The wonderful Rosie Amber wrote a super post on this last week, which you can find HERE, and I thought I would do something similar. So, what has been getting me through this latest lockdown through the longest winter there has ever been. Obviously, these are in no particular order…

Oliver!

Thursday is now the best day of the week for me as I get to look after Ollie. He is 18 months old and into everything. Before the lockdown we used to go to Hamerton Zoological Park every Thursday morning so it has become more difficult to keep him entertained when we have to stay within the confines of the village. However, I’ve taken him and his football up to the playing field each week and he’s very good at kicking the ball around. My other half has been heard to say, ‘Finally, someone in the family who might be into football!’ Time will tell on that one. 😉

Chocolate!

Well, of course. I’ve done pretty well to not add it to my online shop every week but there have been occasions when it’s been very necessary. I even made up a tray of Rocky Road with the excuse that I was doing it as a surprise for my Book Group, but the real reason was that I wanted some… however, delivering it to everyone’s door did at least mean I did not eat the whole tray of it!

Walks with Ruby!

Fresh air, however bracing/freezing/laden with precipitation, is good for us all and having a dog means there is no excuse not to go out. A break from the desk, a few peaceful minutes in nature makes me feel so much better. I am also lucky enough to be accompanied by my slightly bonkers dog, Ruby, who turned the grand old age of 16 last week (that’s 112 in human years!) Well, I guess we’re all allowed to be a little crazy at that age. 🙂  I took a photo of her on her birthday which is below and the one of the pups is her accompanied by her sister Meg who is also still alive and well and living just up the road.

Takeaways – or anything that gives me a break from cooking!

I am heartily sick of cooking stuff. I’ve been working throughout this pandemic so haven’t had the time, enthusiasm or inclination to discover my inner Masterchef goddess like so many others. So the occasional takeaway or easy meal option from the supermarket has been much appreciated, as have the meals cooked by my other half and my son and his girlfriend. I haven’t actually had as many takeaways as I probably could have had mostly because we live in a village with no pub and there are few places that deliver. We have to order and then go and pick up, and is that essential travel? Well, not really.

Image by dandelion_tea from Pixabay

Exercise!

As well as walking the dog I have, for many years now, done a DVD workout in front of the TV in my bedroom. My current favourites are these…

I alternate the workouts and do them at least twice a week, sometimes three times. Because I work at a desk I get very stiff and tense and these loosen me right up. Plus, again it’s a break away from the work. Do I look forward to doing the workout? No. Do I enjoy it while I’m working out? Rarely. Do I feel better after? Always.

ER!

I’ve written about my obsession with ER before HERE but I have loved having this series to watch this year. I’ve only just started series 4 so plenty to go yet but it has made me take off far more time from my desk than I ever usually do and I’m sure it’s helped my mental state.

Talking with family and friends!

Whether by walking with a buddy, FaceTime calls with family and friends or our weekly family Zoom sessions it’s good to keep in touch, and I love doing this with my online friends as well as those in my “real” life, there’s nothing like a chatty email to brighten the day. It’s also great to see another friendly face and to exchange a few words, even if none of us have much to say because we are doing nothing and going nowhere!

It’s good to talk!

And now guys, now we can see the light at the end of this bleakest of dark tunnels… let’s stay strong, stay safe and look forward to a brighter future. xx

How about you? What would be on your list? 

PS. Just realised I didn’t put wine on mine… what was I thinking!!

The post 7 things that are getting me through Lockdown #3 #MondayBlogs appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

When I started writing I made the decision to review every book I finished, and I’ve stuck to that thinking I could hardly expect readers to review my books if I wasn’t willing to put the same effort into those I read.

I spotted a superb 1-star review for The Joker the other day, I think I mentioned it on last week’s post, or possible the week before. Anyway I found it because of the new extension I’m using, Scribecount. There is a bookshelf on there of all your books with a second tab for the reviews and it appears to have dragged them from all the different sites.

I’ve never seen reviews from Google before but the 1 star was given because my book was written in English. I had to translate that from the Polish. I did feel it was a little unfair to give a book 1 star because of that, particularly when the title and book description were written in English so that might have been the clue that the book was also in English. But hey ho, nothing I can do about it.

