A long overdue update, in pictures, & a super writing exercise

The blog's been quiet for so long, while behind the scenes I've been doing ALL THE THINGS and my blog-posts-to-write notebook is bursting its spine with lovely things to come, plus NaNoWriMo is already sending its unearthly shimmer over the horizon, so here's a quick rundown of the (mostly) writerly things I've been up to and a glimpse of all the blog-posts-to-come that I've foraged. Plus A BONUS KITTEN. And at the end, a super writing exercise.

Keep writing

When you finish a writing project, you need to celebrate, rest, and reflect - and also keep writing. Over the Christmas holidays, you need down time and a break - and to keep writing. In 7 things to do after NaNoWriMo, I talked about how important this is:

Reflect on your writing

I have two twin pillars that have helped me shape my life closer to what I want it to be and make my writing happen. One is Jinny Ditzler's book, Your Best Year Yet; the other is The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Between them, they help me straddle that eternal creative conundrum of product versus process, setting out to achieve something and finish something versus allowing space to play and make mistakes. Both have helped me see the value of reflecting. These are the questions I use to think about my writing practice, for your own use. I've given my own answers beneath each one.

How to make yourself a book thing

The last post talked about how important it is to celebrate our writing achievements ourselves: we need the celebration for new creative energy and we can't afford to depend on other people for it. The most exciting achievement for a writer is often holding the finished book - but that does depend on other people, plus the time between finishing a story and holding the published book can easily take two years or more. The solution: make yourself a book thing, now. Something you can hold, hug, lick.

Celebrate your writing

Thousands of NaNoWriMo writers have just slumped over their laptops, exhausted and triumphant after a month-long novel-writing sprint. (And whether or not you "won", you should feel triumphant if you wrote significantly more than usual.) It's time for all NaNoWriMo writers to celebrate and for all writers to remember the value of celebrating. So here's why celebrating matters and some ideas of what to do, and then on Wednesday the wonders of how to make a book thing out of your freshly finished writing.

7 things to do after NaNoWriMo

Glory in your achievement: this is awesome. Reap your rewards and harvest the best of what you've done. Here are 7 lovely, useful, rewarding things to do now that you've finished NaNoWriMo.

Where to find your free NaNoWriMo writing postcards

Yesterday I released the NaNoWriMo postcards into the wild. If you're in or near Oxford, here's where to find them; if you're not, you can email me your address and I'll send you some for the cost of the stamp. I also, as you can see, discovered Instagram, which explains why all the pictures are filtered with the fervour of a recent convert...

NaNoWriMo is nigh... and THE FREE POSTCARDS ARE HERE

So the question is: where do you want me to put them?

What's NaNoWriMo?

A novelist's writeathon in November, so you can thrash out a first draft of your novel, 50,000 words in a month, and internal editor be damned. After all, you can edit a first draft, but not a blank page. (If you're a chap, you can grow your mo and write at the same time.) Online forums, meet-ups in your area, and general craziness keep everyone going. You can join in the NaNoWriMo party by signing up on the website here - all free.