It’s the last day of the year. I can hardly believe it. So much has happened this year, good and bad, and an awful lot of writing got done (though hopefully not a lot of awful writing).
This year, I got a job, had to leave my job for health reasons, and got myself an adorable little niece who is, in my wholly unbiased opinion, the sweetest, loveliest baby in the world. So that’s my personal life.
In the writing world, I’ve worked on… four or five books this year, one of which is currently trying to mind its manners and make a good impression on a publisher. The standout success, for me, though, is A Pride of Poppies. It’s a charity anthology that came out in May, with proceeds going to the Royal British Legion, and it’s been nominated for a bunch of awards, which was really great. I’m not going to list them, in case there are any I’ve not realised we were nominated for, but it’s been amazing. We even got through to become finalists in the Rainbow Awards! Even better, in many ways, was seeing the anthology pop up in people’s End-of-Year Best Books lists. I mean, it came out in May, but people still remember it, and that’s… better than an award, somehow.
I also got to meet a bunch of writers in the LGBTQIA+ genre, when I attended Queer Company in Oxford in May. We launched Poppies there, and it was just fantastic to meet a bunch of equally crazy writing types. I owe a great deal to Manifold Press for organising both the event and the anthology, and I think I’ve grown a lot as a writer for attending the event and for knowing the people I met there. So thank you, Manifold Press.
And, of course, thank you to everyone who’s reading this blog, and everyone from the writing groups that keep me going all year. You rock!
Right, enough sentimental stuff – let’s get my totals out of the way so we can all go back to ringing in the new year!
Total written today: 848 words.
December total: 5009 words.
2015 total: 265107 words.
Well, you can’t say that’s a bad way to end 2015, can you? Next year I hope to write more and, with a bit of luck, get some more published. But I’m proud of what I’ve achieved this year, and being able to look back and see it all is actually really inspiring, despite the varied totals and the odd missed target. Oh, sod it, I’ll post the screenshot, I’m pleased with myself and it might be nice to compare next year (because I plan to keep on recording it).
Talk to you next year, and here’s hoping we all have a good one!
Eleanor Musgrove 