I also saw a 1-star review for A Single Step written by someone in the US. It’s titled, Not bought by me! And the review reads “I don’t know what this is. I don’t think I purchased it.” Again, perhaps a tad harsh to give 1 star under these circumstances?

The worst of it is that these types of reviews drag the overall star rating down. Still I haven’t done anything about them with the view that anyone who checks out the 1-star reviews will disregard these ones anyway.

And I’ve definitely not responded. That is the rule with reviews. Never respond.

Image by mcmurryjulie from Pixabay

I do appreciate anyone who is willing to write a review. I do get a lot more ratings nowadays since that became an option but it is lovely when someone takes the time and trouble to leave a few words. At the end of the day, whatever the number of stars, they are another review, and us authors do need them. They show a book has been well read and often we have to have a certain number of reviews to be able to promote on some sites.

Okay, these 1 star reviews I’ve picked out are a bit odd and fortunately the overwhelming majority of my reviews are positive but even when they are not I don’t get upset by them. But I do see some writers on social media sometimes get themselves into a right state over them. There’s no point. If you choose to read your reviews, do so, take them on the chin and move on. They are only personal opinions after all and the first lesson every writer should learn is that you cannot please everyone, however hard you try.

The other point is that there is no point in complaining about reviews you get. You made the decision to put your book out there. That gives any reader the right to say whatever they like about it. Obviously if you see repeated phrases in the reviews complaining of editing issues or a lack of proof reading, if plot holes are noticed or there are complaints about your flat characters, then you should take a serious look at what you’ve published and go and do something about it. But if it’s simply that they didn’t like your plot, setting or thought a character was unlikeable then there is little you can, or should, do about it, your book simply wasn’t for them.

Also, a 1-star review is not the end of the world. What you really want on a book is a good spread of reviews hopefully with most being 5 stars and descending down to only a few 1 stars. I once read that it was a badge of honour to get your first 1 star. It meant your book had reached enough people for this to have become an inevitability.

Image by Tanya Ferrera from Pixabay

How about you? Do you review the books you read? Or have you begun to rate books instead now that is an option? Do you read reviews for your own books, if you’re an author? Or would you rather not know?

The post Reviews and Ratings… Strange 1 stars and why they shouldn’t upset you #MondayBlogs #Bookreviews #writingcommunity #writers appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

I think writing wisdom states that you should write every day. I see and hear this advice given everywhere. It makes sense. It builds and keeps you in the writing habit and, particularly if you have a large project on, such as a novel, it keeps you chipping away at the word count.

I have tried to do this many times. However long my day or however late it gets into the night I’ve forced myself to add a few lines to my WIP. But I’ve decided it’s not for me. Those words, generally, will be removed the following day. They are never the good words, the flowing words. And don’t try telling me editing will sort that out. Mostly, those words simply need to be gone because in those few minutes where I’ve tried to comply with the writing everyday rule I haven’t even managed to get into the story. I don’t know what’s going on. I have no idea what I’m writing. I’m simply putting words on a page for the sake of it, and it’s helping nothing.

If you’re a full time writer ignore this as your brain is on writing stuff all the time. Although even then you have to spend time out of your writing world to deal with your bookkeeping or marketing, so there’s that, but you’re still more likely to be able to fit a decent period of time for writing into every day.

This is really more about those with a day job although even then I think it does depend on the type of work you do too. My other half is a decorator and as such can allow his mind to wander as he works. I am a bookkeeper and generally cannot. We’ve had conversations before about the fact he’s been thinking about an issue we need to address throughout his working day, whereas I haven’t given it a second thought.

Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay

The difficulty I have is that I find it tricky to be working, and concentrating, on spreadsheets, then finish that job, and switch over to a creative project and begin on that. The transition between the two different types of work takes far longer than the time I can give to it. As I turn my attention back into my writing life I often have to look at my notes to even remember my main character’s name, let alone what’s going on in the plot it, I get so distanced from it.

