After my abandonment of Andor, I have turned to The Mandalorian. It's been fun so far.

Quote from: Lorri Moulton on January 17, 2026, 11:32:42 AM

Almost forgot Foyle's War.  I wish I'd stopped at the end of WW2 and skipped the cold war.  He's great, but the stories are a little darker.

...had to give up on the Cold War episodes as I didn't like them. Not sure if it was because of the spies or the change of location from Hastings to London, or whether I just needed a change of viewing!

Fan of Foyle's War and his post-war.  Spent a month in Hastings earlier this year and can understand why Foyle fled to London - Hastings is now as it was then beaten up and rundown.  But St Leonards-on-Sea a pleasant stroll away is charming and its shingle beach more inviting, tho' unsure crooks allowed Foyle much beach time.  Reminded me never to look behind what the camera lets me see. 

My Life is Murder is really good.  Have to sign up again to see the new season! 

Recipes for Love and Murder is good, Harry Wild too...and of course Miss Fisher. 

ETA: Almost forgot Foyle's War.  I wish I'd stopped at the end of WW2 and skipped the cold war.  He's great, but the stories are a little darker.

I think my word for 2026 is intentionality.

Writing thousands of words into the void doesn't necessarily help anything. Advertising willy-nilly doesn't always help either. Same goes for a lickety-split publishing schedule.

I'm working on a 'bigger picture' and then making sure that all of my efforts have purpose within that context, including having fun and not burning out.

Wow, I'm impressed by the dedication and discipline of everyone doing their daily word-counts, and dismayed by my lack of the same. I used to be like that - years back I was occasionally writing 5K words to satisfy a deadline - but nowadays motivation is the issue. Mind you, I'm writing and editing all day, and flipping to my own universe of writing isn't easy. Excessive screen time can be fatiguing.

For the record, I've spent 2025 consolidating my existing works, republishing existing books that I've regained the rights to ... and I started writing something new that would fit with my best-performing novels, but I found myself writing to (my own) market and the spark of excitement didn't carry through. It's been shelved for a while. I have plenty of plans and ambitions, some I've mentioned here, it's just hard to get enthusiastic with the obstacles we face for gaining visibility and an audience.

A serious issue for me, and for others I expect, is the ability to check sales and "success" on a daily basis - and even multiple times in a day. It gets discouraging to see results that aren't encouraging, if that makes sense. Sure, I advertise and make sales and KU reads, however it can feel like a hamster wheel of effort that isn't really getting traction. In the past, when I was trad-published (midlist, remember) you often didn't get real sales figures for something like 12 months. You might see an initial print-run on 10,000 books sell out ... awesome! Then the sales-or-return system might kick in and half of those would be remaindered, with allowances for promotions and stuff on top. Not so awesome. But the point is, you'd be living the dream and blissfully writing the next book for a year or so, unaware of whether or not anyone was actually reading your novel.

Now, we can analyse daily sales and even page-counts to the nth degree. And it can take the wind out of your creative sails very easily. It's often a necessary evil if you're running promos and ads, trying to assess if these are effective, so you can't be proactive in promotions and ignore the sales figures.

I know we're not supposed to be writing for "sales" or "success", and it's all about the love of writing regardless. But KDP and self-publishing has opened a Pandora's Box of judgement on our worth and appeal as writers. It's in the graphs, and the figures, and the reviews and ratings.

2025 for me was about trying assess what can and can't be done realistically. 2026 will be about finding some balance between enjoying the creative processes and finding an audience, however large or small, that makes it feel I'm not writing and sending my books into a vacuum.