End of year blog 2025
Today is the last day of 2025; time to reflect, to look back, and to look forward. My year has been a mixture of highs and lows, although I
prefer to think of the latter as ‘not so high’. There are two significant
highs, one of which was my trip to Atlanta to help celebrate our 5th
great-grandson, Elliott’s first birthday. The other was a long weekend in
Prague to help our Grandson, Adam, celebrate his 40th birthday. Both
events were helped by the addition of several members of the Parker family. In
Atlanta, they came from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In Prague, the same crowd
turned up, plus others from Scotland and, of course, England. It isn’t necessary
to name them all, but in Atlanta, there were five of us to help swell the
numbers, and in Prague, there were an additional twelve. Brilliant. My trip to
Atlanta included a ball game — Baseball at the home of the Atlanta Braves. I
thoroughly enjoyed it but didn’t have a clue what was going on, not that it
mattered.
The Prague visit in December was an eye-opener. I’ve told
people that the place was like a Netflix Christmas RomCom; there were Christmas
decorations everywhere. I stayed in an upmarket Airbnb with my family and the
baby, Elliott. I did a lot of walking, had some tram rides, and a River Cruise.
And the weather was sublime. All in all, a lovely time.
The ‘not so highs’ were really all about my health. It
seemed to go downhill after my Atlanta trip. It could have been my age or the
fact that my lifestyle changed considerably for a couple of weeks, enough to
knock me for six. But what the hell, I recovered. It took time, but I got
there. Until Prague! It’s almost de rigeur these days that airline
travel will come with some kind of bug, and that’s what happened to me. It took
two consecutive courses of antibiotics to get rid of my chest infection. But I am
back to normal now. Well, my kind of normal.
The run-up to Christmas was very busy and, I have to admit,
made me a bit downbeat at times. But that’s all down to my age and lengthy
recovery periods. Now that it has passed, I can look ahead to some unhurried
routine stuff (after taking down the decorations and tidying up!).
In my world of books, I achieved a few high points, which
put a huge smile on my face. My WW2 story, Shadow Over Paris, started
taking off once I advertised it on Facebook in March. It reached the top 10 in
Historical French Fiction and managed to creep high up into the top 100 of
Historical Fiction. And to finish the year off, Amazon chose to promote it for
the whole of December in America and Canada at no cost to me. That will finish
today as will my own promotion for the UK.
Another high in my book world was finishing the Sequel: ShadowOver Paris – Beyond Midnight. It has been out for two months now and is
picking up sales and page reads, chasing its big brother up the charts.
But then comes a ‘Not so high’ — I’ve decided to give up
writing. I made the decision after publishing the Sequel because I found it
such hard work that I wondered if I would ever get to the end. And now I seem
to have run out of steam and inclination. I realise that I will never achieve
what the majority of writers aspire to, and that is bestseller status. I know
that if I were to achieve that, a lot of people would want a piece of me, want
me to do a speaking event and book signings, etc., which would mean travel.
Interviews? Expectations? It isn’t difficult to imagine, but at my age (I’m
84), that isn’t what I want. I might have done twenty years ago, but not now; I
just need a quiet life. (But we’ll see).
So, what’s to come for Michael Parker next year? There are
two significant events: Taryn in America is expecting and due to have her baby
in April. That will be our sixth great-grandchild. I’m planning to go to
Atlanta in July for Elliott’s second birthday and to see the baby. I’m not
concerned about how tiring it will be; I just want to be there. And the other
significant event for me is our Grandson, Adam, and his fiancée, Agata’s wedding
in August. Agata has asked me to walk her down the aisle, which I will be
honoured to do. I’ve got to keep fit for that — no health issues.
I will be planning some kind of advertising for my WW2 books
in 2026, but I will need to keep a close eye on the cost. My campaigns this
year saw me running at a small loss each week while the campaigns were running,
but the aim was to push the books and my name. The result meant that once the
campaigns had finished, the books, including some of my other titles, managed to
garner sales and page reads, leaving me in profit for the year and put a big
smile on my face.
So, that’s my offering for what has passed and what might
come. And you never know, I night even become a best-selling author. Really?. Wish me luck
Happy New Year to all of you, even those who have given me
one-star reviews (at least you bought my book!). See you in 2026.
Michael Parker
