Happy New Writing Year
2015 was a good writing year for me. I published my first book which included a launch in Waterstones in Piccadilly and media coverage in the Observer and the Guardian and the Daily Mail.
I also set up my Get Writing group which has gone from strength to strength and I wrote the first 25,000 words of a new novel. I wrote some poems as well and finally got my website up and running. It was a year of putting my writing first.
It was also an incredibly sad year for me. I lost a relationship that was very dear to me and the year ended with the loss of someone even more dear – my mother, who died after six years of living bravely with terminal cancer. None of us knew that, when she came to my book launch, it would be her last real public outing and we’re so glad now that she made it. I lost my dad to cancer twelve years ago so it seems doubly hard to lose my mum, especially as she has been such a fabulous Grandma to my two children.
We said goodbye to her on the 23rd December so Christmas didn’t quite feel like Christmas in spite of the children’s excitement and it’s hard to look forward to a new year without her in it. But the children keep me going and words are always my friends (except when, like the children, they won’t do what they’re told). Anyway, today I put pen to paper for the first time since my mum died and I felt a little bit better for doing so. And on Wednesday, my writing group starts up again. I have a new notebook and a new Writers’ Toolkit and some ‘Procrastination Pencils’ that my brother bought for me and the writing journey continues. For a writer, there is always something so comforting about stationery!
Speaking of which, just before Christmas I was interviewed for the ‘My Life So Far’ slot on Rony Robinson’s show on Radio Sheffield and we talked about the joy of stationery and the writer’s struggle and also about my lovely mum. You can hear the interview here:
If you’re writing, I hope 2016 is a good year for you. And, if you’re not writing, stop procrastinating.