This is why binge writing works better for me. This means getting all the day job stuff done and out of the way then having a clear run at a creative project. Even then it can take me quite a while to settle into it. And yes, while some of that is procrastinating, we all know…

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Once I am into it though, I always curse the time I spent building up to starting.

So I’ve made the change to make sure I write every week, rather than every day. This does mean it is often only able to be done at weekends, which brings about its own challenges of having other people in the house and family things to deal with, but I’ll aim to fit in several writing sessions over that time and hopefully accomplish around the same amount of work done as if I’d been doing a little bit every day.

Of course, there are also the extremes of binge writers and I know of one who once holed up in their flat and wrote the whole of their novel in nine, intense, days. Now that is complete submersion. But, if you struggle to deal with doing more than one thing at once, it might be the only way to accomplish the task. There’s a thought.

So where do you sit on the sliding scale between every day and bingeing? And would you prefer to write in a different way to the one that suits your current life? I’d love to hear.

The post Do you write every day or do you prefer to binge? Why it has to be binge all the way with me. #MondayBlogs #writingcommunity #amwriting #writers appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

I listened to episode 175 of the Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing podcast the other day. Mark Lefebvre’s guest was Philippa A Werner and they discussed her writing and ScribeCount, a sales analysis platform for authors. Whilst listening I signed up to this platform which was straightforward then seamlessly set up my account which was incredibly easy.

I publish wide, which, in my case, means that I publish my books on Amazon, Kobo and Google direct and then on many other platforms and libraries using Draft 2 Digital as the distributor, as well as others via Publish Drive. Collating my end of month figures can be challenging despite me streamlining it as much as possible. My initial experience of ScribeCount is that it will simplify the whole process. It will also give those who are exclusive at Amazon useful information too.

Firstly, pricing. You can try ScribeCount for free for 14 days anyway and there is a free option for authors earning less than 500 (probably $) a month. The costs looked reasonable after that.

ScribeCount works as an extension on your browser, which was easy to add. You then link up the platforms you publish on. Don’t panic on hearing that because the process was completed simply by toggling the button next to the platforms you publish on then ScribeCount itself does the linking. The only one it struggled with was Google (possibly because I wasn’t logged into it, like I am with the others) so I logged into that myself on another tab and then it found it no problem.

ScribeCount then inputs all the data into its system and in seconds – yes, really – and you have a marvellous sunburst on your screen with all the sales breakdown. See example below. To the side is a list of the platforms you’ve told it to search for and the royalties for each one depending on the (fully customisable) date range you have put in.

Above the sunburst you have the following breakdowns of data: Amazon v Wide, KU v Sales, Ad-spend to Profit Ratio and Formats Percentage (which includes KENP). I run ads but there was no figure in for the cost of those so I will investigate that further at some point. For the moment it doesn’t bother me.

Below the sunburst is a Royalties by Marketplace world map, see example below, as well as a list of countries and sales in each (by percentage too).

Further below the world map are graphs (bar charts) and you can switch between Top Books by Royalties, Top Books Units Sold and Top books – Free Units.

But wait, there’s more, because you then have pie charts for:

Platform Summary – Royalties Earned, Units Sold and Free Units, and

Marketplace Summary – Royalties Earned, Units Sold and KENP Read (should you be exclusive)

And at the bottom of the page is a full breakdown for each book of your total royalties and units sold, and how those numbers are split between your different formats.

I should add that as you run your cursor over the sunburst, world map or any of the graphs, specific information is revealed about the particular segment or country you are on. Brilliant!

There are also other pages. A Bookshelf – which has all of your books on each of the platforms you publish too – and there are a few oddities there I need to check out! But there is loads of information to look at and then you can switch over to a reviews page…

I haven’t investigated very far on this other than to see a load of reviews on other platforms that I was completely unaware of but I was initially stopped in my tracks by the top review in for The Joker, my free short story. It’s on Google Books, it’s a one star and the comment reads – bo po angielsku – translated from the Polish this means – It’s in English. Don’t you just love someone who one stars a free book purely because it isn’t in their language. 😀 😀

Anyway, ScribeCount looks fantastic. I can’t wait to give it a go on my end of month figures and I highly recommend it to all authors out there. Even if you don’t usually keep an eagle eye on your figures having a browse round the information provided here might just show you a thing or two about your books you were unaware of.

