Yep, back from my Christmas mini-break with family and back into it, although I will confess to finding it a tad hard to refind the writing momentum with so many others on holiday around me. Oi! & ack! & all the other attendant exclamations. 😀

NZ’s ‘tree-of-summer’ – Pohutakawa flower close-up

However, having been through this many times before, I know what to do, Chiefly, set the routine and stick with it, rinseing and repeating until refocus is achieved. Plus closing the door and using headphones as required!

Y’know what the closed shutters mean…

In terms of blog routine, this is the time when I list my Top 10 posts for the year that’s ending — but I’m going to have to do things a bit differently this year, because when I compiled my list it was Really Very Clear what readers and followers are interested in. 😉 Namely, book progress updates!

Although I have known this for some time, the fact they’ve been coming thick and fast from mid year(ish) means that the Top 10 basically consists of most (if not all) the updates, plus one “Inside the Revision” post (with a couple more of the same just below the cut-off.)

Not *quite* this much left to go…

So I have decided not to list out all the updates again, particularly as the five most significant precursors are listed in the latest update, on December 22.

I shall, however, give the one outlier in this array of book updates a shoutout. The ninth most-read post of 2025 on “…Anything, Really”, posted on march 14, was (ta-da!):

Gorgeous Words from Charles Dickens

They really are gorgeous, too, so I’m going to post them again, just for your delectation*:

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

~ from Great Expectations (1861)

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* “I know”, I could just have written,  “your enjoyment”, or “your reading pleasure”, but I think “delectation” is a gorgeous word in its own right and deserves a little bloggish time in the sun. 🙂