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Deception, Natchez Trace Park Rangers, Book 4

When ISB Ranger Madison Thorn arrives in Natchez to investigate a white-collar scheme, she has no idea she will be thrown back into the violent crimes division–or that it will get so personal. She’ll have to work with her childhood-enemy-turned-handsome-charmer to unravel the clues before it’s too late.

Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Deception, the third book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, releases August 2, 2022. She is now hard at work on a new series set in the Cumberland Plateau around Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her writing workshops include American Christian Fiction Writers online courses, workshops at the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen Retreat and Scrivenings Press Author Retreat where she was also the keynote. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.