So, what do you think? Will you be giving this initially free platform a trial? Maybe now this information is available easily it will encourage you to keep a better eye on your sales. What do you think?

The post I’ve come across a fab new tool I want to share with you – ScribeCount – it deals with the numbers from your words @ScribeCount #MondayBlogs #writingcommunity #authors appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

As I mentioned in a recent post I haven’t been listening to music at all recently (by which I mean for the last few of years) because of all the podcasts I subscribed too and now have to try and keep up with.

However, my other half had a play list going at the weekend (amazingly it wasn’t all Bruce Springsteen!) and one track took me right back to the first book I wrote, A Single Step. In those days I listened to music at my desk when I worked and in the car as I was spending a lot of time then ferrying children around. I don’t think I was even aware of what a podcast was back then. How things change!

The song that sparked this wave of nostalgia was this one…

Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones. It is the song that Emma and Trent first dance to, in my head at least. What they dance to is not mentioned in the book. But I remember listening to it over and over to create the mood for me to craft the right words. There were a few songs that accompanied me as I wrote that book and I ended up making up a disc for the car so I could listen to the tracks there too, and continue to think about my growing book as I drove.

It brought back many happy memories to listen to Wild Horses again and it reminded me just how absorbed I was in the writing process then. How consumed by it I was. I loved writing A Single Step. In a way it was a very innocent time for me. It was the first novel I ever finished and I did so before I knew anything about the publishing business. I had no website or blog. In fact, I had no idea what a blog was and I wasn’t on any social media at all (imagine that!). Marketing wasn’t even on my radar. I had no idea what was to come. And I tell you what, it was great fun. No deadlines, no word counts. No worries about reader expectations.

I had initially just set myself the challenge of writing a book and hadn’t thought beyond completing it. So it wasn’t until I finished writing A Single Step and had then gone over it again, and again, and again, that I gave any thought to actually getting it published. I’m not sure now what I thought I was going to do with it, if anything, as I knew nothing about how to get published and I’d never even heard of self-publishing.

It was my daughter who mentioned it to me first. She’d heard you could publish a book via Amazon. So, after getting some editing help and having a fairly terrible cover made up that’s what I did, I launched my book onto Amazon with still no clue as to what I was doing. I vividly remember getting the email to tell me it was live on Amazon and then downloading it. I couldn’t quite believe it was on my Kindle and available for me to read. I was alone when this happened so this was probably my loneliest launch, but also the most exciting.

I sat there on the 3 January 2014 staring at the cover of my book on my Kindle and suddenly realised I was going to have to work out how to tell people it was available. Then everything started to change.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Do you have a piece of music that brings back really vivid memories for you? Do you have songs that remind you of a particular chapter or incident in something you’ve written? Let me know if you do.

The post How music can take you back in your writing life #MondayBlogs #music #nostaglia #writing #amwriting #writing community appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

During December I roughly mapped out my writing plans on a wall planner. Realistically I probably haven’t left nearly enough time for some of the things I’ve put on there, but at least I’ve got something down.

I allocated the first week of January to rereading a manuscript I’d abandoned sometime during 2020 with the idea of spending the rest of January finishing off the first draft. I think it was about 75% of the way there. By last weekend I still hadn’t even finished reading it through, much less adding to it. But during the time that I had spent reading it I’d had a nasty niggle building again at the back of my mind. The same niggle that most likely caused me to stop work on it before. You see, I wasn’t quite sure where it fit in.

To date I have written The Grayson Trilogy, a series of mysterious and romantic adventure stories, and The Ross Duology which is much the same but adds crime into the mix. The next series, should it ever come off, is darker in tone and will either fit into the mystery thriller or psychological thriller genres.

This standalone that I was going to finish off in January I thought I might publish later this year as a kind of filling-the-gap book until the series was closer to completion, and that would make perfect sense if it was also bridging the gap between genres, but it isn’t. It’s women’s fiction. There’s no mystery, no suspense, no crime. There is some emotional turbulence between people because of someone doing the wrong thing. That’s about as wild as it gets.

