2018: A Retrospective

Once more around the sun. As 2018 draws to a close, I thought I might take an opportunity to look back on the events of the past year, as I went through some major life changes. After a rocky (not to mention cold) start, I think this year really worked out.

At first, I was still working full-time as an accountant. I'd been in this particular job for over a year, and felt like it was getting in the way of my writing, and had been acting on Twitter. It was in May that these tweets were picked up, resulting in my dismissal, but at that point I was making plans to leave anyway. Said plans were to go to university to study creative writing, and as soon as I got home, I made a start on the UCAS application.

I actually felt happier after leaving the job, as I now had time to catch up on lost sleep, get a couple of good books in, and revise one of my WIPs. I've actually sent that off, but I'm still waiting to hear back. I also did a review marathon of the Asterix comics, and found them to be a lot funnier than I originally remembered them to be.

One unexpected fortune occurred when I contacted a previous employer for a university reference, and was offered a summer job. I never thought I'd be working somewhere like that again, but I was offered a second chance and took it. After all, it was part-time, which worked better for me.

Anyway, I've left that job again, and have since started studying for BA in Creative Writing. Life's a lot fuller at university. I might not be spending as much time as I'd like to on my regular WIPs, but I've started a journal which I'm writing in every day, along with the creative assignments. It was through these assignments that I've started to expand into poetry.

I'm going to sound very full of myself now, and say that in the last few months of the year, I've been able to look at myself in the mirror and sincerely say "I'm awesome!"

See you all in 2019!

Happy writing.

No NaNo This Year

My latest WIP

Well, November and National Novel Writing Month have been and gone. It's now December, so I can technically enjoy the Christmas decorations and songs (not too mention a few seasonal freebies at my lodgings this coming week).

Anyway, as stated above, November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. This annual writing challenge involves writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Not always easy when life gets in the way. My relationship with the tradition has been...interesting to say the least.

I tried NaNo back in 2016, and managed 34,000 words, but realised that I have a rather laconic writing style which is more suited to short stories. I was working at that time, but I had Fridays and the weekends to catch up if I fell behind. Regardless, I decided it probably wasn't for me.

When November came around again in 2017, I was working in another job which was full-time. Since I'd been struggling with fitting my writing around the new hours, I elected not to do the actual challenge, but pay lip service and try and write every day. Even if it was making a plan at work. I kind of managed, but wasn't able to keep it up afterwards.

This year, I've been at university and have had assignments due in November. I would argue that the point of the challenge is to teach you to write every day, but I'm pretty much doing that anyway, so I didn't bother with anything NaNo-related this year. It's mainly been my journal and the creative assignments.

However, since a lot of my output lately has been poetry, I'm tempted to do National Poetry Writing Month in April. Since there isn't a word count goal, I think that allows a lot more flexibility.

I'll speak about that in April.

Happy writing.