I think this is my favourite part of starting a new year - reflecting on the past year. My goals were pretty simple - write more, read more, bake more.
2019 Goal - Write More - ACHIEVED
I wasn't able to write every day, having two monsters running around isn't exactly conducive to writing 1000 words regularly but I persevered as much as possible. There may have been several late nights.
I published three new books:
Ned Spinks, Chief Thief-Catcher, has a new case. A murderous moustache-wearing cult is killing off members of Roshaven's fae community. At least that's what he's been led to believe by his not-so-trusty sidekick, Jenni the sprite. She has information she's not sharing but plans to get her boss into the Interspecies Poker Tournament so he can catch the bad guy and save the day. If only Ned knew how to play!
The Interspecies Poker Tournament, Case 27 of The Roshaven Files, is a humorous fantasy novella following the adventures of Ned Spinks and Jenni, a prequel to The Rose Thief. If you loved Terry Pratchett's Discworld, you'll love Roshaven.
Haunted: The Sparkly Badger's Anthology
This is an anthology of spooky short stories and poems by members of the Sparkly Badgers Facebook group: Jane Jago, Yvette Bostic, Cindy Tomamichel, Sophie Kearing, Leo McBride, Margena Holmes, Ian C Bristow, Holly Rae Garcia, a stump, S Shane Thomas, Ricardo Victoria, E.M. Swift-Hook, Medeia Sharif, Brent A. Harris and me!
Join us on a pumpkin spiced, ghost-riddled, spooky journey amongst the imaginations of fifteen horrifyingly excellent indie-authors. Let them take you on a candle-lit journey through the minds of the depraved, departed and desperate as they treat you to their haunting tales. Lock the doors, close the curtains and don’t turn off the light!
The Gaia Collection is my hopeful dystopian trilogy set 200 years in the future after much of the planet and the human race have been decimated during The Event, when the world went to war with high-energy radiation weapons. In The Gaia Effect, Kira and Jed Jenkins – a young couple who were recently allocated a child – together with their closest friends, discover Corporation have been deliberately lying to them and forcing them to remain sterile. With help from Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, the group of friends begin to fight back against Corporation eventually winning and taking over the governance of City 42.
In The Gaia Project, Corporation fight back under a new, more terrifying organization called New Corp and Kira, Jed and their friends end up fleeing for their lives trying to find a safe place to live. They travel to City 36 and City 9 in vain and must go further afield.
In the final book, The Gaia Solution, the main characters have ended up with the Resistance and not only do they have to deal with surviving against New Corp but an extinction environmental event is looming on the horizon and they’re running out of time to save what’s left of the human race.
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I was lucky enough to have a poem accepted for the Cozy Cat Press anthology, Mrs Latimer Had a Fat Cat which released in November 2019 and a short story into the new anthology from Inklings Press, Tales from the Pirate's Cove, which releases this Spring.
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I went 'wide' with four of my books: The Rose Thief, The Gaia Effect, The Gaia Project and The Gaia Collection can all be purchased on Kobo, Barnes and Noble & Nook, Apple Books, Waterstones and you can request your local library to stock them as well - how exciting is that!
You will also be able to buy in ebook my short story collections, Tales from Suburbia and Tales from the Seaside, plus all five of my Little Book poetry books - Little Book of Verse, Little Book of Spring, Little Book of Summer, Spooky Little Book and Little Book of Winter.
Plus I re-covered Tales from Suburbia and all the poetry books. I'm sure you'll agree they look really good now.
Tales from the Seaside made it over to audio, narrated by the lovely Helena Little. Hopefully 2020 will see the creation of more. Fingers crossed the Gaia books AND the Roshaven books.
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2019 Goal - Read More - SORT OF ACHIEVED
Last year I set a reading goal for 100 books. I 'only' read 77 and I probably added another couple of hundred books to my TBR pile! Definitely won't be short of something to read this year. Seeing as I didn't make my 100 books goal I am trying again so we'll see what happens. Let's face it, I never need an excuse to read a good book!
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2019 Goal - Bake More - SORT OF ACHIEVED
My dairy intolerance flared up big time plus life threw a few curveballs and motivation to bake as been shaky at best but there have been some delicious bakes here and there. The perfect excuse to carry on in 2020!
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So what can we expect for 2020? I released my first book on the 1st January - Little Book of Winter, #5 in the Little Book series, my poetry collection and Little Book of Love will follow on the 1st of February so that's a nice start. I hope for more audiobooks. I will be creating a box set for the Gaia books on ebook, paperback and hardback. And... well, there will be some new books. You'll just have to watch this space!
If you'd like to support my writing endeavours, it is possible to buy me tea & cake, vital writing tools.
Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find all her books on Amazon. Join the discussion in her Facebook group Buss's Book Stop.
