Two months ago, I wrote a post about the end of summer being the start of my writing year and laying out my aims for the year: a year for myself; a year when I would publish three new books and relaunch my current portfolio. And now, here we are, two months down the line; the hanging baskets are still blooming, but with much less vigour. The trees have changed into their autumn colours and are about to start shedding their leaves. Time to review progress and see how I have got on so far.

Well, I’ve written over 20K words and the total for the first book, Deception!, sits at just under 30K. I have most of the story lines plotted out and will be finishing that later today. The overall story arc for Corruption! is also written. And I have both cover designs agreed with the brilliant Berni Stevens. I will be revealing them soon.

I have to admit that the above paragraph comes as a very pleasant surprise. My gut feeling was that I’d not achieved as much as I wanted to, but the numbers tell a different story. And the plan for November, based on NaNoWriMo, is to finish the first draft of Deception! ready for editing in December.

I have started work on updating the Business of Writing books, ready for their relaunch in the (calendar) New Year. They will be re-issued under my real name, thus allowing me to leverage the various qualifications that I worked so hard to achieve over the years. I’ve also had a go at revamping the covers myself. I’m not convinced about the success of that so far, but there’s time yet for more work.

Gorgito’s Ice Rink is now available as an ebook on a much wider range of  platforms; and Counterfeit! is also prepared for this move, once my 90 days with KDP Select is up. [This should have happened on 17th October, but I missed the fact that I’d not unchecked the automatic update box. A salutary lesson there!]

I’m in the process of updating my web presence and have got as far as changing the previous picture, which seemed to scream romance writer, or maybe non-fiction writer, for one more suitable for thrillers. The feedback so far implies I’m going in the right direction; but I still need to change the pretty pinks to more sombre colours.

And as for taking a year for myself? I am gradually disengaging from the various committees I’ve been involved for the past few years. Preparations for the Christmas Fayre are well underway and when that’s over, I’m done. I’ve stayed on the Chudleigh Writers’s Circle committee as treasurer, which takes about ten minutes per month plus one day a year; but that’s it.

So, two months on, I seem to be making progress. The next ten months will be hugely busy, but it’s writerly busy – and that’s fun!