Hello! I’m afraid I’m going off on another non-game show related tangent again this week… (we’ll get to the end of the Mark Humphries interview next week, I promise!) … but this sort of thing doesn’t happen every day.

As I may have mentioned before, last year, I decided to finally make a serious attempt at writing my first novel. Like many people, I’d been wanting to write a novel for many years, but I never wanted to be one of those people that just leaves it at that.

So, last May, in an effort to keep myself focussed, on track, and accountable to this big goal, I broke it down into a series of smaller goals. Namely, I resolved to write one chapter of the novel every week for 52 weeks, posting a new chapter online – here – each Friday at noon.

And now, one year later, it’s done. Admittedly, it’s only a first draft, and I do have an awful lot of editing ahead of me, but the 52 chapters of the novel have now been written. It’s a rollicking, swashbuckling, science fiction, space pirate adventure, and I’m calling it:

It’s a project that’s obviously been occupying my mind a lot over the past year, and reaching the end of it (or the end of the first phase of it, anyway) seemed to me to be something worth celebrating. So, you know…

Cheers!

Quite apart from anything else, the whole endeavour was a valuable learning experience. And it did remind me of that really important life lesson – which I think also applies to ANY game show related quest (at last, he’s stumbled back on to what this blog is supposed to be about)… if a goal is daunting, break it down in to smaller goals. Then you’ll achieve them, one small step at a time… and before long, odds are you’ll glance back over your shoulder and be amazed at how far you’ve come.

Sure, this may seem only tangentially related to getting on game shows and winning them, but I have written about this on the blog before, and I really believe it bears repeating – it’s such a powerful idea.

And speaking of game shows (about time, too!) next week, I’ll see you back here for the conclusion of my epic interview with Pointless host Mark Humphries.

But before that (this Thursday, in fact) I’ll be doing the Sleep at the ‘G (at home), to raise funds to help homeless youth. I’m very aware that times are tough, but if you are able to help out by sponsoring me, for any amount, it would be deeply, deeply appreciated.

The link to the page where you can do that is: https://sleepatthegcommunity2020.everydayhero.com/au/stephen

or you can simply click HERE.

Thank you so much!