New Year Inspiration from a complete stranger

Sometimes it’s easy to know what to blog about: my cooking disasters, my animal family, the progress of my latest writing project. Sometimes inspiration does not strike. What, I wonder, will I write for my first post of the new year? What have I done? Spent time writing, plotting, editing. I’ve been to the gym, ridden my horse, walked the dogs. Christmas has come and gone.

Should I, I wonder, post about my writing plans for the year? Not very different from my plans at the same time last year. Or my resolutions, they’re the same as last year.

Then, scrolling through Facebook, I found exactly the right thing to post about.

I’ve been writing since I was a child and it has been my job in various forms since 1998. I love the whole process as much now as I did in the beginning, from the first flash of inspiration to the grim determination to get the piece finished and then the dogged slog of editing. Once the book, or article is finished it is published and then it’s gone from my mind. Reviews are really useful for book sales as they given a potential buyer an idea of the quality of the book. Some authors read theirs obsessively. I don’t. I feel I’m far more of a cruel critic of my writing than any reader could be.

 I do occasionally get lovely messages from readers who have enjoyed a book enough to get in touch to say so. It’s those messages that really make my day when I receive them and whose comments make all the hours of hard work worth it.

Last year I was asked to donate one of my books as a prize to a Facebook group for lovers of crime fiction.  I sent the book to the winner, received a note of thanks for it and then forgot about it.

Yesterday I was delighted to find a post, to the group, from the winner of the book which said ‘Earlier in the year I won this from Louise Broderick - Author but it only worked its way to the top of my TBR pile this week. What a brilliant read, harsh, dark and gritty, I loved it.’

Even as a writer, it is hard to put into words the absolute delight I felt, reading those words. Amongst all of the thousands of books I sell a year, it made my day to have someone enjoy a book enough to want to tell others about it. It made it extra special for the message to appear on New Year’s Day. Somehow something good happening on New Year’s Day seems to set the standard for the year. It made me look forward to getting back to working on my new book and it gave me something to base my blog on! And just in case you’d like to read the book here is a link to it. Happy New Year everyone.