There are challenges, and then there’s challenges…

(Details of my current work at the end!)

2023 has been an interesting one.

Whilst the world is still undoubtedly trying to find a post-pandemic normal, I decided to make a year into a lifetime.

The year started with me moving away from life as a freelance copywriter and moving into the world of the employed person. It was really interesting, and a great place to visit, but as it transpired not the right place for me. So, we’re back to being a freelance person whilst keeping an eye on being employed again. I can’t deny that the security was nice, and having a team around me was really good for my soul.

That said, a full-time job did absorb my energy and left me not writing and neglecting my other artistic pursuits, like my YouTube channel.

But that role came to an end around the time that our second daughter was born, completing our family. A beautiful, bouncy little girl, Mark 2 always has a smile, especially for her older sister. Thankfully, Mark 1 is equally enamoured. Long may that continue.

Whilst a fantastic and happy time, it takes its toll.

Not least when it comes to sleep, or the lack there of. Then the inevitable illnesses brought home from pre-school and spread through the family. My eldest favouring the cough-directly-into-the-parents-eyeballs method of pathogen delivery.

But I still found time to enter three short story competitions, managing to grab a third and a second place across those. Needless to say, pretty happy with myself right now.

Off the back of that, I decided to complete National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2023. With the aim of completing 50,000 words within the 30 days of November.

Finished that on 27^th of November, so that felt good.

My plan is to keep rolling with more short story competitions, and to finish off the book I was working on with NaNoWriMo for the rest of this year and into early next year. Then to let that one sit for a bit, edit it, then get a professional editor before starting the process of trying to find an agent and a publisher.

Yes, I want to go for the traditional publishing route. That just feels right.

But what am I currently working on?

The Minutes Past Midnight.

For several years I’ve had this file. In the file go all the “ideas”. The lost ones. The homeless. The dispossessed. The scraps of an idea. The sounds of a world that has never been.

In that file they’ve sat. Festering. Whilst working on the short story competitions, I cracked the lid on the folder and had a wonder through it and found a few common threads.

One of these threads was the end of the world.

Some are what happens before, others during and still more cover the area some point after.

The Minutes Past Midnight is an anthology of around fourteen of these stories. They feature aliens, monsters, climate change, solar storms, a life too perfect, AI, and the last man on Earth (at least twice).

Here’s a taste of what’s to come, this is the opening of “Bump in the Night”:

“When they rose up, ripping their way from the guts of the earth, we recognised them instantly. From our childhood. From grandma’s stories. From a million campfires with friends. From TV. From the corner of our eye. From our nightmares.

And not the nightmares you wake up from and laugh. No. The ones which leave you in a cold sweat, eyeing the corners of your room, just in case.

They came from our fairy tales.

Myths and legends every one.

That’s why we did not stand a chance, not really.”

With a following breeze, I hope to have the final version of this anthology ready for next summer… with me luck!