It won’t bridge the gap between the series, if anything it will widen it, and if someone comes to this book first then they are going to get a shock if they then read any of my others.

Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay

I have been going to and fro on this manuscript for months, literally months. I’ve been completely undecided as to what to do with it. Because I like the story, I really do. I like the characters, the setting and I was enjoying writing it. And… and this is the most troubling thing, I really, really hate having to leave behind all those words. However, deep down I think I knew it made no sense to spend all that time finishing it and then all the expense publishing it when it was only ever going to confuse readers. The new series will be enough of a jump for them already.

Anyway, last weekend, completely out of the blue, my mind was suddenly made up and I decided I was going to abandon it, again. Only this time with no plan to return to it – unless I can come up with some dastardly twist which would change the whole thing. All those months of faffing around on it and then there it was, decision made. Which was quite a relief. I knew it was the right decision the moment I made it, it had just taken me an awfully long time to get there.

So, 45,000 words have been thrown aside and I have moved onto mapping out the third book in my series, which was actually February’s task so I’m ahead of schedule, and it’s not often I ever get to say that!

Image by Shannon Matthews from Pixabay

How about you? Do you have a hard drive littered with abandoned projects? Have you ever said goodbye to a large piece of work because it simply wasn’t right? I hope it’s not just me.

Image by Filip Filipović from Pixabay

The post Tough decision finally made, or, how I ditched 45,000 words, just like that #MondayBlogs #amwriting #writingcommunity appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

I don’t watch much television, maybe an hour a day, late at night when I finally finish at my desk and want to wind down before bed. I also try to watch a film at a weekend. Not always successfully.

Generally, we record many different series and end up watching them months and months, if not years, after everyone else is talking about them.

There are a few that have fully engaged me over the years. Line of Duty and Game of Thrones immediately spring to mind. There must have been others.

However, there is one series that I have loved ever since I saw it for the first time way back in the 90’s. At that time, I had young children and a full time job and there was just one episode shown a week. Can you even imagine that now in a world where everything is streamed and you can watch a whole series in a couple of days, should you want to?

The series in question is ER (Emergency Room) and if you haven’t seen it it’s a medical drama set in the emergency room (A&E in the UK) of the fictional County General Hospital in Chicago. It is busy and bloody and chaotic, and I love it!

In those days I made sure I was ready to watch each weekly episode as although we had the ability to record stuff it was a little haphazard. Taping had to be done onto VHS cassettes and these were not reliable. The recordings were frequently of poor quality, occasionally getting chewed up in the machine, and the player had to be handled just right to even manage to get it to accept a tape and play it. As I didn’t want to risk a recording mishap I preferred to watch live, whenever possible. This was the first time I watched the series through.

The second time was after we had a major upgrade in recording ability which I think was around 2010. Anyway, the series was recorded and I watched them far more frequently than one a week! I loved the storylines, the drama unfolding in the emergency room in each episode but also the background lives of the doctors and nurses as they progressed through the series. I loved the attention to detail in the writing, the character arcs and the care maintained through fifteen series which set the tone (if you know, you know) for this beautiful series.

Anyway, scroll forward to the present day and guess what? I was bought the complete box set of ER for Christmas by my wonderful son and his girlfriend – yay! All fifteen series of it. All 331 episodes. All 93 discs.

All. That. Distraction.

It’s been long enough since the last watch through that most of the detail has been forgotten (you know what my memory is like!) so I’m almost coming at this fresh and it’s as good as ever, if not better. I’m trying to limit myself, I really am, but it’s difficult when Greene, Ross, Lewis, Carter, Hathaway and Benton are oh so close and ready to entertain me. It really is a case of just one more… but how will that get the writing done?

How about you? Is there any series that has completely captured your attention so that you want to watch it again, and again? Do let me know any of your TV obsessions as they might remind me of other series I’ve enjoyed.

