Review feedback

And a happy 2025 to you.

Continuing those awkward Christmas party chats with semi-strangers for a moment, “…so, what have you been up to?”

Even if I’ve had a seriously busy week: one in which I saved a kid from drowning in the murk of the Thames or iced the cake that fed the court of King Charles III, that question always empties my head clean.  Suddenly unable to recall anything I’ve been “up to” – or at least anything worthy of talking about – I’ll shrug and say, “nothing much really, how about you?”

(Riveting).

I can talk about one thing I’ve done recently, though: review a community panto, which I did last Saturday.  It was Cinderella with an all-female cast, a genuinely funny script, and the sort of creativity and warmth you only get when the big bucks and the big names aren’t involved.

This is a funny and inventive panto with a talented all-female cast – recommended!

The last shows are on this weekend (11th – 12th Jan).  If you’re local to me in Essex then I highly recommend you go along.

In other news, I’ve been getting more feedback for my first novel, Small Fish.

The detail and diversity of it makes me realise just how much more work there is to do before I can truly say the book is finished.  I don’t agree with everything my lovely readers have said (whether nice or not so nice), but I do know that some hefty edits are going to be needed.  They should be.  Be suspicious of people who write books but never edit them, or who never take on gristly feedback.  Those books will always lack something essential.

At the moment, just having completed that first(ish) draft feels surreal enough to me.  I’m not sure if that’s part of the reason why I’ve found accepting feedback so easy… there’s a sense that the book isn’t actually mine.  But then I’ve been writing for so many years, that maybe I’ve finally learned not to take it personally.  Feedback is personal, of course, but you always get to control what happens next.

What will 2025 have in store for you?

According to my horoscope, I’ll have to watch my step this year as it’s an unlucky one, apparently.  That isn’t good, because I’ve got a few things planned.

(I always read my horoscope even though I know it’s all a load of rubbish.  When I was a kid there was a weekly horoscope column in my favourite magazine, written by someone called ‘Wee Madam Up’.  It’s somewhat embarrassing to admit that I didn’t realise ‘Wee Madam Up’ means “we made ’em up” until it suddenly occurred to me on a random day in adulthood).

Said things obviously involve making Small Fish the best I can make it.  I’m also planning to enter a review competition next month.  It’s a big deal, or at least it is to me.  I want to be a good writer, and that means testing the things I write… releasing them into the world and seeing if they’ve got what it takes to survive.

Wish me luck.