Hello, 2026 and wishing you all the best for this new year.
While the holiday season is over, it’s still Christmas in my world as I’m working on edits for two seasonal books.
One is A Small Town Family Christmas (September 2026), third in my Jen Gilroy Strawberry Pond sweet contemporary romance miniseries for Harlequin Heartwarming.
The other is A Christmas Proposal (August 2026), second in my WW2 British home front historical women’s fiction series writing as Rose Warner.
Despite being much different stories, the editing process is similar—and a lot like decluttering which I’m also doing this January.
As a writer, learning to edit your work is an important part of craft. However, self-editing is only the first step and before my books are published, they also go through multiple phases of external editing. These editors, who haven’t seen the manuscript before, read for big structural issues (characters, plot and story flow), as well as inconsistencies, timeline (no fourteen-month pregnancies!) and spelling and grammar.
Working on edits at all these stages helps me make a book the best it can be for readers.
But in the end, all editing has a fundamental goal: To replace or rework what doesn’t suit the story and make it stronger.
In A Small Town Family Christmas, a second-chance/reunion romance, I’m digging deeper into my hero’s character and what makes him tick—while also reducing duplication in words, names and Christmas music. For example, there’s no need for three instances of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
For A Christmas Proposal, the story of a British teacher evacuated with her pupils to the English countryside at the start of the Second World War, I’m adding a short scene and developing an existing one.
The new scene enhances a crucial plot point, the ‘Christmas Proposal’ from the title.
And developing a scene I’ve already written brings other characters ‘on stage’, raising the emotional stakes for the heroine.
So what do all these things have to do with domestic decluttering?
In the wake of the holiday season, as I go through closets, drawers, cupboards and bookshelves, I’m also removing what no longer suits my life and home and paring back to the essentials.
I’ve recently donated four bags to a local thrift store/charity shop with several more in progress.
I’m passing along other items via my town’s free site and neighbourhood Little Free Libraries.
Just as my books work better thanks to editing, so too are my home and wardrobe benefiting from paring down and limiting duplication.
Also like editing, sometimes decluttering means replacing—which is why Tech Guy has a new potato ricer on order.
There’s a limit, though.
There’s no such thing as too many cardigans!
Since I like and wear all of them, what’s the problem?!
We are also decluttering, starting with the basement. Since it hasn’t had a good clear-out in over a decade, the time has definitely come and gone…a long time ago!