If you are reading this, congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of another year! It might not seem like a huge achievement, but believe me, it is. This year alone, I have lost at least four wonderful friends and activists – Selina, Peter, Leigh and Emmet. One loss can be difficult to digest, but losing four people has been hard going, in fairness. At first, when Selina passed, I felt trapped in a state of disbelief and paralysis. How could someone be here one day, and gone the next? II rattled me into a haze, but the passing of Leigh shook me right out again.

Life is short. Shorter than we think. My little girl, with whom I once spent the days playing Sylvanian Families and doing arts and crafts, will officially be a teenager in six short weeks’ time. I officially am in the fifth decade of my life. It may seem cliche, but there’s something about turning forty that makes you stop and reevaluate a number of things. What’s important, and what’s just not worth the worry. I need to remember that worry is wasted energy, and that the need to feel in control is a form of anxiety (according to the motivational speaker, Mel Robbins). Covid should have taught us that we can’t control the external world, all we can control is our reaction to it.

You may have noticed that I’ve started blogging a lot more. The truth is, for every blog you read on this site, there are usually another two attempts in a Word Document somewhere, which never see the light of day because I don’t think it’s good enough. And while I think that a writer should indeed practice their craft in private, labouring away at the little parts and tweaking them to their liking, more experienced writers have taught me that if it’s perfection that I’m striving towards, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever publish anything. With this in mind, I hope to spend much of 2025 learning how to be comfortable with rejection. This means starting to send pieces into actual publications instead of hiding them away on my laptop. Even as I type this, the very thought terrifies me. I tell myself that I’m not *that* kind of writer, the type that deserves any kind of validation. If I keep going as I am, I will always be safe, but I will never make progress. (This realisation was not made on its own; it’s the advice of many established writers: Stephen Fry, Vanessa Fox-O’Loughlin, Dave Butler to name a few.)

I know that I should be doing a year plan , but since I’m only still recovering from a period of mental ill-health, I think the best approach right now is a daily or weekly one. My resolution is to be kinder on myself, not harder, as the hard approach fills me with shame and doesn’t really get me anywhere. I think 300 words a day is a reasonable aim, and anything after that is a bonus. I would also love to drum up more editing work from somewhere. As crazy as it sounds, the reason I enjoy it is because it’s a completely different approach to writing, and editing other people’s work while trying to retain their individuality has made me a better writer. It’s also led me to edit my own work more, and to produce tighter pieces (well, not today – this is a tad waffly, isn’t it?)

And I’d love to finally finish a full first draft of my novel. I still believe that Rachel’s story is worth telling. It’s the story of a woman who is struggling, her identity stretched between being some sort of supercrip and being someone in dire need of help. Someone who, like all of us, needs to stop listening to that negative inner voice and to confront her demons. It all sounds very serious, but actually she’s a feisty character and those who have met her seem to like her. Hopefully you all will get to meet her too, in the near future!

Here’s to 2025! Looking forward to seeing you there x