A brand new year!

A brand new year! I started writing here in March 2012 and altogether I’ve shared 9485 stories, posts, bits and pieces. In that first year I had over fifteen thousand visitors, which considering it was less than ten months of writing, and considering some of the things I wrote at first were a little scrappy, I was very pleased. Since then I’ve written nearly every day – when I knew I was going away I would schedule posts, but on the couple of times I was poorly and not having the ability to see into the future, there were a few empty days! My best ever year in terms of views and visitors was 2017, then 2013 when I was sharing four things a day, and last year 20121 was third! My all-time best month was March 2018 – I must look back and see what I wrote which garnered such attention – although sometimes “viewing figures” are inexplicably high or low.

This year I wrote 623 pieces, and I’ve had visitors fro 140 different countries; that’s so exciting, to think people are reading what I’ve written right around the world! I share what I write here on some social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter. I can’t tell you exactly which areas I’ve written – I’ve got twenty-two categories, and the ones I write in most are my Radwinter novels; family history and family stories; books, reading and poetry; writing (of course!); food; and music.

I usually have no idea at all about what I’m going to write when I sit down in front of (or is it behind) my keyboard. Sometimes I might have a vague thought from earlier on – but I more usually have vague thoughts and then forget them before I can get them written. Quite often I start writing about one thing and it wiggles off in a completely different direction and I end up writing something else.

The main idea behind me starting a blog, was to write about the stories and novels I write, and I do that, obviously, but my blog has become far more than that, a thing of itself. However, I do write about my writing, and share the short stories I’ve written, and the progress I make on my novels. In 2021, last year, I challenged myself to write 100 posts, each of 1100 words exactly, over 100 days. It was much more fun than I had anticipated, although there were times when I struggled. However, I completed my challenge, published a book of them, all profits going to the Captain Tom Moore Foundation.

I’m not very good at making resolutions, but there are several writing projects I want to complete:

• firstly to finish Radwinter VIII, which I am pretty sure will be called Undertow
• finish my Mike Scott novel, set in the 1950’s about a reporter on a small provincial newspaper
• finish my Peggy and the Lighthouse children’s story
• finish my novel The Button

There’s a lot of finishing to do and no doubt I’ll have more ideas and start writing more things!

On the whole, despite the unmentionable, I’d like to thank 2021.