It’s Christmas! I hope you are well and enjoying the day, or, if you don’t enjoy or celebrate Christmas, then I hope you find time today for something fun, just for you.

It’s also Monday, and, following twenty-four days of the advent calendar, it’s time to actually write something. I like that the last seven days of December start with the first day of the week (I’ve always felt that Monday was day one) as it gives me a chance to try something out. I’ve been blogging every day for a little over two years now. I should say I post a blog every day, as I do schedule quite a few of them in order to manage all the other writing projects. Scheduling sometimes gets me into a bit of bother when I forget to add a link to the original post written prior to a link being available, but, mostly, it works.

A lot of my blogs include photos from the hard drive. Now, I haven’t run out of photos, but when writing an “on this day” post, I can see that the seven years in Greenland only give seven shots at that day. I didn’t always take a photo on that day and even if I did, not all of them were good or relevant, or interesting. For example, the photos we took of five kilos of mouldy cheese on a December day in Qaanaaq to send to the supplier for a refund do not necessarily make for an interesting photo. I am, therefore, in danger of duplicating days, and forgetting which day I have already blogged about.

You get the idea.

So, moving forward, I’m changing things up for 2024. And, in a classic but perhaps cheesy (pun intended) approach, I am giving the days names.

Meta Monday will be my “on writing” day with posts connected to the craft and business of writing and publishing. Anything goes, but it must be related to writing. Them be the rules, folks! So, dear reader, if the gubbins of writing ain’t your thing, then Mondays might not be all that interesting. However, I will post news of book releases if they fall on a Monday, for example, and on other days, too.

But while we’re on the subject of books and publishing, 2023 has been a lousy year. Sales have tanked. And I mean tanked. Posts for Meta Mondays might, therefore, include things like me trying something different and trying to change things up for 2024.

To be honest, my problems with sales pale in comparison to the horrific state of the world’s climate, and the incomprehensible and apparently innate drive for humans to cause harm and suffering upon one another. I’ve kept politics out of my blog, but as I round off this post, I really would like to think that peace on a sustainable earth was achievable, and I’m going to end there, hoping that it is, and wishing you a peaceful Christmas, however you celebrate it (or not).

Chris