There are a few writing/reading-related things that made 2017 a good year.

I had the pleasure of reading three wonderful books written by friends: Betrayal, the fifth installment in the Gift Legacy series by Jo-Anne McLean, One Woman Island, the second book in the Bequia Perspective novels by Susan Toy. and A Spanish Dilemma, A Regency Novella, by Meredith Bond.

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

I published Blind Date, my long-anticipated novella in two stories, then unpublished it. I wasn’t happy with the title nor the cover, and there was one typo too many in it. Now Meredith Bond from Anessa Books, my wonderful formatter, friend and fellow author currently living in Belgium,  is working on it once more.  It will be published in February under a different title —Once Upon a Night— and with a different, much better cover made by a talented designer from Greece, Annoula. Once Upon a Night is a true international corroboration. BTW, I read the second story last night, perhaps for the first time as a reader, and I LOVED IT. Very sexy *and very emotional. If someone else wrote it, I’d like to read more of her stories for sure. Well done, J. F.

I had my website revamped in August, and since then I have managed to have a new post every week. Many thanks to my editor/assistant/colleague Kristin, and occasionally my son, who’ve also been kipping an eye on my grammar and spelling (English is my second… no, wait, third… no, fourth language).

I took two fiction writing courses through Steven Alcorn’s Writing Academy. I discovered that online courses worked well with my personality (I’m an introvert, as you suspect).

I did NaNoWriMo. I’m not happy with the outcome. I wrote the required number of words, but the concept of reducing the creative process to a competition doesn’t make much sense to me. Yes, some people can produce a good first draft in a month, working under pressure and counting the words they write every day. I can’t. It’s not how I write, and for me, writing is much more than a competition, even if I compete against myself.

My website had a dozen followers in 2017, which is great because I started with two.

In 2017 , I was able to keep up with my normal pace of reading — two books per week. I watched Season 7 of Game of Thrones. dreamed of being a Targaryen, riding a dragon and having a reason to say “Dracarys!” every once in a while. (Embedded music is from Season 6, though, but that’s my favourite season so far.) I listened to lots of other music, mostly at work, when I needed to tune out the noise while cataloguing Arabic and Farsi books…

I don’t believe in New Year resolutions, so for  2018 I won’t promise anything.

I only hope I’ll be less alone and have more time to write.

*Music pieces: for ‘sexy’ Maurice Ravel’s Bolero; for ’emotional’ Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2; for ‘Season 7 Light of the Seven (Ramin Djawadi) and Game of Thrones The Winds of Winter (Ramin Djawadi);  for ‘music’ The Best of Mozart.