A (late) January Round-up

Well, January has been and gone! Who can believe it?

This post is a little late *cough*, considering it's already a few days in February, but I thought I would get this up anyway.

January was the month of many exciting book releases. Some of the best books that I read this month include:

1. The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson
2. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
3. Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders (this wasn't new this month, but it was to me, and incidentally, this book won the Costa Children's Book of the Year prize!).

Plus, these books got released at the end of the month, so they can be included in this post:

1. Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens (adored, but technically I read it in February....)
2. All Fall Down by Ally Carter (ditto)
3. The Sin-Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury
4. I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Writing wise, I have been busy, and my star chart (which has gone amazingly well for the first month is very busy and full. I managed to rewrite and add lots of new chapters to my MG story, Nowhere House, plus I continued to edit my YA, Sweet Little Lies. And, I managed to do some other writing while I was away, which was great and very freeing! So a good writing and editing month on the whole. A good start to the year!

And now onto a new month (since I took this picture it has already begun to fill up, I promise):

January saw a trip to Fowey, which was amazing and I had the best time. I'd never been in January, but I loved it. See some pictures here. Plus, I graduated.

I also joined the gym, so you know, that's good as well. It's certainly been a busy - and good - month. 
This month, I'll get up the end of the month post a little sooner.... Have a good February everyone!

What's On My Desk

The wonderful Cole posted this great post about her desk and tagged me to do the same. How can I resist? I adore seeing other writers' desks and so I leapt at the chance to do this myself. It just so happens that I recently sorted my desk, so it appears a little more organised than the usual chaos! At least it means that hopefully you'll be able to see things.

Like Cole, I don't really have all the post it notes everywhere like planners do, but if I'm just beginning something or editing something, then there are usually pieces of paper and stray post its everywhere with notes that I have made! 

I made an attempt to create an annotated picture, which you can see below.

But, here are some un-annotated ones.

Here you can see the stack of notebooks (mainly used, although there are a couple of unused ones lurking in there), the star chart, inspired by Victoria Schwab, Laura, Cole, Emma, and anyone else who uses this system. It's working so well so far, I love it! 

You can see more of my inspiration board in that picture too - including many Daphne du Maurier pictures and Harry Potter/Hufflepuff things! Plus, the wonderful notebooks that Laura has made for me.

Here's the annotated one, un-annotated, plus another angle of my desk. I'm lucky to have a pretty big desk, but still at the same time, I want it to be at least double the size!

The main people reading this will already have been tagged, so I challenge anyone else reading to do this! And make sure to link me to the posts, I can't wait to see what all your desks look like!

And for inspiration, have a look at a wonderful picture of Daphne du Maurier at her writing desk here.