Hello 2025

A whole new year of possibilities ahead...

Hello friends!

It’s been a while.

I feel like I say that every time I post something new, because it usually ends up being much longer between posts that I intend or hope. Life stuff always seems to get in the way, the diary gets full, I get caught up working on other things, and all of a sudden it’s a whole new year and I never even wished you Merry Christmas!

Even now, it’s the 10th January already and I’ve been contemplating this post for days, trying to summon up the…whatever it was I needed…to get started.

In my head I had a kind of 2024 Review / 2025 Plans post vaguely floating around, and I will do a bit of that, but as per frequently, I’m also just going to wait and see what emerges from my brain and my fingers.

First of all though, how are you doing?

No really, how are you? I’d genuinely love to know.

How was the holiday season for you? Did you do anything fun? Get a chance to properly rest?

How is the new year feeling so far? Have you made resolutions or set intentions? Or are you going to let things unfold as they may?

Are you looking after yourself? Physically, mentally, emotionally, creatively, spiritually? What’s in your toolkit that you know really helps every time?

What are you hoping 2025 will be like? Do you already have plans to look forward to? Are you still hibernating until spring? Or trying to maintain some boundaries instead of doomscrolling and watching constant news of the world crashing and burning around us? Are you managing to find glimmers of light, love, and hope?

Please do let me know what’s going on in your world - the comments are always open and I’d love to chat.

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Well, for me 2024 was, overall, a fairly good year. Yes, it had its moments of tumult and struggle, but in general it felt like the best year I’ve had in a long time. And that was a really lovely realisation.

I was able to make what felt like forward, onward and upward progress in a number of areas, to take steps away from things I wanted to leave behind and towards the direction I want to go, and to feel internal shifts in my thinking, habits, and attitudes, that I hope are also beginning to show on the outside. (I’ve had a number of people tell me lately that they think I look really well, so I’m taking that as a good thing!)

Some things have stayed the same and continue to be sources of frustration, no matter the inner and outer work I do to learn from and resolve them. Especially when they involve other people, I have to remember that I don’t have control over what they think, feel, say, or do, only my responses. And people won’t change just because I want them to!

The only person I can be held responsible for changing is me.

And I have.

At the beginning of 2024 I committed to going for a walk outside every day. It didn’t have to be far or fast, it just had to be outdoors and on as many days as I could possibly manage.

I did it.

I went out every single day, all 366 of them.

In sun, cloud, wind, rain, frost, fog…on went my shoes and out I headed.

I’m so, so proud of myself.

You see, thanks to a combination of chronic pain, fatigue, stress, burnout, and just general lack of motivation, I had become one of those people who could happily, and easily, stay tucked up indoors for days at a time. (I work part time, so don’t always have to go out every day.)

Committing to leaving the house every day felt like a challenge. But one that I ended up relishing, and thoroughly enjoying.

To begin with my walks were a very short loop, just 10 minutes from home, at a very very gentle pace that would still leave me tired, needing to lie down, and for a while suffering with shin splints.

But eventually, as I kept going, the loop got longer, my pace gradually increased, the pain and fatigue began to ease (though it never entirely goes away), and I found myself looking forward to going out, even rushing to finish other things so I could go for my walk before it got dark. And yes, I even came to enjoy walking in the rain!

I’m continuing my daily walks this year, and am planning to build on their foundation with further work to improve my physical strength, stamina, stability, and mobility. I already do a short exercise routine in the mornings to help me get moving, but I’m going to start incorporating a wider range of exercises to help support my hypermobile and arthritic joints (great combo, right?!), to gently build my strength, and work on my overall health and fitness. I’ve been getting help from a wonderful chronic pain specialist physiotherapist and am finding her supportive reminders and encouragement to take things at my own sustainable pace to be really helpful.

I’m also approaching a big birthday this year - my 40th! - and beginning to experience what I suspect are symptoms of perimenopause, so I want to make sure I’m doing what I can to support my overall wellbeing.

This also includes taking more care with my food choices, becoming more adventurous with different ingredients, flavours and recipes, and sifting through the ocean of advice out there for the nuggets (not the ultra-processed, deep-fried chicken kind) that feel good to me. There seems to be so much conflicting information out there these days, I tend towards a ‘most things in moderation’ approach, not denying myself the occasional treat, working to reduce the obviously bad stuff where I can, and keeping my meals varied and interesting.

If anyone has any great recipe/cookbook/favourite chef/practical advice to share, please feel free!

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I’ve always been a voracious reader, and since switching to a Kindle that only seems to have intensified! In 2023 I let myself get a bit carried away tracking my reading stats and trying to hit targets, ‘smashing’ over 100 books during the year. But if you asked me now which I enjoyed, I honestly can’t remember a single one of them.

2024 was gentler, though I still read every day without fail, and this year, I’m intending to relax my approach even more, not rushing through pages and pages, but taking my time to immerse myself in the stories and fully absorb the words, the emotions, and the lessons. Last year was nearly completely devoted to fiction, so I’ve added a few more non-fiction books to my list for 2025, books I know I’ll find fascinating and will probably glean some wonderful knowledge from. (Is this year going to be the year I finally read Women Who Run With the Wolves? Watch this space!)

