It’s the end of December, and it’s the end of 2018. I keep a spreadsheet of all my projects, helping me to keep track of word counts and how long each project took. That spreadsheet tells me I edited a staggering 2,092,001 words this year – that feels like reason enough for a bit of time off before getting back into the swing of things in January.

What I’ve been working on

I thought it might be a quiet month in terms of work, what with all the festivities, but I’ve been kept busy with two sizeable fiction proofreads. The first was reminiscent of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, if Alice had been a belligerent middle-aged man. The second was the story of an unhappy Victorian marriage – this was unusual in that it used (with good effect) extracts from diaries, letters and newspapers to tell the story.

What I read for fun

I got through four books in December – it’s a great month for going to bed early but staying up late to read. Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death, by M. B. Vincent, was a perfect cosy read. It made me laugh out loud, it was easy to read (I mean that in a good way), there were the usual comforting clichés, and it had likeable central characters.

I followed Jess Castle with Spellslinger. Sebastien de Castell has written an engaging narrator in Kellan, but Reichis, the foul-mouthed squirrel cat, is the stand-out character for me. Shadowblack, the next in the series, is already in my TBR pile.

Father Christmas gave me a copy of The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris. It’s billed as ‘Horrible Histories for adults’ and I can understand the comparison. As you can probably imagine, there are quite a few stories of unfortunate souls who have stuck things in places they shouldn’t have. The index is a thing of beauty, by the way. I recommend checking it out.

My last read of December was Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas – I read the whole book in one day, so I think we can say I enjoyed it, despite the author’s tendency to describe dresses in great detail. I wasn’t even particularly annoyed by the love triangle.

Looking ahead

Goodbye to 2018. One of my first events in the new year will be lunch with the West Surrey and North Hampshire SfEP local group. I’m very much looking forward to a catch-up with my local edibuddies.

Here’s to a happy and successful new year for us all.