Dear Diary...

I love January! All your crisp white pages just waiting to be filled… the opportunities…the potential…

It’s that time of year again, time to plan daily word counts, set weekly reading and writing goals, along with reviewing those annual objectives. For a to-do-list fanatic like me, this time of year is heaven.  

But something is different this year – whereas in the past I’ve muddled along with jotters full of lists and scribbles on a calendar, this year I decided to invest in a proper Mslexia writers’ diary. For those perhaps not familiar with Mslexia, it’s a quarterly print magazine designed to support female writers. Find out more of what they get up to at www.mslexia.co.uk . Anyway, back to my diary.

So I was swayed by clever marketing - ‘I love the beautiful, inspirational quotes that appear every week’ – Adele Parks.  And Adele is right, as the quote for the coming week just happens to be from one of my writing heroines, Jodi Picoult, who says –‘You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page’ – so true. Now that I knew Adele Parks, multi-million bestselling author of ‘If You Go Away’, uses a Mslexia diary, then I needed one too.

The first thing that struck me when it arrived was its size. Not too big, not too small – perfect for note taking on the go. So what’s inside? Well, alongside the obvious diary pages, there’s space dedicated to writing competitions, literary festivals and awards – pages for keeping note of those all important submissions, as well as ‘need to know’ info covering things such as literary organisations, writing courses and retreats. There’s even a page earmarked for recording your menstrual cycle!

And what inspiring writing events have I lined up for January? – The first had to be this, joining the fantastic team on the Novel Points of View blog. Then, as well as word count goals and to finish editing my debut novel, ‘Leaving Baku’, there’s another extra special date circled in red. An exciting invitation to join an American USA Today and Sunday Times Best Selling novelist, for afternoon tea at Pan Macmillan’s offices in London – on the 29th. To find out who this amazing author is, along with exclusive photographs and juicy snippets about the event, please join me next time…

So as you see I really do love January. Now, what am I up to – time for a cup of tea whilst I consult my diary…