A lot can change in a year, especially looking back to January 2017 and seeing how I’ve progressed. I used to find monthly writing recaps useful in tracking changes and accomplishments.

This year I stopped writing those posts.

They were getting increasingly difficult to write as my personal life evolved, so I found that sending a monthly newsletter to subscribers was less pressure and more intimate.

I still like looking back. But I also like focussing on the present; on who I am now and what I can do to be a happy, creative, balanced, authentic individual – without having to force it.

Some things never change. Here are 18 bookish facts about me for 2018. These are some things that are true; maybe forever, maybe just for now. Things change. And that’s okay.

1. I own two copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire because one of them has a misprinted chapter.
2. I’ve read Ulysses by James Joyce, which I’m pretty proud of.
3. I still own all the Twilight books, which I’m not as proud of.
4. I enjoy lots of different genres, like classics and literary fiction and poetry but also fantasy and historical fiction and sci-fi.
5. I have a reading nook with an armchair, a rug, a blanket, a fox cushion and a side table for my cup of tea.
6. The longest book I read in 2017 was Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (850 pages).
7. Since August I’ve been working in a uni library. But not as a librarian.
8. The first draft of my WIP was 73,898 words.
9. My favourite author as a middle grader was Christopher Pike. He wrote supernatural, murdery stories.
10. My favourite author as a teenager was Anne Rice (and J.K. Rowling, of course).
11. My favourite authors at university were Jennifer Egan and Ernest Hemingway.
12. My favourite authors now are Helen Scheuerer and Jen Campbell.
13. The last book I read was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them!
14. The first audiobook I ever heard was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett which was on four cassette tapes and the narrator creeped me out.
15. I own signed books by Dorothy Porter, Evie Wyld, Charlotte Wood, Gabrielle Tozer, Merlinda Bobis and Patrick Lenton.
16. Some of my favourite things about reading can be my favourite things about writing: similes, structure, and character development.
17. I hate love triangles, cliches and stories about boring old white dudes.
18. My favourite fairytale is ‘Bluebeard’.