Nikki Moore: What does New Year mean to you?

Welcome to Nikki Moore with our final blog post of 2014. A time for reflecting back on what has happened over the past year and forward to what’s in store for 2015.

I’m the kind of person who always makes New Year’s resolutions. They usually involve being healthier (going to the gym/changing my diet/cutting down on the amount of white wine I drink) or achieving certain writing or personal goals. Like most people, I’ve usually forgotten what my resolutions were by March, let alone succeeded in keeping them twelve months later...

I wonder if it’s because we make resolutions that are too aspirational, or unrealistic? After all, people can’t change overnight, nor can they change their habits from one day to the next. It’s all about small steps over time.

To me New Year has always been a time of new beginnings, an opportunity to put aside all the bad things that might have happened in the past year, and look to the future.

It’s certainly something that Frankie, the heroine in book two of my #LoveLondon series New Year at the Ritz wants. The last year hasn’t been good for her and she can’t wait for a fresh start. So giving her a journey - a romantic scavenger hunt across Knightsbridge - and two men to choose from, one from her past and one from her present, to go into the future with, felt right for the story.

While writing New Year at the Ritz, I realised that everything that happens in your life, good or bad, makes you who you are. It’s all part of your life story. Zack tells Frankie that, ‘sometimes to go forward, you have to look back.’ I think that’s true. So I thought back over the last year. What did 2014 hold for me?

On a personal front it meant the sale of the family home, moving house, my daughter moving school, divorce, and a new relationship. And writing wise, it’s been massive. I went from unpublished writer to published author. My first paid story appeared in the RNA anthology Truly, Madly, Deeply which was a bestseller on Amazon in November, followed by two short stories in the Be My Valentine anthology. My debut novel Crazy,Undercover,Love (which went through the RNA New Writers’ Scheme) was published as an ebook by the wonderful HarperImpulse in April and paperback in September. More recently, the #LoveLondon series was launched with Skating at Somerset House, followed by New Year at the Ritz on 22 December.

Three more short stories and a full length novel will follow in 2015, to finish off #LoveLondon, so it’s going to be a busy year!

 

 

Thank you, Nikki and good luck for your busy year ahead.

Natalie and I would like to thank all contributors to the blog during 2014 and also the thousands of readers who popped by to visit and enjoy our interviews and articles. If you would like to contribute during 2015 please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

 We wish you all a happy, healthy and successful 2015

Elaine & Natalie  

xx