At home enjoying family time with my zany cats.
Pixie loves to scramble up and down the Christmas tree!
Hello!
Gosh is it good to be home, and by 'home', I mean online amongst this wonderful community of writers, creatives, readers and friends. I have missed you all!
It's been a long three months away, but I'm relieved to say I'm back to stay. My fourth and final teaching practice is at last finished. It's been the hardest experience of my life - exhausting, gruelling and completely unsustainable, working 80 hour weeks.
Suffice to say I've not had the time to even look after myself properly, let alone think of indulging in writing or my other hobbies. Every day I have missed writing and looked forward fervently to the moment I could begin it all again. That time is now!
I've just got a new office (thanks to my lovely partner who helped me heft furniture all over the place this weekend - and thanks to the cats who as per usual got underfoot!). It's a mess, alas, so needs some reorganisation, but for the whole I now am lucky enough to have a small, cosy and private space in which to work. Plus, as a bonus, I have working internet again - woo!
I plan to get straight back to work on BOC2 (Books of Caledan 2), which is about a third complete. With Christmas being this week, home life is obviously manic. But I will re-familiarise with the story, plot, etc and aim to dive back in as soon as I am ready (and as soon as all the washing up is done after the Christmas dinner...!)
Plus, I'm also thinking hard on where I want to be at this time next year. What do I want to achieve in 2015? Certainly, to finish at least one more book (and more if I can - I have so many ideas!). I also want to share The Tainted Crown more - I just checked my sales and I'm so very close to the 100 mark now! 96 sales since publication in July 2014.
I'm so astounded, overwhelmed and overjoyed that 96 people chose my book. That's 96 more than I ever expected. If I could make it to 100 - well, even if I never wrote another word in my life (not that that's not going to happen! You just try and keep me away from the keyboard...!!), I could die happy, reaching that milestone.
I'd also like to branch into visual/audio work - I'll start posting videos to a Youtube account (not sure of the content, though yet) and will be looking into producing audio only non-fiction work (though this takes a back seat compared to my fiction writing, which is first and foremost!).
I hope that 2015 will be an exciting year, filled with new adventures - for me and my characters!
I definitely need to develop a more solid business plan, with timed and segmented goals so I can achieve everything I want to, step by step, in a timely fashion.
What do you hope 2015 will bring for you?
In any case, I feel very positive and hopeful for the future - that I can create the life of an author for myself. It will be a long, slow and hard journey, of that I have no doubt. But, this year, 2014, was the year I began that journey. I have no intentions of giving up now!
Ciao for now, I'm off to go de-clutter the office so I have space to work. ;-)
Have a very merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a wonderful festive period and the happiest of New Years!
Meg
