A Reflection on 2023 with WriteWatchWork

Today is the final day of 2023 and what a year it has been.

The New Year of 2024 has arrived with tomorrow being the first of January. The past year has felt like it's flown by despite each day being 24 hours.

But it has been a great year.

Looking back, I don't have many regrets in life and I can safely say that I have no regrets from 2023.

This year has been filled with happiness and success but also challenges and obstacles along the way. The beginning of 2023 wasn't a great start to the new year as I was very unwell but once I got January out the way, it turned out to be a much better 11 months than I anticipated.

As it's the end of the year, I wanted to share my yearly round-up full of highlights from the 12 months. So here goes...

My professional highlights

Finished Level 1 of my degree

My degree is quite unusual compared to the traditional university route as I'm studying part-time online. For my degree, there are three levels I have to complete with numerous assignments and formal assessments.

But earlier this year, I finished Level 1 of my degree. Currently, I'm nearing the end of the first course for Level 2, but I'm really proud of how I've done so far because I passed each course within Level 1 with good grades and also a new love for scriptwriting.

There is still more for me to do but I'm really happy so far and I've met lots of amazing people along the way too!

Interviewed two authors

For WriteWatchWork, I was able to interview two authors this year, Cressida McLaughlin and Chelsie Hart.

Cressida is one of my favourite authors - all her books are so good - and Chelsie is actually a new author for me this year, but I loved her debut novel.

Interviewing Cressida and Chelsie meant a lot because I'm an aspiring author and I just felt very grateful to be able to talk to them both about their careers and the craft of creating a novel.

Reached over 350 articles for FormulaNerds

This year marks two and a half years since I joined FormulaNerds as a journalist. Since October 2021, I have not only written lots of articles, but been a part of the podcast and am now the Deputy Editor-in-Chief.

But 2023 is a great year because whilst I never attended a race, I did write lots of articles which means I have written over 350 articles for FormulaNerds. These include features, news articles, race reports and exclusive interviews.

Interviewing the F1 Academy Champion

F1 Academy began this year and I have been lucky enough to be a part of the drivers' journies, speaking to them before and after race weekends.

But a highlight has to be when I interviewed Marta García, who became the first-ever F1 Academy Champion.

My personal highlights

Turning 22

2023 saw me turn 22, so I'm officially in my Taylor Swift era. My birthday is always a highlight of the year for me because I get to celebrate with family and friends and it makes me realise just how lucky I am to have such special people in my life.

A Trip to Dublin

My sister and I went away for a couple of days with our cousins to Dublin. It was the first time we'd been to the city and it was lovely.

We explored some of the culture, saw some of the sights, did some shopping and just had a great time as a family.

We'd never been away somewhere like that before, so it was really good to just spend time together.

Reunited with family

I have family that live further up north and I have family who lives on the other side of the world in New Zealand. But this year, I was able to see them all.

Family is the most important thing to me so to be able to reunite with those I haven't seen in a while just makes me smile and it's definitely a highlight of my year.

Brands Hatch

As someone who works in motorsport and loves racing, I've actually only ever been to two race tracks. One is Silverstone and the other circuit to is Brands Hatch. I went in April with my motorsport-loving friend, who runs IntoTurn1.

We watched the BTCC there and it was so much fun. It absolutely poured it down and we were soaked, but it was a highlight of my year.

Reached 30k words of my novel

This year I completed NaNoWriMo and whilst I didn't reach the 50,000 words of the challenge, I did manage to write each day of November. Some days I wrote only 200 words and others I wrote over 1000.

But in total, I now have over 30k words of my dystopian/fantasy novel. I can't quite believe I have that much so I'm very happy to continue adding to the word count in 2024.

Karting with my Dad

My dad and I went karting this year at Teamsport Harlow. It my first time getting into a kart and I'd say that's probably the most difficult part of karting - getting in and out of the kart.

The racing was so much fun and I'm thankful to have videos and photos of our time at the track. It was such a good day and I loved it!

London Christmas Lights

Now this is the most recent highlight because it happened about two weeks ago. My sister and I visited London to go to the Christmas markets and see all the Christmas lights across the city.

We had such an amazing time and really enjoyed ourselves. We were very tired afterwards but it was worth it. We'd never done something like that before so to spend a day together in London, just exploring was really fun.

And with my main highlights of the year listed above, I wish you all a Happy New Year and thank you for sticking with me throughout this past year!

Until 2024...