The post My current obsession… and the best TV drama series EVER! #MondayBlogs appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here before but I’m a big listener of podcasts. Although I only do this at my desk. I don’t have a commute so I don’t have that time in which to listen and I did download an app on my phone with the intention of listening when walking the dog but I’m rubbish at keeping earbuds in and actually quite like the silence when I’m walking rather than the constant chatter.

Among the podcasts I listen to are fun ones that make me laugh, or cringe, depending on their content and they are good for background entertainment when I’m doing some of my day job work. I say some because of course it does depend on what I’m doing as to how well I take in the podcast material. Often I can start a podcast episode turn back to my work and not realise until much later the episode has ended and I’ve not heard a word of it.

One of my favourite presenters, Phoebe from Criminal and This is Love, started up a new podcast at the beginning of the first lockdown where she read a chapter of a book each day. I think it was called Phoebe reads a Mystery and I initially leapt at subscribing to that as I love listening to her voice. Sadly, it didn’t last long as I can’t work and listen to stories at all as I can’t keep track of the plot. For the same reason I don’t listen to audio books.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

I also subscribe to several writing podcasts, naturally, and I noticed this week that since the Christmas break, I’ve been reluctant to get back to listening to those, and they are piling up. I don’t like this. It is much better for my stress levels if I am completely up to date with everything. However, piling up they are and yet I’m actually still feeling fine about not listening to them. Several of them often contain interviews with incredibly successful indie authors and while I know this is meant to be inspirational and shows how others have managed it, it also feels incredibly out of reach, particularly when so many cases revolve around having to publish a book a month (or less!), which can be quite deflating.

The other downside of subscribing to all the podcasts is I’ve had no opportunity to listen to music and it wasn’t until I heard something in my library recently that I realised how much I missed it. In fact, I’d downloaded the latest album by Bruce Springsteen, Letter to You, when it came out, weeks and weeks ago, and hadn’t even gotten around to listening to that.

So, as with other things in my life I shall be doing some judicious pruning and I might not feel quite so overwhelmed with the task of having to keep up with all the pods, and can get back to enjoying those I like. I might even simply skip through the interviews so as to only listen to what I consider to be the more useful information, news and updates on the publishing market.

Image by FabioRibeiro from Pixabay

Do you listen to podcasts? How do they make you feel? Have you thought about cutting back on, or increasing, the number of those you listen to? And when do you listen to them? I’d love to know.

The post Are you a podcast listener? I am, but I’m having second thoughts on what I listen to. #MondayBlogs appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

I’ve already put off the whole starting the New Year stuff until the 4^th. That’s what happens when the 1^st lands on a Friday. It felt better to get going once everyone was fully back to work. So here we are, on the 4^th, and I’m already behind.

There’s not much to say on several of my aims for the year. If you read last week’s post, you’ll know I’m treading familiar territory after all.

• Reach and maintain target weight
• Exercise twice a week
• Publish a new book (anyone who read last week’s post will know this has been tweaked from last year – so I don’t cheat…)
• Write 500 words a day – yup, already behind on this one!

I will probably be quite grumpy as you read this as I will be on the first day of attempting to lose weight, again. However, it’s something that needs doing if I’m ever to get rid of the leggings and slide, comfortably, back into my jeans. That’s one of the issues, I am all about the comfort these days and my leggings are just so forgiving. However, they have been telling me everything’s going to be ok for some time now, and that needs to change.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

I’m quite looking forward to getting back to some exercise. I don’t think I do it strenuously enough to make a great deal of difference with regards to weight loss. However, it does keep me strong…ish and more flexible and I fully believe in the phrase if you don’t use it you are going to lose it so needs must and I’ve seized up enough over the festive period. Time to get moving.

I did a bit of author planning the other day. I received a wall year planner through a client and thought I’d put it to good use by planning out how I’m going to get those first drafts done of the possible new series. Needless to say I’ve been overly ambitious with my targets and I daresay things will have to slip when I add in doing any actually work into my life but at least I’ve set out something.

