Happy New Year, fabulous writers, and this is the tail end ( literally) of a new video book review in Section 5, lesson 43 of the Complete Freelance Writing Course. Ifor, dog, was determined to stay throughout the lesson and kept playing his joke of dropping his kong behind my back on the seat. He’s funnier than I am so I had to let him stay.

Do hope you’ve all had good festive breaks, whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Something I love about this time of the year, is that we often get a chance to browse articles and writing to catch up on news. I was interested to read about Freida McFadden, a hugely successful thriller writer and practising physician, specializing in brain injury, and her amazing bestseller track record. Freida, it turns out, has a terrific website with a very helpful faq section, from her experience starting out as a self-publishing author. Lots of great advice and insights here.

Manifesting, that is the idea that you can use your thoughts to shape reality, has been a fashionable notion over the past few years. But is there any science to it? It certainly seems sensible to me that we can run our brains and give inputs to the circuitry, which make specific opportunity spotting more likely. This episode of the Mel Robbins podcast, features an interview with Stanford neuroscientist Dr James Doty, whose book Mind Magic covers a similar theme.

So whether you start 2025 monkeying about, like Ifor, and, or a strong urge to manifest, Ifor and I wish you joy and progress in your year ahead.