New Year. New Job. New Website… but still addicted to coffee…

New Year Resolutions time again…

Well, I’ve re-designed my WordPress blog to include a bit more information about what I’m doing and make it more website, than blog… now i actually have some content! Which is also why this blog is coming to you later than planned. ((As if anyone wants to know any more about you! I see nothing changes in a new year… all me me me as usual)) Calm down Brackets, and Happy New Year to you and everyone else. I hope you’ve all had a good break and are ready to tackle a new year.

New Website… I will confess that the help button was employed a few times during this process – the folk at WordPress are so helpful, and patient! I highly recommend using WordPress for your website/blog. I got stuck a few times due to not engaging my tech brain. But we got there in the end. I hope you like it…

New Year Resolutions. I know it seems the common theme to be anti-resolutions – people thinking that you’re applying pressure on yourself. Personally, I think that’s nonsense. If you want to make resolutions, then crack on; as long as you don’t make yourself miserable if you don’t achieve them. Making yourself miserable is one of the many pointless activities in life, along with ironing and dusting. ((I see you’ve already started preaching – lord, what a year this is going to be… I’ve only got one New Year’s Resolution and that’s to find another blog! And as I hear it, you’re allergic to dusters and wouldn’t know how to switch on an iron!))

I had a look back at last year’s resolutions so I could see what I have and haven’t achieved – this list is not exhaustive as my notebooks will confess; I have many lists and many ideas and I’m sure you’re already bored and don’t want to read the full list! ((Yeah save us. It’s a bit pointless adding them all when it’s only your mother that actually cares about what you do))

Here it is, cut and pasted from last year’s blog and updated in bold

• Starting the year off with a few creative writing/story courses/events in Derby. I plan to attend a few more later in the year. Achieved – very useful
• Finish the chapters for the book collaboration with my writing group, which should be published in July, ready for the Newark Book Festival. 12-14^th July . Book was published by the skin of our teeth’s! Find it under My books…
• Try and increase my engagement with readers of my blog. I have increased this a little bit, but not as much as I would like. Thank you to all the people that follow and engage 😊
• I will finish book two by the time I go to New Zealand in February – book 3 will be based in New Zealand so I want to make sure I have Book two finished – but won’t be edited. Book two is finished – just needs that final edit and then off to the Beta readers to pull apart
• I’ve started a fantasy/role-playing story, which I’m really excited about. I’m going to try and upload some of this to Wattpad in the new year. Uploaded to Wattpad, but due to time haven’t really engaged with this platform much. Will have another look when I have time
• Delete the brackets and make this a serious writing blog (WHAT! Where’s my surprise?? You only said that to make me read this drivel?? Didn’t you…) Still working on this one…
• I will be in Singapore/New Zealand/Sydney for 6 weeks. Wi-fi and time allowing I will try and do some blogging whilst there – which has some relevance to writing! Achieved and really want to go back! After writing a journal of my travels, I’m planning on publishing this in early 2020
• Depending on what happens with regards to a publishing deal, I will either re-evaluate my novel and submit to other agents/publishers or I will aim to get a professional editor to help me knock it into shape to self-publish. No deal – mainly because I’ve had no time for submissions. Priority in 2020!

For those that haven’t fallen asleep, these are my goals for 2020

• Attend more Book Festivals across the country and more writing group sessions.
• After finishing the book with the Fosseway Writers’ we’ve somehow decided to write another book. This will be a Gothic Novel with short stories from at least 14 different writers’!
• Launch my new website – done – hurrah.
• Submit my psychological thriller series and children’s fantasy story to agents and publishers – I’m aiming to send two submissions per week.
• Publish my New Zealand travel book on Amazon – around March 2020
• Try and get a story published in People’s Friend magazine – mainly because I love interacting with them on Twitter, and the other authors and readers are so supportive. Would be nice to be part of this family 😉
• Start my expansion of a ‘night lost to the past’ based in Newark – who doesn’t want to read about time travel? This will require lots of research into the Civil War, so I might be a regular at the local Museum.

New Job. Yesterday was my first ‘official’ day working for Newark Book Festival. Somehow, someone decided that during the time i volunteered for them, i didn’t do a bad job ((or they were desperate and you were the only one free!)) So, here i am as the festival manager, pretending i know what i’m doing and hoping enthusiasm, a willingness to learn, a love of books, the love of a fabulous town, and an addiction to coffee will see me through. Keep your fingers crossed!

I think that is enough for one blog. It’s time to stick my head back in a book. Until next month x