As we near the year end, we traditionally start by looking back on this year – and specifically, what I said this time last year, looking forward. You could call it “accountability.” I just call it “mildly interesting.” Take a look for yourself here: https://gerald-hornsby.com/blog/2024/01/01/looking-forward-to-2024/ and here’s what I said 12 months ago, and my comments on that. And the fact that, one day into the New Year, I’m already behind on my schedule tells you something.
BOOKS – FICTION
From JAN 2024: This is the year the Witford Market Mysteries gets released! Oh yes! Book One is in first edit, Book Two (part-written for NaNoWriMo last year) is about quarter written, Book Three is planned, and Book Four might be the Christmas episode I’ve written and abandoned several times.
GH Dec 2024: Ya. This time last year, I was looking forward to publishing the beginning of the Witford Market Mysteries. Well, that happened! The first book in the series was published (to Amazon, of course), in July 2024. The others? Not so much. The second book is about 2/3 drafted.
Also also… sales of fiction novels have been a little disappointing this year. I’m going to use our ‘shutdown’ in February to work out what I want to do with long form fiction, going forward.
BOOKS – NON-FICTION
From JAN 2024: At the time of writing, I don’t have any plans to write any more non-fiction books. I should do, because they always sell well, but there’s nothing I’m currently working on which would look good in a published book form.
GH Dec 2024: Ha ha! A plan to do nothing, and you know what? I was 100% successful! I need a prompt, or a cue, in order to write non-fiction. It needs to be something useful to other writers. THINKING CAPS ON!
BUSINESSES / TUTORING / PROJECTS
GH Dec 2024: My ‘Author Services’ offer keeps ticking over, mainly with requests from friends and colleagues. I made little or no effort to promote myself in 2024.
VLOGS / VODCASTS / PODCASTS
From JAN 2024: I do want to do more with video next year. I don’t know what that will be. A writing vlog isn’t that interesting to people. I know that. But at the moment, I don’t know what would attract a larger audience, which remains writing and creativity related.
GH Dec 2024: Yes. Well. No insight came my way, except I keep coming across people doing what I’ve thought of doing. My Lone Star Reviews wold be something of interest, I’m sure, but is it worth the time and effort of researching and recording videos? I still don’t know. Chalk another one down for the February shutdown.
And, sadly, we’ve decided to call time on the Literary Roadhouse podcast, after around 270 episodes. One of my co-hosts now has a very important job, which takes her away from home a lot, so co-ordinating a recording slot has become more difficult. Also, we had an issue from an author who took exception to something we said on one podcast, which made things difficult for us. Also also, it’s been many, many months since we were able to put out an audio podcast. It’s a huge amount of time to produce a quality audio podcast recording from our individual audio tracks.
ONLINE COURSES
From JAN 2024: I’m interested in creating courses. It’s a lot of work, and although I created the Efficient Novelist Programme https://gerald-hornsby.com/efficient-novelist-programme/ there wasn’t a lot of take-up from my initial marketing. To me, it seems a brilliant idea, a way to create novels more efficiently, with benefits to readership and royalty income, but many writers don’t like this idea – the ethos of being an author means that output needs to be crafted and honed over many, many months – otherwise, it’s no good. I don’t agree with that, obviously, but it’s a hard sell.
GH Dec 2024: You ain’t kidding. Eventually, I pulled the plug on the paid subscription to Teachable, because it was costing us more than we were getting paid.
PERSONAL / NON-WRITING
GH Dec 2024: Swanwick
One highlight of each year is the annual Swanwick Writers’ Summer School.
This year, 2024, was my 2nd, and last, year as Chair of the committee.
You can read my thoughts about the school here:
SUMMARY
I’m looking forward to this coming year with eager anticipation. I hope to be able to be publishing at least 3 novels, and maybe 5 this coming year.
GH Dec 2024: Ha! Aim high, brother, aim high! One published, and one semi-drafted. Yeah, not so productive. But I shan’t beat myself up over it. That’s not something I do. I will analyse, yes, and hopefully learn and understand more. What I do with that information is to be determined, but I’m not one of those “Ra-Ra-Ra Be PRODUCTIVE!!!!” people, who have productivity apps on their phones and keep fifteen types of journal on the go.
SUMMARY, LOOKING BACK
It hasn’t been an amazingly productive year. There are some reasons for this, and there are no reasons for this. This will be the subject of a forthcoming blog post.