2023 Retrospective and Goals for 2024

The good news: I wrote over 110,000 words of new fiction this year. The bad news: almost none of it is published or in a publishable state. I set myself only one goal at the start of the year, to finish Command Authority. I got stuck on this partway through May, after changing my mind about the third act too many times. I started writing what I thought would be a short story that fit into my Dragonriders series. That story, The Last Dragonrider, quickly exploded into a novella, then a novel, which currently stands at 67,000 words. I had hoped I might finish the first draft by the end of the year, but the day job got in the way over the last couple of months.

I wrote six short stories and started two more. A reading of one of these, St Augustine's Eve, is on my YouTube channel, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvLd... (I originally called it The Regrettable Events of St Augustine's Eve, and it appears on YouTube under that title.) Another story, The Old Palace by Torchlight, is a bonus for newsletter subscribers. Go to http://eepurl.com/_5EDX to sign up. The welcome email will tell you how to read the story, as well as the previously released bonus stories. (Full disclosure: three of the bonus stories are also available in Racing the Storm and Other Stories.)

I joined two writers' groups, one here in Blackpool and one in the neighbouring town of St Annes. Both groups regularly give out writing prompts, which were responsible for all of the short stories that I wrote this year.

I attended the Self-Publishing Show Live, a writers' conference, in June. I picked up a few tips about promotion, which encouraged me to resume paid-for advertising in September. This has yet to break even, but it's doing better than previous efforts.

And finally, I had my first time headlining an event, at the venue used by the St Annes group. Attendance was a little disappointing, but the audience enjoyed it, and I sold some books, and they've asked me to do another one next year.

So - goals for 2024. As with this year, I'll try to keep them simple. I'd like to finish The Last Dragonrider and publish another audiobook. I'll be interested to see how long recording takes when I don't have to stop every fifteen minutes for a train to go past!