At the moment I’ve only plotted out the first draft writing periods, then allowed at least a month before doing an initial edit of each MS. The ongoing editing cycles will have to be factored in at a later date and all the after bits – drafts to editors, the inevitable rewriting, more editing, proofreading, cover design etc. However, I shall take the first steps and leave the bigger picture to look after itself, it’s too overwhelming if I look at the whole.

With regard to publishing a book this year though I do have one that’s probably about 75% drafted so I thought I’d tackle finishing that off first. Problem is that it’s a bit of a departure from what I’ve already written and doesn’t quite fit into the darker stuff that’s coming up so I’m not sure it’s actually a good idea to put this one out at all. I’m still deliberating and maybe my mind will be made up once I do a bit more work on it. Or maybe I could come up with a decent twist to make it fit better. We shall see.

Anyway, if I manage to do as much as it on my wall planner then the target of writing 500 words a day should take care of itself. Hopefully by the end of 2021 I will be able to report a considerably better success rate than the one that happened in 2020!

Over to you. Have you made any aims or goals for this year? Anything you’ve seriously planned out in order to get it done? I’d love to hear about it if so. Thanks for reading.

The post In with the new… or somewhat recycled aims and goals #MondayBlogs appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

I don’t actually make resolutions as such, they’re more aims, I suppose, or goals. And they are remarkable similar to the ones made in previous years. Let’s see how I got on.

My list of aims for the year were as follows:

1. Reach and maintain target weight
2. Exercise twice a week
3. Write a book
4. Write 500 words a day

Now that’s not too onerous a list, is it? Well, let’s see how it went…

1. Reach and maintain target weight

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

For clarity… this is not me…

My, how we laugh in the face of that goal… 2020 was most definitely not the year to be losing weight. Not in my world anyway. In the summer of 2018 I did reach my target weight. The first time in years. Then I went on holiday and never managed to get back on track since. My weight is a constant battle and I’m convinced one year I will conquer it. Maybe that will be in 2021? I will say that I am about half a stone lighter at the end of 2020 than I was at the beginning, so that’s some progress.

This one was a fail, but I will be trying again. You see I have a holiday booked in June 2021. Risky, eh? But I’m keeping everything crossed that this year I shall be able to go on it and when I do I want to be rocking that bikini… hahahahaha…

2. Exercise twice a week

Image by Taco Fleur from Pixabay

Still not me…

My exercise regime (I don’t count walking the dog) is a DVD workout that I do in the privacy of my own bedroom. There are many different routines so I don’t get bored, much. Anyway, for the last few years I’ve set the goal to do this twice a week for the whole year, and I think there has only been one year I failed. But this was not that year – yay! I can tick this one off as having been completed, and I will be setting myself the same goal for 2021 too. It does me so much good, even if I do ache all over most of the time.

3. Write a book

Now this is a tricky one to assess. Technically I have written a book, in fact, more than one book, but they, possibly four of them, are in the early draft stages and need a lot more work on them so I don’t think I can get away with ticking this one off as a success. I guess what I should really do is say, publish a book. Although I could cheat with that one too as I did publish a book, only it was a box set of two I’d already got out in the world. Publish a new book – that’s what it will have to be in the future. There’s no messing with that!

4. Write 500 words a day

Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay

This is the one I am most disappointed about as I really, really, really wanted to reach this goal. That would have meant 182,500 new words, at least, and would have been a real achievement. However, the 3 months of the first lockdown pretty much ruined the chance of me completing the challenge. I tried to claw back some of the word count during November by tackling NaNoWriMo but only managed just over 20K. So overall I wrote 500 words for every day up to the 6^th September and I will have to be happy with that. I think I might give this one another go in 2021 though. I’m still trying to piece together a new series and 2021 can’t possibly bring the same terrified brain freeze as occurred in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, can it?

So that’s it. One out of four isn’t great but I’ve at least made some headway with the others and I think I shall be sticking with these four goals for 2021.

How about you, what goals, aims or resolutions will you be setting yourself for 2021? And did you set any at the start of 2020 you want to tell me about? I’m hoping you were more successful than me.

The post So where are with those resolutions then? And I’m talking about last year’s #MondayBlogs appeared first on Georgia Rose Books.