Hoping you have all had a wonderful holiday season. Apart from contemplating taking our Christmas Tree down – the last several weeks have been crammed with holidays, family, celebrations and some exciting writing milestones. I’ve been a bit slack keeping you up to date – so my apologies.

November

Writing Retreat

In the last week of November, I joined eight other lovely writers for a Writing Retreat.  It was a hoot – with lots of laughter, talking, food, encouragement, inspiration – and even some writing done.  It was a great idea. A particular highlight was my writing friends cheering me on as I crossed the finishing line for NaNoWriMo (once I got over the writer’s block induced by having such an expectant audience 😀 ).

NaNoWriMo

Which brings me to my second news – completing NaNoWriMo again this year. The aim of NaNo (or National Writing Month in November) is to complete 50,000 words on a novel. I started writing Jared’s Choice (the forth book in the series) and was happy to get a good chunk of this work completed. In the meantime, I’ve asked a professional editor to a good look at Akrad’s Children.

December

Tied in Pink Anthology

December has been particularly exciting for me, as on the 14th December (the day before my birthday) Tied in Pink anthology was released. Tied in Pink is a romance anthology with 15 stories by 14 different authors, with all profits going to breast cancer research. My short story, ‘The Herbalist’s Daughter’ carries on Anna’s story. Anna, if you remember, is the protagonist of Fever.  The anthology has some beautiful, heartwarming, gripping and/or funny stories from both veteran and aspiring authors. Here’s my Good Reads review :). Both print and e-books are available from Amazon.

With the publication of Tied in Pink – I now have an author’s page on Good Reads and Amazon. I would love you to follow me there – and, if you haven’t already, on my author’s page on Facebook or on Twitter. I will shortly be starting an email subscription list to notify when I post blogs and other news.

January

Month of Poetry

I am currently participating in Month of Poetry once again. The aim is to write a poem a day in the month of January. So far I’m on track and have been posting my attempts on my Facebook page.

#instacollage

I was particularly thrilled to receive an email yesterday informing me that one of my poems that I wrote last year has been accepted for publication in an anthology. Only 25 poems are accepted each year. More news on this later.

So, as you can see, it’s been a busy and exciting time. I do plan to write a story on Haka, Rokkan, Martal or Naetok as requested by Nicky, the winner of the Scavenger Hunt and will post it on the website for you all to read.

Jeanette O’Hagan

11 January 2015