Well
that’s 2013 done and over.
Overall a satisfactory and rewarding year of
writing activity.
The Allrighters’ are within 18,000 words
of passing a million draft words despite not reaching the million by Christmas Day or the year end due to bad weather, too much food and drink and other distractions. We have really surprised ourselves with progress since June 2010. Goethe is right, all you have
to do is start and doors do open. A web site is up and running, thanks to Peter
Richards. Running the site does take up creative writing time. Several draft books written by others have been read and comments given
by us as readers.
Our own reading exceeded five million words in
2013 reading at least one book a week. A selection of Allrighters’ books of the
year is to follow as some wonderful reading in December needs to be digested. We
made over 130 Amazon book review comments.
A first book Ywnwab! published by
Allrighters’ in September 2013 and the self publishing cycle ridden and tested. Minimal sales,
but hardly a surprise given short stories are not great sellers and enormous competition.
Worked with a wonderful local writing group and
found a close writing buddy. After each meeting came away with a spring in our steps. Also with other supporters in the Allrighters’ and
many other contacts in the UK
Made several web postings on other’s sites.
Hundreds of helpful web posts by others read and digested.
Someone said writing children’s books is much
harder than writing for adults so we have made a start with a new character Blossom.
Thanks to everyone for their support during
2013.
Now
for 2014
May I wish you all the best for the New Year in
life and writing.
My New Year resolutions – already ripe for
breaking!
- Concentrate on creative writing of at least 750 words a day and
completion of self editing and restructuring of at least twelve draft books
or 700,000 words ready for external editing.
- Resist temptation to rush to self publish more books, given the
time it takes for each. Leave this to 2015.
- Break previous resolution not to even try going the
traditional agent’s publishing route by trying to get our book Look
away and maybe a Blossom book as well. The
challenge is proving hard to resist and our skin is hard enough to resist
rejection … we hope.
- Enjoy local writing group and contact with other writers.
- Do a web post or short story entry every two weeks.
- Continue to read at least one book a week. Try to read and
comment on other writer’s draft books.
- Be more selective in receiving and reading others web posts.
A new one added this morning - http://www.barbararogan.com/
with a good post on her blog - brain surgery for writers - about editing.
- Continue exploration of different genres and writing styles
especially children’s books with Blossom.
Others - Improve our hand writing a hardy annual never achieved.
Play more piano. Another hardy annual. Feel sad about this one ... want to, but practice claims too much time ... the following is all rather melancholic as well but maybe we will try and learn to play it. Perhaps slow enough for old fingers and brain ... In our fantasy dreams playing is all so easy! Did offer to loan our piano out over Christmas ... but we have now changed our minds.
The Allrighters,
Douglas and Alexander
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