So, last year when I jokingly wrote that I was doing an annual update, little did I know that was prophetic.

Now, here we are in 2024 and I’m doing an update in February! Less than a year since my last post! Incredible!

Well, time to catch you all up on the life and times since May 2023, and away we go!

Family Life:

Things appear to be going well all aside from the bloody budget crunching thanks to the insane interest rates at the moment. I know we’re faring better than most, so I won’t complain about it too much. That being said, my son is a lover of books and his attention span is growing for bigger books. He’s two, but his highest interest is the trio of choose-your-own-adventure novels I brought home. He wasn’t a huge fan of the haunted house one (I do fun voices, but I chose to do spookier ones for that), but the Dino Time Travel and Build Your Own Robot stories have been a big hit. Maybe he’ll be more into sci-fi!

Work Life:

I still have the shop and it’s going great! I am absolutely still loving the job, but I know I have a challenging conversation coming up in regards to renewing the lease. As I don’t want to move it, I’m hoping the landlord comes to the party as she said she prefers long-term tenants as opposed to a revolving door or vacancy. Seriously though, running a bookshop has been a dream of mine and it feels weird to actually be living it!

Reading Life:

For 2023 I managed 156 books through reading and audiobooks. What an incredible year! Some of the highlights I had from last year: Discovered Anthony Horowitz (then interacted with him on Twitter!), read more Indigenous authors than ever before, picked up a physical copy of Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (SIGNED!), and found myself crying (Before the Coffee Gets Cold), laughing (The Duke & I, romance/biting wit!), confused (The Three Body Problem, first book to make me feel too stupid to read it) and downright concerned for the author (The Eulogy, seriously though, someone go hug her!). I’ve set a LOFTY goal of 200 books this year, and I’m on track halfway through my 21st read!

Writing Life:

The whole reason this blog exists. Writing. Last year, I managed to rack up a few decent things for the old writing CV. In 2023 I managed to get showcased twice on the Australian Writers’ Centre’s #FuriousFiction competition with a long listing earlier in the year too. This follows on from my win in April 2021, and I’ve already managed a longlisting in January this year!

I also placed second in Storyfest’s writing competition which is an excellent win (especially since it was a modified story for a specific publication the year before last). The best part about this is it gives me a bit more confidence that I can write outside the #FuriousFiction competitions and it netted me a gift card for books and a voucher for classes!

In Writing in general, I’m still working on my rewrite of Jefferson (the book now known as The Magician’s Curse). Rewriting for point of view, editing for tense and pronouns, and ensuring the story still holds up has been my biggest challenge yet. Aside from that though I’ve just finished February’s #FuriousFiction, I have a short story about a cat on submission, another story to short édition, and a longer story on sub to Aurealis. So, all in all, I’m putting myself out there and more people are seeing my work than ever.

 

And that brings us to the end of yet another annual update! If you’re lucky, you may end up with a second post before the end of the year, but don’t count on it! I have some other news I’ll be sitting on for a little bit longer, so we will see how that pans out for the midyear! For now, back to writing/editing!