If you’ve been around here a while, you might know about my email newsletter and the free short stories I give away to subscribers. If not, then now you do!
I moved my emails over to Substack in May last year and it’s been great, I really like the platform and I’m building a small but brilliant little community over there. If you’re not already part of it, I’d love for you to join us. I email every two weeks (sometimes more often around a release date) with a bit of an update on life and writing, and loads of book recs and bargains. Plus, subs are always the first to hear about sales and get ARCs.
Fancy being part of the gang? Sign up here:
Need a little bit of an incentive? Here’s what you’ll get for signing up to receive Letters from the Fair Realm:
Subscriber free gifts
When you sign up to my fortnightly emails, you’ll get:
A Fair Deception – a short fairytale inspired fantasy romance, loosely based on Cinderella.
A Fair Vendetta – a sapphic short fantasy story about a young woman seeking justice for her parents’ murders.
The Wyvern and the Woodwitch – a short romantic fantasy tale featuring a healer on a mission to find a cure, and an adorable wyvern companion.
Hi friends! I’ve just come home from a 3-night stay in a cosy, secluded cottage with two of my closest author friends, and it was so good for the soul.
We arrived on Friday evening to the beautiful little converted barn, The Cider House, to scented candles filling the house with a gorgeous scent, and a basket of welcome goodies from the lovely hostess.
After we’d settled in, we had dinner and caught up on each other’s lives. Then we wrote, talked about our works-in-progress and our plans for our author careers. It was a perfect evening with two of my favourite humans!
On Saturday, Rhianne and I got up at 6am to write and let Alice have a lie in (we’re all mums to young kids, so sleep is a precious commodity!). We’ve all got word count goals and deadlines to hit, so we sprinted throughout the day, between lots of bouncing ideas around and helping each other fill in plot holes, and find that one perfect word that’s right on the tip of your tongue but keeps eluding you.
We took a long walk through the surrounding countryside after lunch (a lot of snacks were consumed over the course of the weekend!), and Saturday evening was spent in ballgowns and crowns filming TikTok videos!
On Sunday, we had a slightly more chilled day. I slept in until 8.30am and wrote for a while, but by the afternoon we were all ready for a break, so we decided to do a photo shoot and get some new author headshots and content for our socials.
Then we played a few games of Cluedo (there were loads of board games and books provided in the cottage) and had dinner, and then Alice went for a bath, using the lovely aromatherapy oils the hostess had provided, while me and Rhianne chatted and watched a movie.
I wrote for a while after the others had gone to bed to try and hit my word goal for the day. Then on Monday morning we packed up, tidied the cottage and said our goodbyes, before heading home!
It was the perfect mini writing retreat, we all wrote so many words and got over some bumps in our WIPs with each others help. And I think we all left feeling refreshed and reinvigorated for our writing and publishing careers. Or, I did, at least!
If you’re a writer and you’ve got author friends within a few hours drive, I can’t recommend a DIY writing retreat highly enough. Sometimes, being surrounded by other creatives with the same struggles and dreams as you can be exactly what you need to remind yourself you’re not alone on this path. We’re all in it together.
Hello friends, I hope you’re enjoying the festivities and taking the opportunity to look back at everything you’ve achieved this year and feel proud.
Personally, 2022 has been one of the most difficult but rewarding years of my life, and I’m both nervous and excited about what 2023 will bring.
So, here’s an end of year review with (almost) everything I’ve read and written this year (so far, there’s still a few days to go!).
Books I’ve Read in 2022
I read quite a few thrillers this year, as a palate cleanser to all the fantasy I read and write, and because I’m a true crime addict. After I published The Solitary King in January (can you believe that was less than a year ago?!), I was pretty burnt out and just needed a break from fantasy, so I grabbed a few YA thrillers, including One of Us is Next and This Lie Will Kill You, both of which I loved.
I set my Goodreads goal to 36 this year, and so far I’m at 33, with a couple of books and an audio book pretty close to finishing, so I’m hoping to hit my target by 1 January.
If you want to see my full list of books read this year, you can check out my Goodreads Reading Challenge page here. Otherwise, here’s my top five favourite reads of 2022:
I tracked 162,859 words in 2022, but I probably wrote even more, as I didn’t start tracking my words written on StoryOrigin until about May.
This year, I’ve written One Fair Eve, my short story for Enchanted Forests, A Fair Vendetta, my companion novella set in the Fair Realm, and The Fair War, the third and final book in my Fair Chronicles series.
I’m so proud of everything I’ve achieved this year, publishing two full length novels, one novella and two charity anthologies (Enchanted Forests and Once Upon a Name). Plus, the audio book of The Solitary King is currently being quality checked by Audible, so could also be out in 2022 if they pull their socks up!
I’m excited for what 2023 will bring, I’ve been lucky to receive some amazing opportunities that I can’t wait to tell you all about very soon. It’s going to be another really fun and busy year for me, and I hope you’ll all join me for the ride!
What are you proud of achieving this year (or just surviving through – I’m halfway through my husband’s 6 month deployment right now and honestly most days I’m in something even more primal than survival mode, so I feel you)? And what are you most excited for in 2023?
Lyndsey Hall | Author 