A Round-up of my Creative Year!

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone! I can’t quite believe I lasted posted on here in July, time sure flies!

Last time I mentioned that I had been delving into the world of poetry. I’ve continued along this beautiful path by completing two free online courses as I felt there was a gap in my knowledge. The courses I completed were called, ‘Playing with Poetry: Creative Writing and Poetics’ and ‘Poetry: How to Read a Poem’ via the FutureLearn website which I thoroughly enjoyed, learnt so much and have been writing the odd poem, here and there, ever since.

In my last post I also mentioned I’d sent two poems off to a publisher for the first time. Both were rejected which, I am led to believe, is perfectly normal in a writer’s life so, of course, a little disappointed but, overall, I am okay about it.

I am still making progress with my WIP – busy writing Chapter 13 at the moment. My aim is to pick that up at a much quicker pace in 2024.

That said, I am currently the process of completing Beth Kempston’s free mini writing course, ‘Winter Writing Sanctuary’ which finishes on 6th January. I really like her style and she’s full of great ideas, especially about having a calm Christmas – who doesn’t need one of those? Apparently, she holds this free course every year and has a number of non-fiction books out, a podcast and great to follow on Instagram. I’d recommend.

I also signed up and completed a two hour ‘Developing Character’ writing course with author, Claire Fuller at the end of September. It was a great refresher. Claire is good to follow on Instagram too.

I’ve joined a wonderful local writing group. We meet once a fortnight in the City Library for two hours every Saturday. We talk about all things writerly and volunteer writing prompts so we can set our creative juices flowing there and then. There is so much talent in this small group, so glad to be a part of it. Thank you Sam Szanto (Poet and Author) for the introduction.

Reading wise, at the beginning of the last year I set myself a target of 15 books and have exceeded that challenge by reading 21 books. Of my favourites were: Tembi Locke’s memoir ‘From Scratch’ (also a Netflix limited series), Taylor Jenkins Reid’s ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ (also an Amazon Prime limited series), Lauren John Joseph’s ‘At Certain Points We Touch’ (the style of writing is exquisite) Elizabeth Von Armin’s ‘An Enchanted April’ (great internal monologues for each of the characters and took me back to our Italian adventure), Elif Shafak’s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ (close to home this one – amazing) and, finally, the Matthew Perry memoir ‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (sad, sad, sad).

I think that is pretty much it. I hope to do so much more next year and get brave enough to put some more work out there. In the meantime, wishing you all a wonderfully creative 2024! Thank you so much for your views, follows and I hope to see you all again next year.