Right, here we go! I promised you all more regular updates as part of my “writing resolutions” for this year. This first update is less about progress and more about outlining the starting point for this year. So what are we looking at?

Well, I’ll start with Chasing Shadows. Just this week I noticed that Chasing Shadows has achieved 22 reviews on Amazon. Admittedly the most recent review came through in December, but I don’t check them daily. And I have to say, it made my day to see it! Short, succinct but brimming with positivity! So if you haven’t yet got around to reviewing Chasing Shadows, take a look at this. You don’t need to write a critique of the book, just a few lines are plenty to make an author’s day! So please, please, please do leave a review if you’ve read my book! And a massive thank you to Graeme, wherever you may be!

In other Chasing Shadows news, I’ve entered it for an award. The Selfies 2023, to be exact. It’s an award for self-published books. I don’t necessarily expect it to win, or even be shortlisted (though that would be an absolute dream if it did), but I have nothing to lose. Given how stop-start my writing has been, I never imagined I’d even have a novel to be able to put forward for awards, so this in itself is a big milestone!

Onwards to the podcast, The Crow’s Nest. To date, I have four episodes live. Three of these are chats including, in order, AK Alliss, Richard Dee, and most recently Jen Parker of Fuzzy Flamingo. Click here to go back and catch up with past episodes!

As far as my collection of short stories set in the Chasing Shadows world, there is slow progress. You may have seen my recent Christmas short story, Christmas of The Forgotten. That will make an appearance in Tales from Auridia, though it may be expanded and polished up beforehand. At the heart of the collection, there will be three main stories all with an interlinking thread that you’ll just have to read to uncover. I’ve completed the first draft of two of these. The third is one of the many things for this year that needs to be done. Ideally, I need this collection ready to release ahead of As the Crow Flies, for reasons that will eventually become clear. I don’t yet know how many more stories than the four will be in it, so it may well release as an eBook edition only, only time will tell.

Now onto the big kahuna, As the Crow Flies. I’ve added to it a little bit since the end of last year, though really not very much. So as we move through January, the current word count sits at 48,944 words, and I’m onto the eighteenth chapter. It’s a really good place to be. I can see where the story is heading in terms of it heading toward the core action of the story and its end game. I look forward to completing the first draft, there is a real sense of achievement when that moment comes. I’m looking forward to editing and polishing it much less. It’s going to be a lot of work given the stop-start manner in which I’ve written it. But the end result will be another moment of great reward for me, so I will give it my all!

Right, that’s enough info for you all to go away and digest for this month. Go forth and review Chasing Shadows if you haven’t, listen to The Crow’s Nest if you haven’t, and keep an eye on my social media channels until we meet again for an update in February!