Today, Laura and I went out for our first works Christmas lunch. As we’re both now self-employed and working at home, neither of us had other colleagues to do this with, so a festive lunch together seemed like a nice tradition to start.
While we were eating mounds of tapas in one of our favourite cafés, we talked about highlights of the past year. It’s been tough in places, but with a definite upward trajectory, and a lot of my highs have been related to my writing. So, in no particular order, here are some of my writing highlights from this year:
- Having my short story ‘Surprise Me’ published in Daily Science Fiction.
- Deciding to take my destiny into my own hands by self-publishing.
- Releasing my first self-published books, learning a lot and getting some great reviews.
- Getting enough freelance writing work in areas I love, mostly history and science fiction, so that I could stop bidding on less interesting projects.
- Writing three whole novels in the space of a few months, and working with an editor on two of them. Because they’re ghost writing I can’t say more about them, but it’s been great fun.
- Joining the writing team I’m now part of for the ghost writing gig – they’re a great bunch.
- Getting to know fellow readers and writers through the internet, especially those of you who regularly frequent this blog. I didn’t make great use of social media before the last year or so, and it’s been fun getting to know interesting people I didn’t before, as well as chatting with a few who I did.
- Getting my gorilla onesie. It’s only a writing thing because I sometimes wear it to keep warm while I work, but damn I’m grateful for it now that winter’s closing in.
Next year I’m hoping to build on all of this. I have plans to finally publish a series of steampunk novellas in the spring, and then get back to my more heavy duty fantasy Rome novels. The sci-fi ghost writing looks set to continue. And I will of course keeping filling this space with words.
How about the rest of you – what have your highlights of this year been, whether related to reading and writing, science fiction and fantasy, or any other thing? Share some of them below, and lets celebrate together.