Goodbye 2025. You sounded so futuristic. Still not getting over the “Minnellium”, and even harder to believe they made brown the new black again. Goodbye PANTONE 17-1230. Hello again Dulux Shades of White (Cloud Dancer, Phlegm, whatever) as we go from 90s nostalgia to 80s. Ah, the great music, the mass unemployment, the threat of nuclear war, the grinding gears of far right politics across Europe, and shoulder pads.
Spot the odd one out there. Yes, it’s tassels that are coming back, not shoulder pads. Also, all the music will just be various versions of Luke Combs made by AI. Joy.
What I am mostly saying goodbye to as the year turns is money, which is pretty on trend of me. Ever the avant-garde fashionista, my main job role was made redundant in May. This was a huge change for me with lots of emotional impact, and I had to make some big decisions. As a trainer, I’ve often passed on the wisdom of Simon Sinek, but if we’re honest a lot of us will mentally reverse engineer the “what is your why?” in personal development training sessions to make it seem like, yes, we’d really love to do a thing in this company. If you watch that TED talk and find yourself doing the same, ask yourself, what is stopping you from saying the thing you actually love doing? Is it because it’s a hobby and that would make you feel guilty? Is spending time with people you love not careerist enough?
What was my actual why? I’ll be straight with you, I have more than one. I probably have loads. I’m not terribly focused. However, when you’re looking at what the heck you are going to do now you can no longer do the thing you were doing, being honest with yourself and trying to work out what your most consistent soul-kindling element is will help enormously.
I had a big old think and narrowed it down to two things: books and comedy. I can’t split them in terms of love. Both of them were side hustles for me at the start of 2025, but as redundancy loomed I thought I might be able to pick one and make it the main hustle. I love books: I love reading them, reviewing them, editing them, and publishing them. I’m also quite fond of writing. I love comedy: I love writing it, performing it, tweaking it, winning an audience, basking in the admiration. Sensible hat on though, and I thought there’s only one of those I can do mainly working from home, doesn’t involve late night travel or working for free in a fickle and very loose, somewhat unbalanced meritocracy in the hope of being able to work for that employer for a small amount of money in five years’ time. I checked my earnings and accolades in each for the previous year, made some mental extrapolations and books won. It didn’t mean my comedic ambitions had to end, but they would have to go on the back burner while I made inroads in the new ‘day job’.
I began a weekly diary on LinkedIn to showcase what I was doing, and I’m so glad I did because it can be very easy to lose sight of your actual progress unless you remember to keep writing it down and cheering yourself on. I did further training with the Skills Network and expanded my repertoire into event management, which led me to working with MK Lit Fest and organising the huge Indie Book Fair Event. I was also able to do some freelance training with Strategic Professionals, which reinvigorated my passion for teaching.
Yes, there were some real highlights to the beginning of my year, such as hosting Popmaster in the pub so my friends could watch me win Gold, and spending time in Belfast for Eastercon, at which The Slab Press launched Vivid Worlds. There was also fun to be had at Sci-Fi Weekender, which I swore was my last one, but looks like I’m going again next year. Huzzah!
But the latter half of the year is where I started to make my dreams come true. I want to go and live by the sea, so we took a holiday to Whitby to see if this would be a good base for me, and yes it is.
I went to more conventions and book fairs, had an amazing time, and launched Hiding Under the Leaves, which is a beautiful book (and it’s doing very well with reviews).
Whilst this year has been mentally challenging (and I’m not quite there yet in getting over just the fear of things going wrong because it has also been a year of lots of that), I can say for most of the time I’ve felt more like old me, which is a good thing.
For a start, I’ve got more reading done, I mean look at all this!
Good stuff! Think I might aim for 65 next year and try and beat that.
So what’s ahead for 2026?
Well, things are a little askew financially as the car went to the vets and the cat went to Halfords, or vice versa, so there have been some Big Not-So-Beautiful Bills this month. Plus, I am temporarily the breadwinner again on not very much bread at all. Barely a crouton winner (just as well the cat is now gluten-free… actually, it’s not, that hydrolysed protein shizzle is NOT CHEAP)! And so I have planned my new books for 2026 most judiciously, but new books there shall be! I’m working on The Best of British Science Fiction 2025 right now, and also Obsidian, and they will be great anthologies! I will do some more work with all the groups I worked with last year, MK Lit Fest and Strategic Professionals, and expand to working in some other local community projects.
You will see my writing published next year as I have work coming out in ParSec and Collective: The Collaborative Art of Anthologies. Hopefully more places too.
Plus you know, I think I’ll write a book this year. Been threatening to for a bit.
I hope to remember to stop and enjoy stuff in 2026. I mean, today Neil and I had a lovely walk today as we went to pay for the car repairs, but we cleared the tears from our eyes and spotted muntjacs and treecreepers on the way. And also the chap in the repair shop knows our names because we’re such regular customers. Isn’t that lovely? *Sob*
