I hop everyone has had a Happy New Year and festive period. I can’t believe this is 2022 and yet I can so clearly remember 1982! The summer of 2022 will see my 10 year anniversary of writing this blog and as I write this there have been 912,000 visitors to my blog which seems a little excessive for for something I thought I might give up after 2 or 3 weeks.

New Year is of course the time of year many choose to make a resolution and accomplish things although it’s never been my thing Why I did all my New Year Resolutions at Christmas. though some things are always a good idea 🙂 New Year’s Resolutions For Absolutely Everyone!

I remember a year ago everyone else who was generally very well paid and supported through the first year of the Coronavirus epidemic telling me it was all getting quickly better and 2021 would be a getting back to normal year.

And maybe it was for people who only suffered minimum disruption but personally and for many I know in ExcludedUK, 2021 was even worse than 2020 and even government figures show that travel to London in 2021 was 40% down on 2020…. and you can imagine how many people came then!

So whilst I employ my usual strategy of expecting the worst and so anything better than that will be a nice unexpected surprise, I have decided the one thing I do have control of and time for is to write a new book.

I’ve written 2 #1 books during the pandemic so far in wildly different fields which doesn’t so much put on much pressure for the next book but would make me disappointed if it didn’t do well. I know most people write novels, romance, fantasy, horror, adult even but most of that isn’t me and very few people seem to make any success out of them.

My niche seems to be quirky non-fiction bookstand one that has been on my mind for a while is to write a guide book to The Memorial To Heroic Self-Sacrifice At Postman’s Park. It is a small park featuring memorials to those who saved the lives of others (often strangers) but who died in the process. I’ve been wanting to do so for a few years and there is indeed a pretty good book about the people who gave their lives to save strangers but it is a little intense and heavy going. Good for some people but not in any way the sort of book I’d like to write that is accessible to everyone and with a different product in mind.

My book sales are increasing year on year and the good thing about my quirky factual books is that they make perfect gifts in the summer and for Christmas and so seem to be perennial sellers and each time a new book comes out, it adds to the selection. If you have 10 or 15 books that sell quite well then it’s likely to be comparable to one book that sells really well… at least for us mortals who don’t write about boy wizards.

So it’s not a resolution but it’s something I’d like to do before I get busy with tourism again in the spring of 2037. It is hard to get motivated to do anything when your last 2 years have been like mine but we will see what happens. I’m not starting it now so it is in now way shape or form a New Year Resolution!

If you’d like to read about perhaps the most famous memorial in Postmans Park then cast your eyes on Alice Ayres – A Victorian Heroine

Is there anything that you are hoping to accomplish in the year generally rather than a New Year Resolution?