My December review against plan is as follows:

  • Get chapters 2, 3 and 4 of my book into first draft form at approximately 5000 words each. Pitch book proposal to 3 further agents. I didn’t achieve this but have made good progress. Chapters 2 and 3 are close to completion and I have sketched out chapter 4. I’m holding off on further pitching until chapters 1 to 3 are ready to share.
  • 1000 words of new nature writing, over and above my book chapters.  I achieved this by a combination of writing pieces to contribute to a student anthology and the final four Sunday Nature Worship entries which completes the 52 I’ve blogged in 2020.
  • 4 pitches (or competition entries). I sent five pitches this month, two of which were accepted.
  • 700 Twitter followers (up from 606) I now have 644 followers with most of the increased achieved by tweeting a question asking for examples of when people’s work was interrupted by spotting birds.
  • 45 followers for this blog (up from 39) Yes achieved.
  • Botany learning plan to support book writing: Carry on testing on plant family flashcards, add in botany terminology flashcards and species photo flashcards. I’m still really enjoying working on families and their key features and going on flower-hunting expeditions. I’ve added in 100 species testing photos and will carry on adding to this in January.
  • Anything else? I also delivered my first online nature-writing workshop this month which was lots of fun and led to published blog anthology of the participants’ work. I drafted a grant application which is now out for consultation with the partner organisation I’m hoping to work with. I had a photograph of grass short-listed in a photo competition. And finally I blog-posted my first monthly nature-writing newsletter.

My January plan is as follows:

  • Finish off chapters 2, 3 of my book and draft chapter 4. Pitch book proposal to further literary agents
  • 1000 words of new nature writing, over and above my book chapters.  Include in this the conservation article I’m working on, pieces for my Suburban Wild Diary and Wildflower-watch posts.
  • 4 pitches (or competition entries) two achievable, two aspirational
  • 700 Twitter followers (up from 644)
  • 50 followers for this blog (up from 45)
  • Botany learning plan to support creative writing: Create all the species flashcards I’ve planned to make and get into a testing rhythm.
  • Anything else? Publish my January nature-writing newsletter. Submit two grant applications.