January Recap

I haven’t blogged regularly for some time, in fact I’ve not done much of anything for some time now, but things are changing this year. Every month I shall be sharing my wins and losses, hopefully more of the first and I promise to learn from the second.

Books Read This Month

Like many, I’ve struggled with my reading this past year. However, I’m realising that it provides great escapism, so I’m spending less time on reading news and more on books. I’ve signed up to read 50 books on the Goodreads Reading Challenge. Here are the titles I’ve read this month, a good mix of fiction and non-fiction. Any recommendations are welcome!

• Black Narcissus – Rumer Godden (watched both TV versions over Christmas)
• Quite – Claudia Winkleman
• How To Write Dynamic Scenes – Randy Ingermanson
• Throne of Glass – Sarah J Maas
• River Magic – M.A.Phillips (my Indie Author Recommendation of the Month)
• Peaky Blinders The Real Story – Carl Chinn ( I got half way and abandoned it)
• Blood Rose Angel – Lisa Perrat (could have been written about this last year!!)

Stories Published

As well as regular Social Media posts I try to publish a short story or flash fiction once a week. I decided that I’d rather publish them than submit them to competitions which is time consuming and often unrewarded. Also, this month, I’ve been responding the #vss365 challenge on Twitter which are stories under 100 words, mine average around 40 words. You can find all these stories over at My Writer Within.

• Mistaken Identity
• The Decision – a story from The Good(Expat)Life series
• A Room of My Own – first published in Woman’s Own some years back
• A Slip of the Tongue
• Forever Reunited

Goals Update

I started a Quarterly planning system after taking the HB90 course last September. I can honestly say it’s been the best investment I’ve made. I haven’t been so productive in a long time and it’s really given me a boost.

Goal 1 Writing and Editing

• First Draft of The Fire Walker book 2 in the series Luna Legends – 30,000 words written long hand, in ink over 14 days…
• 10, 000 words written or edited for flash, shorts and blog
• Redesigned series aesthetic for inspiration which I may share at some time

Goal 2 Publishing and Promotion

• Enrolled in Publish and Thrive course (delivered by Sarra Cannon from the HB90 method)
• Cover art research for the series and book 2
• Review of Social Media schedule

Goal 3 Healthy Writing Habits

• Monitored my writing session moods – which are generally good! I just use a simple smiley system in my journal
• Participated most days in the #vss365 challenge as part of my daily ‘warm up’
• Daily Morning Pages – before I do anything else, animals willing that is!

I’m really pleased with my focus and sticking to my plans this month, despite it being gloomy in so many ways. One of the main points for my success was to get my writing done first thing, before I do anything else and making a concentrated effort to stay off social media until my words were down on paper.

Hope you’ve had some successes this month, would love to hear about them. And any reading suggestions you may have!

Ciao