Looking back at 2013

Wow. What a year. I realised the other day I hadn't posted in nearly a month, and although I meant to write a Christmas post, it seems to have passed me by and so instead I'll write a looking back post. When I first started to look back on the year, I thought, in many ways, well that sucked. But then, after reading the lovely Laura's post, and really thinking about this year, I began to think, well actually, a hell of a lot happened and SO much of it was good. I've had a wonderful year really.

In the more immediate past though, Christmas was certainly different this year. We woke up on Christmas Eve morning to find we had no power, and remained this way until Boxing Day evening. Luckily we have the wonderful AGA and we had a small generator so we weren't completely in the dark, but it certainly created tensions. I've never been more grateful for power.

But now heading back to the beginning of this year, there have been many wonderful things:

In Februrary, I met John and Hank Green, and my lovely wonderful CP Laura in London (FINALLY!!).

In March, I met JK Rowling (!) and joined SCBWI, which has been an awesome experience. There was another wonderful trip to Fowey too.

May, I saw Mcfly, ventured down to Fowey by myself for a camping trip and visit to the Fowey Festival, and tried Windsurfing. I also met Emilya Hall and other lovely authors at the festival. I also started Treading Water.

June, I saw Neil Gaiman talk about his new book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

July, Murray won Wimbledon, and I found out that one of my short stories, Tide, was going to be published in an ebook by Mardibooks and IdeasTap. It was also a wonderfully hot, perfect summer. Did a windsurfing course.

September, I spent a week in Fowey, which was perfect. I also went to Mcfly's 10th Anniversary Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.

October, I joined the MuggleNet team as a News Intern.

December, I was promoted to a full staff member and News Writer (!), which has been one of the best and most awesome experiences I've ever had. I love it and am so grateful to be there! I also had a lovely day trip to Fowey.

I have also been very lucky to read lots of wonderful drafts by my amazing writer friends, and I've managed to write plenty of drafts and words myself.

I'm sure I've missed something out, but it's been an amazing year!

I never really like New Year - it always makes me nostalgic and strange, but this year I think I have plenty of good things to look back on! Bring on 2014.

Jam.

No doubt if you follow me on twitter you will have seen my excitement and retweeting regarding a short story anthology entitled Jam. The anthology is one of two that has resulted from a competition run by IdeasTap and Mardibooks.... and one of my stories appears in it, hence my excitement and disbelief! Being published has always been a dream of mine and so to have a story in an ebook anthology that is actually on amazon and people can buy it and everything is amazing. Unbelievable. It would be an understatement to say I am excited about this! It's crazy to see my name up there on amazon and it's very surreal, but amazing. (Also just discovered if you search my name on amazon it comes up. AMAZING! As does another book which I definitely did not write, ha!)

Here's a paragraph about the book on their website, which can be found here along with a press release  about both Jam and Toast, the other anthology of winning entries, and all that exciting stuff:

Jam - An anthology of modern short fiction recounting the quirkiness of the everyday.

The 16 stories in Jam cover a wide variety of extreme human emotions where the trivial takes on exaggerated proportions and obsessive crimes and revolutionary thoughts push and compromise relationships and legacies.
Contributors: Ed Ballard, Eleanor Bennett, Jonathan Brown, Gavin Bryce, Constantine, Keith Dumble, Véronique Falconer, Anna Forsyth, Evan Guilford-Blake, Lorna Irvine, DJ Mac, Helen Raven, Sophie Reid, Fionn Shiner, Elly Strigner and Simon Thompson.

And you go can go buy both the anthologies here!