Pahaha. As if I look at any of my life in retrospect.

I’ve seen my fair share of retrospective and Top Ten Pics post from people sharing their 2022 highlights, and I’m not necessarily going to lean into that here, but I haven’t posted this since November and today felt like the opportune day for one final update before 2023 beckons.

Though I am, in fact, going to dump a few of my favourite snaps from the year, so brace yourself.

Christmas was nice, if busy, and the coming January promises more of the same. Shadow of the Prow continues to trundle on nicely, and the 50,000 word mark and 100th page of A4 are drawing alarmingly close. That isn’t to say there isn’t a lot more work to do in terms of prep and planning of the second half, but that I’m not particularly worried about the prospect. On the contrary, for once I am feeling alarmingly confident about it.

So confident, in fact, that as of today, the Prologue of the novel is available to download for free here, if you’d like a little taster of what’s to come.

And that is not the only thing worth mentioning. Next year I’ve got a few particular irons in the fire, as well.

I think I’ve mentioned on this blog before about some of my favourite people to follow in the Classics community. This year, however, has been the first year where I’ve had the opportunity to engage with some of them. I’ve been able to meet people like Elodie Harper, Jennifer Saint, Claire North, Natalie Haynes and quite a few more at book events across the year, as you’ve read about in my earlier posts.

I’ve also engaged with quite a few of my favourite content creators online, a world it turns out is much bigger and more populous than you’d think. I can announce now that in January, the lovely Erica Stevenson of Moan Inc fame will be hosting me on her YouTube channel to interview me about Legion That Was, among other things. I’ve been a big-ass fan of Erica’s content for a long time and given how busy her schedule of content is, I’m incredibly excited to finally be sitting down to do it. A lot of bigtime Classical authors have been guests on her channel (among them the names mentioned above, as well as the likes of Susan Stokes-Chapman, Mark Knowles, Daisy Dunn and many others, so the fact I’ve been invited onto a platform they’ve all graced with their presence is… humbling, to say the very least.

In terms of what will follow Shadow – or what, in more obvious reality, might briefly take the place of Shadow for a week or so if I get bored or stuck – I can confirm that I will be writing at least one more short story in the Ironbreakers series between Books I and II. I’m not going to spill much about this at the moment, but what I can tell you that it features Iulus Cascana in quite a major way, and will once again lead into Prince of Knaves once I finally get around to writing the sodding thing.

Beyond that… planning intricately into the future never seems to end well for me, so I’m going to log off now while I still have some mental energy left.

Happy New Year, one and all, and I hope 2023 brings better things for us xx