Reflections on 2018

I had a conversation with my friends the other day about what the best and worst year of our lives were. My worst year was 2011. I was in sixth form, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, I had little plans for the future and the present consisted of me stuck in classes, many of which I had little or no interest in. Maybe a question on Mussolini’s rise to power might appear in a pub quiz one day… One benefit of this experience was that I used my memories of school misery in Empty Nights. My best year was 2012 which was also a great year for the UK overall. London hosted the 2012 Olympics. The Queen had her Diamond Jubilee and I left sixth form and started university.  2012 was the best of my life… until now.

2018 was a cracking year for me. I had my first holiday in five years and attended my first writing retreat. We had a new bathroom installed in the house as well as new windows,  new doors and new beds. Most importantly of all I published my debut novel on 1st September.

This made me think… What were my goals in 2018? I had to go back and check last year’s post which you can read here:

1.Update my website and start a monthly newsletter.

I think that setting the goal of updating my website was a bit of a cop out.  When I’d set the goal… I’d already updated it. Maybe it would have been better set as a late 2017 goal? Unfortunately I had to cancel the newsletter idea.

2.Submit a round of Short Stories.

Fail. I don’t remember entering any competitions this year but I also don’t remember setting this goal. I think the plan was to was to submit a round of short stories after Empty Nights was published in September but I was too busy recharging, working on my various vlogs and participating in NaNoWriMo.

3. Have a writing holiday

Success! I spent a week on the south coast and it was fantastic. I completed most of my writing tasks and I had time to enjoy the beach and the local scenery.

4) Publish Empty Nights

Success! I feel like I’ve been talking/typing about nothing other than Empty Nights all year so I’ll keep this short. If you haven’t brought a copy, check out the Empty Nights tab at the top of the page.

5) Continue the Write Up Our Alley video series

Success! This was actually a really interesting goal. Although I did stop contributing to the channel between July and September to focus on the Empty Nights launch I did start a new vlogging project called Starting as Strangers in March. Videos to both those channels can be found in the tabs at the top of the page.

 

That’s three out of five if you count the website goal as a forfeit. Not bad.

Thank you for reading. I’ll see you all in the new year where I’ll be discussing my goals for 2019.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.