It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. – A Tale of Two Cities; Charles Dickens

This was a year of ups and downs, frustrations and accomplishments. The planned release of my latest novel was postponed, shelved, revised and finally rescheduled. It’s nearly there at long last, after each deadline I set for myself went whooshing by. I’m confident that the manuscript will be ready to hand off to my editor for a final proof by December 31. I have also begun to assemble my short stories into a collection and with the addition of a few more left here on the blog, I will have another small book to release in 2018. It will be a relief to start the new year with a clean slate.

While I struggled with writing this year, that is to say, to come up with new ideas for fiction and poetry, I didn’t while away the days frivolously. I invested some time in educating myself on the way to approach traditional publishing, I edited and revised existing material according to professional feedback I received. This will undoubtedly help me improve as a writer.

In addition, I embarked upon a few other creative pursuits. For one thing, I bought myself a decent camera. My hope is to improve my photography skills with the objective of using the photos for book covers, interior illustrations and subject matter for my other visual arts projects: sketching and painting. At a minimum, I’ll have plenty of images to accompany posts on the blog.

Moving forward into 2018, I plan on resuming the research and writing of my World War One story, Here Lies a Soldier. It won’t be posted here but I will keep you updated with my progress. And with interesting bits of information I uncover in my research. I will likely find inspiration for artwork as I read up on The Great War as well.

So with just a little less than two weeks left in 2017, I’d better make good use of the remaining time. Off to the keyboard…