I went up to the top room in my house at midnight on NYE and watched the New Year fireworks going off, all over South London, and made lots of new year wishes for myself, my friends, my family, and pretty much the entire world *g*. I don’t do resolutions – I send out good wishes and goodwill into the universe instead. It all really boils down to happiness, in the end, so my wish for everyone reading this is a whole ton of happiness for you in 2015.
When I went back to bed, Jemima and Harley both snuggled up to me, one under each arm, purring away happily, and I felt blessed with happiness. As I get older, it seems to me that happiness can be found more in the little things. When I was younger, I wanted magic wands and lightning bolts, and big, exciting things to happen to make me happy, but now I can appreciate the love of a good cat; or the joy of settling down with a good book and a nice cup of tea; or a walk on a frosty, sunny morning; or the restorative pleasure that spending time with good friends brings. Really feeling those moments and appreciating that happiness helps to store up positive moments to balance out against the inevitable down times in life.
I actually loved 2014 – it was a wonderful year for me, although far too busy. I managed to finish writing the first novel in my new trilogy, and completed the second novel during 2014, as well as all the many other things I was doing, so I am proud of that. Two down – one to go! There was laughter, and parties, and good friends and rather too much very hard work but a real sense of accomplishment in 2014. I understand it wasn’t that way for everyone, though – two good friends of mine lost loved ones during 2014, at far too young an age, and for others there was depression and financial worries. I’m sure some people will be very glad to see the back of 2014, and I hope 2015 will bring them much deserved happiness.
My wishes for myself in 2015 are for more time to enjoy my life, as it seemed to whizz by in a blur in 2014. I’d like more writing time, more online time, and more time to spend with friends and family, and those I love. I’d like for better health in 2015, as I did have far too many health issues in 2014, mostly stress related. Today, I packed away all my Christmas decorations, which made me feel sad but also like I was clearing away the old to make way for the new, and I’m genuinely looking forward to 2015.
I’m especially looking forward to finishing Slavecatcher, and releasing it. I’ve been busy editing book one for the past few months as I’ve had so little time to get any momentum going on starting book three. I might not be able to publish all three novels in 2015, but I hope to at least release the first one. I’m going to try and do another extract soon. Fingers crossed that my work life is less all-consuming, and I have more writing time and energy in 2015.
I wish you all a very Happy New Year – I hope it brings you happiness.
And finally, here is the end of year fiction roundup, as usual. I like doing these as it helps me to look back over various years and see what was going on with my writing. Looking back now, I can see that I wrote more in 2014 than I have in any year since 2009 – WOOT!
Fiction Roundup 2014
I wrote one fanfic story, completed the second half of one novel and wrote the entirety of another.
The fanfic story was Brother Dear in the Sherlock fandom. It was 12,600 words long.
I had completed 86,000 words of the first Slavecatcher novel this time last year. Its now 167,406 words long. I have also completed book two which is currently 149,857 words long. So I’ve written a total of 231,263 words of SC in 2014, and wrote 243,863 in total for the year – much better than 2013’s total of 94,737, so yay!
Jacci and I acheived a new revamp of www.xanthe.org, completely changing the look of the site and greatly increasing the functionality, enabling downloads in many different formats – and it looks gorgeous. We also revamped www.xanthewalter.com in the same style. And I’ve also been active on Facebook and Tumblr, as well as on LJ, all of which I enjoy :-).
I know it must seem as if not much is going on here, as I haven’t posted anything new to read in a year, but trust me, there has been much writing happening, and this new trilogy will be worth it – I promise!