Misquoting Dylan Thomas is as good a way as any to start one of my final posts of 2015. As the year draws to a close, it’s always useful (I like to think) to look back on all my achievements in the last twelve months.
Naturally, I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t achieved anything, so it’s just as well I’ve managed to add a few notches to my literary bedpost.
So, to sum up my wordish year…
Eeh – Books
At the end of July this year, I took the plunge and uploaded the first of my children’s novels ‘The Architect’s Apprentice’ to Smashwords. Of course, I had to spend a good chunk of time familiarising myself with how everything works in the land of eBooks, but it wasn’t so difficult and I now have 4 Children’s novels, 3 Stage Plays, 2 Short Stories and a Collection of Short Stories to go with my non-existent pear tree. Oh, and a non-fiction volume about writing.
Stories
Continuing the theme of publishing success from 2014, this year has seen seven more of my short stories in literary mags, including most recently, ‘Magic Man’, my working-class tale of a failed magician. The story appears in ‘Fresh Ink Volume 1‘ and is available as an eBook published by Oxford Waters.
Paperback Writer
My Autumn Project was to move into the world of paperbacks, and to this end, nine of my books are now obtainable via Amazon as actual physical, get-your-hand-on-em books!
Not everything has gone to plan, of course, and I’ve found that even though I’ve been able to maintain a pretty rigorous writing regime, there are still a couple of things I had fully expected to finish, that remain, er, unfinished. The follow-up to ‘The Hounds of Hellerby Hall’ will now not appear until March, while my first thriller (for grown-ups) ‘Ariadne 7’ will be out in February.
Lastly, though the numbers aren’t exactly stunning, I am actually selling a few books. Which is nice. So, as Del-Boy likes to say “This time next year…”
(If you’d like to hear Dylan Thomas reading the poem misquoted above, click here).
Colin Garrow 