2019 Round Up

I hope that everyone’s having a decent start to the New Year and that you had a good holiday season.

In 2019 I had an interesting year. For starters, I spent an entire year in a full-time job and I’ve also been working on coursework for a business qualification as part of my apprenticeship. It’s not always been smooth but, overall it was a good year and it was nice to see my hard work recognised when I was given ’employee of the month’ in December. A nice surprise to round off the year.

One of the highlights of my year was definitely the chance to visit Faber and Faber in London. The chance to visit a publishing house with a well-established reputation was amazing. Thanks to a trip that was being run by New Writing North I got to meet some really interesting people and Faber and Faber’s workshop about publishing was fascinating. It really was a great day.

I didn’t read a huge amount of actual books last year (according to my Goodreads account) but 11 isn’t bad and I started a couple of chunky books that have been waiting on the shelf for a while. I definitely read a couple of books that I really, really loved such as Hex Vet, After the Fall and Mort. Plus, I got some great books for my birthday etc. which I’m excited to read this year. I’m also pretty happy with the fact that I managed to keep blogging despite having a couple of difficult months.

I continued to go to the evening art group throughout the year which was always good and worked on drawing a bit more. It was quite nice to actually see my drawing skills get better. Even more exciting was contributing to Louise’s vision and putting the wheels in motion for opening a new art’s centre in Darlington. 2020 is going to be an interesting year as we all continue to work together to make the idea become a reality but I’m looking forward to Cornerstone Arts.

So, some things that I would like do in 2020:
– Finish apprenticeship and get a good qualification out of it.
– Read more books.
– Do more art projects (try something totally new?)
– Visit somewhere that I’ve never been before.

I guess that what I’m really hoping for are some new opportunities related to writing and a good year all around. I hope that you have a good 2020 as well.