On the other side of the book equation is writing, and 2024 was a great year for me in that regard.

You may have already seen when I posted about it a couple of months ago that I became a published author thanks to a piece of mine being included in a trail-blazing and thought-provoking new anthology - Sex Meets Life - edited by

Anna Sansom

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Anna has been a writing mentor and friend for a while now, and it was an honour and a joy to be invited to contribute to this book. It was a scary step too, asking me to write bravely, vulnerably, and to challenge the honesty of my storytelling, as well as my creative skills.

The book is available most places you find them, but you’ll find both the ebook and paperback versions here on Amazon.

Thanks to Anna’s introduction I was also invited to become a Founding Author on Theo Reads, a brand new platform which will provide a home for “romance & spicy stories that meet your every fantasy, from mild 🌶️ to extra spicy 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️, and break the taboos around desire, written by some of the greatest writers of our generation.”

The official launch is coming soon, but in the meantime you can sign up to receive Theo’s newsletters with links to free stories and chapters, and hear more about membership options.

I’m excited to see Theo develop, and thrilled to have a home to share more of my fiction writing. I’ve been working on a range of short stories and developing chapters of longer works, exploring the spicier corners of my imagination as well as writing sweeter, more intimate pieces.

I will still be sharing some fiction here too, but because of the terms of my agreement with Theo, and because ultimately I want to move towards earning a living from my writing, I’ve decided to paywall my fiction posts here on Substack.

That means if you want to continue reading Meg and Leo’s story - which now has a title: Falling in Harmony - you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription.

I’ve set the cost of this at a (hopefully) affordable £5 a month, or £50 for a full year.

I’m intending to get into more of a rhythm with my writing in the coming months, so hopefully there will be more regular posts and this will feel like value for money. However, I also don’t want to exclude anyone due to genuine financial hardship, so if you’d really like to keep reading but a paid subscription isn’t possible right now, please get in touch and I’ll see what I can do to help. There will still be personal posts that will remain free for everyone too 🙂

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My other big writing project for 2024 was completing my first novel, and in the summer I finished a full 100k word manuscript!

I had joined Nicola Humber’s Birth Your Transformational Book programme for support and accountability, which was a great move and such a wonderful community, and although I had hoped to possibly have the book published by the end of 2024, this didn’t happen for a number of reasons. However, it’s in a much better place now that 12 months ago, and hopefully will be a stronger story for the extra time honing it with the assistance of a few amazing beta readers, and many many hours of editing and proofreading.

It’s my (fairly loose and spacious) plan to self-publish the novel sometime in the spring, but of course I’ll keep you posted with all the updates and when it will be available to order.

I just realised that although I’ve shared a blurb and title reveal on Instagram, I never shared it here, so here goes:

When Alex’s small, quiet existence in London is turned upside down by an unexpected and life-changing inheritance, her world suddenly becomes full of possibilities.

With no idea how to start figuring out the rest of her life, she sets off to visit a friend in New York City and try out a spring of adventures just for herself, taking photos and sharing them online as she goes.

But when Nick crash-lands in the plane seat next to her and offers to show her around the city, their mutual attraction opens up even more chances to explore the growing passion between them, and maybe even…love?

As Alex begins to experience the kind of freedom she never imagined, will she have the courage to finally set foot out of her comfort zone, seize the opportunities photography brings her way, embrace life on her own terms, and trust that what she feels for Nick can fit into the bigger picture?

With her whole future and a forever love in the frame, will it be...

A Shot Worth Taking?

What do you think? Will you be adding it to your TBR (To Be Read) list for 2025?!

Having had a bit of a break over the last month or so, I’m now raring to go with the final round of editing and tweaks to really polish this story, and then work on formatting, designing a cover, and getting it ready to publish soon.

Writing an entire book has been a wonderful experience. Challenging in a lot of ways, but exciting and emotional too. It’s been a fascinating combination of pouring parts of myself into the story and the characters, but also having them lead me where they want to go, uncovering aspects of their personalities that I didn’t plan for, and learning from their experiences too.

I can’t wait for you to meet Alex and Nick, and to hopefully fall in love with them as much as I have.

I’m not going to lie, writing and planning to publish a novel has also brought up plenty of doubts, hefty doses of imposter syndrome, and times when I’ve wondered whether it’s really something worth sharing with the world, or if the act of writing it was enough in itself.

But no, it’s not. This story comes from my heart, yes, but it’s a gift to yours too. One that I hope will touch you in ways I can’t predict, but sincerely hope you’ll enjoy.

Stay tuned for more updates as they happen - and if you feel like letting me know you’re looking forward to reading A Shot Worth Taking, it would really boost my confidence! Thank you x

I think that’s everything for now, don’t forget to share what’s going on in your world, and to upgrade your subscription if you want to keep up with all my writing this year.

I’m sending you so much love, and wishing you a year filled with all the peace, joy, abundance, love and magic you desire and deserve!

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