It feels like only a moment ago that we welcomed 2025 in with a tentative cheer. Now, we are already saying goodbye and shoving it out the door like a guest who overstayed their welcome.

The older you get the quicker things do seem to move. I can definitely attest to that. But, now is the time when I look back at how the year went.

Out & About

While my partner and I didn’t get to see as much as the last two years, we still made time to spend with each other and enjoy some shows. To us, it’s important that we support performances and do things that generate memories over just consumption of physical items.

Here’s a few shows we went to:

The Importance of being Ernest – I’d heard of this play but knew nothing about it (except for the random “handbag” line) and had never seen it. OMG it was hilarious – one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. The actors were incredible, and did an exceptional job. We ended up seeing it twice as we treated family to another showing.

Orchestra – Enjoyed a night with the Ulster Orchestra. Had great seats and it was a wonderful performance – they were playing famous soundtracks from big movies.

The Nutcracker – I have never seen The Nutcracker ballet live and it was a pure delight. The dancers lit up the stage with their ability and playfulness and the costumes and set was so detailed.

The Writing Desk

Challenge

The year started great. I did the 85k challenge, working on some new scenes for my current manuscript and also scenes for book 2 and 3 of The Blessed series. I completed that challenge, hitting just over the 85K!

I then spent the rest of the year in the editing weeds. I swear, I must have read my manuscript, The Blessed book 1, about 500 times!

Focus Sessions

Here’s a shout out to writer Caroline Davis who ran almost 50 Focus Sessions open to others. She wanted to get through her own manuscript so opened up the chance to book a 1-hour session with her, to hold ourselves accountable.

I ended up booking 9 separate Focus Sessions were Caroline and I showed up on zoom at set times, and then we worked on our own projects for the hour.

Having those dedicated sessions got me through so much editing as it forced me to get my butt in the chair, even when I didn’t want to – because I had someone to be accountable too.

Outside help

This was a big year for me. I hired a professional editor who did a dev edit, she also set me up with some beta readers (yes, people who didn’t know me, read my work!) and then she did a line and copy edit.

Can I just say, Jessica from DesertInkEditorial has been such an incredible editor. She has great attention to detail, a wonderful supportive and friendly personality and really professional. She just made the whole thing so much easier and enjoyable. I cannot recommend her enough!

If you’ve followed this blog for a while you know I am NOT big on sharing my work. Between imposter syndrome and perfectionism, I struggle to let anyone read my work. (It’s a miracle I even put up my Flash Fiction!)

Now, last year and early this year were big because I reached out to some friends asking them to beta read The Blessed. I got great feedback and had a good laugh at some of their responses.

However, this was another step entirely. Getting people who didn’t know me – who didn’t like and support me – to read my work… you can’t get more honest with feedback than that.

Not going to pretend it wasn’t tough waiting to hear their thoughts, but in the end I got some great feedback. It was funny seeing everyone hating the same characters (the ones I wanted them to hate!) and loving the characters I wanted them to love, and getting hooked on the story.

One of my awesome beta readers even sent me a compiled list of quotes from my manuscript for me to use in my marketing! How incredible is that!? Shout-out to Morgan for doing that!

Moving The Needle

All of this forced me to make the decision that I really want to do this more and so I’ve been changing my schedule and planning next year, in a hope of moving the needle on my writer life.

I’ve even, stupidly, booked my editor again for book 2 (yes, the book that’s not even fully planned out never mind completed and edited to death by me, which is my preferred method).

Am I nervous?

Do I look nervous?

Because I am super nervous that I won’t be able to get it written and author-edited by next August when I’m booked with my editor. *hyperventilates*

Advent Story Train

Once again, I ran the Advent Calendar Story Train. The turn out was great and every slot was filled. Huge thanks to all who participated, I enjoyed your stories so much and I loved that you had fun being part of the Train.

At this time, I am still up in the air about if I’ll be running it next year. Between trying to complete another manuscript, running the podcast and just surviving all the normal life stuff that never seems to end… I’m not sure I have it in me to run it in 2026.

It’s a really fun collab project and I do love doing it, but I won’t lie, it takes SO much time and effort to do. Two people have already reached out offering to help me with it – so, if I can figure out a way to take them up on it… I might run it again.

The Dreaded Lurgy

For the last 5 months of the year, similar to 2024, my partner and I ended up being low-level ill. There always seems to be some creeping lurgy that sweeps through the town making everyone feel terrible.

While it didn’t stop me getting lots done, it felt like I was running at 50% battery power for half of the year. Not great.

Health & Fitness

The start of the year was fine, I was going to spin classes weekly and visiting the gym regularly to lift the heavy things! Got to keep the bones strong, especially as we get older (even more so for women).

However, it all fell part with the catching of the lurgy I just mentioned, and I ended up not going to the gym throughout the end of the year. I even stopped walking daily for about 2 months while I recovered.

PodLife

Over on the podcast, Rachel and I hit over 16k downloads.

We also ran Author Interviews for a year and they went really well. So, we will be keeping that going for another year.

Thanks to everyone who joined us as a guest on The Merry Writer Podcast. We also want to thank everyone who listens to the podcast, and who leaves us comments either here or on YouTube. It is so lovely when you interact with our podcast.

Want to enjoy the podcast? We are on plenty of platforms, choose your preferred one at our Podlink.

Want to be a guest on the podcast? Then check out this page to apply.

Studying

After Duolingo dropped loads of their human translators in favour of using AI, I closed my account and stopped using them to study French and Korean. I do NOT support AI.

I haven’t done any other learning, mostly because I’ve been editing… all the time… so much editing *collapses*

Biz-Ness

My business took a back seat this year.

Honestly, there is only so much I could focus on, and with all the regulations and changes that are continuing to make it almost impossible to run a small business these days, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw any more effort in.

I’m not looking forward to next year, since HMRC (the UK’s tax people) may be changing how we do our taxes and from what I’ve read – instead of filling in our Self Assessments once a year… we might have to do it 5 times throughout the year.

Because of course we will. Why not make something that was easy enough, take 5 times as long.

Writing Biz

I also need to speak to HMRC (not looking forward to that!) regarding how I need to set up my writing as a business. Even though nothing is coming out yet, I am starting to build expenses and you need to register as a business before you start selling – so might as well figure all that nonsense out sooner rather than later.

Reader Life

In order to stop just reading new books, I created a TBR jar and gave myself a book buying ban!

I listed, on thin strips of coloured paper, all the books I owned (physical and digital) but hadn’t read and I popped them into a glass jar. I would then select a different book from the jar.

Did it stop me from reading new books? No.

Did it (or the buying ban) stop me buying new books? Also no.

Did it make me read books from my TBR pile? Yes!

I also gave myself permission to not finish any book where by chapter 5 I still wasn’t feeling interested or connected. There are too many books I want to try to waste time slogging through books that just aren’t for me.

I managed to read 53 books in total this year and my Goodreads Challenge was 20. So I smashed it! 🙂 Some of them were re-reads or were just not listed on Goodreads.

As well as my TBR list, I also visited the local library more and borrowed books. Gotta support your libraries, people!

~ ~ ~

As we step into 2026, I think I’m ready to do some big things! Thank you all who has read through this post. I hope your 2026 is a great year.

Tell me what you are looking forward to in 2026. Drop me a comment!

See you next year

Source: Images from Canva and from me.

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