Hope in the New Decade

Christmas and general elections really upset my mojo and blogging routine but I have strategies for dealing with that, and for holding on to hope in 2020.

I'm doing this by taking action:

• Eating less or no meat

• Changing to a renewable energy supplier

• Not using air travel.

• Walking, or using public transport.

• Generally consuming less, much less shopping!

• Checking out the charity shops first, before buying new clothes

• Making, revamping, repairing

• Using ecosia.org, the tree planting search engine

• Trying my best not to buy plastic - this is the hardest!

• Supportting 4ocean.com

• Signing petitions, calling MPs to account (though Alan Whitehead (LAB) in Southampton Test is really good. Protesting when I can, #resisting

and

• WrIting stories about brave and resourceful young people who stand up to evil.

I am so pleased to be doing the last. Firstly creating new stories is great for my own mental health. It's wonderful to be, in your head at least, in a world you can control. And then sharing this world with young readers is extra wonderful.

This term I've been continuing the distribution of copies to Southampton schools and did my first visit last Monday. Three year six classes, one after the other, before lunch. There we're lots of things I forgot to do - the main one was get permission for photos but as I was feeling really unsure about how it was going to go, I know I couldn't have handled photos as well. However it was a BIG thank you to the first group for their patience while I got in to my stride and grappled with technology. It was brilliant to go immediately to the next session and the next by which time the nerves were dissolving and I started feeling really comfortable back in the classroom.

I'm so grateful to Valentine Primary for taking a chance on me and a BIG thank you to Camilla Chester and Debbie Edwards for their brilliant advice, tips and ideas, for school visits - they really worked guys!

I'm now nervously waiting to see if the school has any feedback...

Also on my list this month is persuading some more Independent bookshops to take copies - those that did have sold out! If you live near an indie bookshop who might be persuaded to take copies, please let me know. If I'm in town anyway or they're not too far away, I actually love spending a a Saturday afternoon doing some real live selling.

And TWG2 - the story is made. I've started pulling it into shape so that some one other than me can read it!. I'm looking for a progress bar app to put on the home page so visitors can see how I'm doing. My plan is to to raise the funds to publish it via Kickstarter.

SO back to hope, let's keep a firm grip on it in 2020 by doing stuff and resisting.

If you haven't before, have ago at writing a story – it works wonders for me. A podcast that I love is trying to get people writing too – 200 words a day, which are few enough to do in 2O minutes before I take the dog out but many enough to create the first draft of a novel by the end of the year. I'm using this BXP2020 challenge to finish a story for older readers that I've had simmering away for a while now. The afternoons in theory belong to TWG 2. With an ambitious deadline of publishing this year, I'm not being as productive as I should be so please nag me about it!

Thanks so much for reading!

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