A quick update

A very belated Happy New Year to you!
Yes, I know I should have posted this nearly a whole month ago but I’ve had lots of other demands on my time - mostly good, exciting things I’m happy to report.
 
In the real world, husband and I have been busy ticking off items on our ideal home and garden wish list. So far we’ve got a lovely, new kitchen, have redecorated some of the other rooms, put lots of shelves in the garage for ‘his’ workshop, added a small greenhouse and shed to ‘my’ back garden, and re-designed the front garden. Still lots to do but we aren’t giving ourselves any deadlines. 
 
It hasn’t been all work. We’ve also allowed ourselves plenty of days off to explore some of the towns, villages and beautiful countryside in this part of the world.
 
In my writing life, I decided to have a go at NaNoWriMo in November after giving it a miss for the past three years. As expected, I didn’t manage anything near the magic 50,000 words target but I did end up with some interesting new characters and a very rough outline of a story that might have the makings of a novella, so I’m hoping it wasn’t a completely wasted month of frantically scribbling nonsense.
 
2018 ended on an encouraging note with one of my short stories being long-listed for the Bedford Writing Competition. It’s one I’m particularly fond of so I gave it a few little tweaks and sent it straight off to another competition. Fingers crossed again!

I’ve also dusted off an abandoned children’s novel, decided it’s not all as bad as I thought, and have nearly finished a revised first draft. It still needs some ruthless editing before I even think of showing it to anyone, but I’m quietly pleased with it – so far.   
 
And this year?
 
Lots of things I would like to do but my only firm New Year resolution is not to have an impossibly long to-do list. It's too stressful! Instead, I’ve adopted a new motto:
                               Let’s just see what happens, shall we?
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