Happy New Year, dear readers! At the end of each year I write a blog post summing up the year that was. Well… 2014 has begun and so it is time for me to look back on 2013. It was a busy year for me in terms of writing. But not a great year in terms of reading. What I chose to read was mostly pretty good… I just didn’t read as much as I would have liked. 🙁
Okay, so what did I read? Lots of picture books to my four-year-old. And quite a few books to my ten-year-old as well. We read a few of the Beast Quest and EJ12 books, which were okay, and a couple more Harry Potter books, which were great. For myself… I read some old stuff, some new stuff and, given that it was the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, lots of Doctor Who stuff. Highlights? In no particular order…
- A Study in Scarlet & The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (see “Reading Sherlock”)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban & Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
- Eona by Alison Goodman
- Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman (illustrated by Adam Rex) (see: “Neil Gaiman’s sneezy picture book”)
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
- Gracie and Josh by Susanne Gervay (illustrated by Serena Geddes) (see: “Launching Gracie and Josh”)
- Outside In: 160 New Perspectives on 160 Classic Doctor Who Stories by 160 Writers, edited by Robert Smith (Yes, I know I had an essay in this collection… but aside from that, I really did love this book.) (see: “Outside In with Robert Smith?”)
- Word of Honour (The Laws of Magic, #3) by Michael Pryor
There were lots of other great books, but these are the ones that really stood out for me.
As for writing… lots happened. Which is why this blog was so sporadic over the last 12 months. I was finding it harder and harder to fit the blogging in around all the books!
I wrote 14 education titles — mostly school readers, but a few reference books as well. And then there was the ‘secret project’, which I finally got to partially announce in December (see “The Secret Project”). Three of these books were written during 2013 and I’m currently working on the fourth.
I had numerous education titles published over the course of the year, but my 2013 publishing highlight was the release of Gamers’ Rebellion, the final novel in my Gamers trilogy. Having this book released into the world was VERY exciting! And in case you missed it, here’s the book trailer…
It was also a rather busy year on the speaking front. I love doing school visits and writing workshops… and in 2013 I did more than I’ve ever done before. The highlight was a weeklong tour of remote schools in regional Western Australia (see: “Touring WA”).
Of course, there was the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. As a slightly obsessed fanboy, this was a rather big deal (see: “5(ish) Highlights of #SaveTheDay”). And it was nice to have a few Doctor Who essays appear in some books over the course of the year (see: “Another Doctor Who post”). I also had the wonderful opportunity to speak about Doctor Who — here’s “A Letter to Steven Moffat”, a little piece I wrote and performed at a Doctor Who spoken word night organised by the Melbourne Library Services…
Now I’m all set for 2014 (see: “Hello 2014”). It will be a very different year for me. My youngest daughter starts school… so I’ll suddenly have a lot more time to write. And read. Which means, I hope, that these blog posts will become a little more regular again. 🙂
Catch ya later, George
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