This year

My writing (sounds rather grander than it really is) has been a bit hit and missy this year. I started it with a nice little earner (not huge but fairly regular) that supplemented my income very nicely thank you very much and I have to be honest I concentrated on that rather than what I might choose to write. However when the company went belly up in the summer that came to an abrupt end. With that non fiction gig gone I decided to go back to my first love which is fiction. I submitted half a dozen things in October but so far have heard nothing back but wasn't that always the way. I did manage to sell a small non fiction piece at the end of October but that is all since the summer.
So I still have BTL sitting in a metaphoric drawer alongside the non fiction book that I wrote several years ago which needs quite a specialised market that I haven't managed to discover yet. And then there is my Nice project which is currently about 22,000 words long. Oh and there are about a dozen short stories sitting in various folders too.
Hopefully I will do better next year. I may even com eup with some resolutions.

Bad Blogger

Oh I have been a bad blogger again. Sorry. Its this Christmas thing - and work of course which always seems to get in the way of spending the day doing things that I enjoy.
Well first and forwmost, Merry Christmas everyone. I hope that you get to spend the day with the people you love and that your heart is full of happiness.
Spare a thought if you can though for all of those who are having a hard time making their Christmas happen. I have while I've been sitting here on my own waiting for everyone else (including the dog) to wake up and I thank God that I'm lucky enough to have my menfolk around me. I've also spent a moment looking at the two angels and the one red bauble amongst the silver ones on my Christmas Tree that represent those that we have loved that aren't with us any more.
Now, its time to enjoy my day and I hope that you all do the same.
Merry Christmas everyone.
x

Thinking on paper

I'm thinking out loud really or rather on paper/screen whatever but I'd be interested in anything anyone wanted to say. You see, the thing is that for a while I have been thinking of self publishing BTL, given that I can't get an agent to "love it" enough to take it on. Obviously these days digital is the way to go and so I have been thinking about that too. But my dilemma is that I am the only one that has ever read BTL all of the way through so how do I know that it is good enough and that anyone else will want to read it? How do I know that I'm not just kidding myself? I always said that I would never self publish but after reading an article by Giles Brandreth the other week I realised that unless I am a celebrity, my chances of getting a book published are just about nil and he mentioned self publishing. Of I don't know.
On a different note, my "Nice" project has just hit 20,000 words. I have revised my deadline to say that I want the first draft, second draft and a bit of a polish done by April.