The end of the year is upon us, and thus the moment has come for my annual count of all the things I've failed to achieve since this time last year. Only, right now I don't feel like beating myself up over what I have or (mostly) haven't done. OK, I didn't write anything like every day (which was my one aim for 2012). OK, so my writing has mostly taken a back seat this year. But you know what? Some pretty amazing other stuff has happened.

The main event, of course, was the birth of my first child. And what a life-changing event it's been. In fact, in terms of sheer impact, I can't think of anything else I've done that even comes close. Leaving home? Pah. Getting married? A mere blip in comparison. Sometimes I've felt like the real-world equivalent of an orphaned farm boy being given a sword and told to go out and kick some Dark Lord butt: dazed, confused and battling with something way out of my comfort zone. The only difference is, I'm loving it* … when I'm not wandering around in a state of sleep-deprived zombification.

The arrival of Baby Smith also resulted in an explosion of pushchairs, play mats and various other brightly coloured contraptions we'd been told were indispensable to his well-being. Once we got to the point where we couldn't remember what colour our carpets were, we decided it was time to move. As a consequence, not only will I be starting 2013 in a larger family, I'll also be starting it in a larger house. Yay for super-sizing!**

On the writing front, I may not have got very far with any of my works-in-progress or found much time for querying my finished manuscripts. But I have managed to write blog posts on a semi-regular basis, which is something. I've welcomed guests here, appeared on their blogs in turn, and started a new weekly interview series – plus I also completed the A to Z Challenge in April. Not much, perhaps, but at least I haven't forgotten how to string words together in a logical order (despite how it seemed just after Baby Smith was born).

So there you have it: 2012. A year of change for me, but how was it for you? Please feel free to share your achievements with me in the comments section – both great and small. Because, as I've discovered this year, the little successes can sometimes make you feel just as good as the big ones.



* That, and I'm not going to save the world by changing nappies.

** I probably won't be so happy about it when I realise that I'm also starting 2013 with a larger proportion of fat. Damn Christmas chocolates.

Welcome to Barren Island Books, an interview show in no way related to a popular music-based radio programme. Every Thursday, I will be exiling my latest guest to a remote island with only five books for company, selected from the categories I give them. It’s up to them to make sure they choose wisely, because they’re going to be stuck with these books for a long, long time …

My interviewee this week is Evangeline Jennings, an author whose work veers from YA to erotica and on to harrowing tales of bloody revenge. She’s a founding member of the Pankhearst collective, and will shortly be publishing an anthology of themed short stories and novellas by collective members called Cars & Girls. When she's not being banished to a barren island, Evie can be found at www.facebook.com/evangeline.jennings and 
revangeline.wordpress.com. You can read about Pankhearst at pankhearst.wordpress.com.

If you've been keeping up with the blog over the past few weeks then you may have noticed that I'm trying to give the ol' place a bit more structure (read: be more organised with my topics so I have at least some chance of posting regularly). The first Sunday of the month is when I reflect on personal matters; the second is for book recommendations; the third is for showcasing some of my own work; and the fourth – which is where we are now – is for musings on the art of writing. And not only that, but the related art of editing.

Those of you who are somewhat acquainted with me will know that when I'm not battling with Baby Smith or attempting to blog on a regular basis, I work full time as an editor. I haven't discussed this a great deal previously, but it strikes me that although I work in non-fiction, some of my experience might be of use to authors of all kinds. Which is why I'm now going to talk to you about proofreading – and more specifically, why today's writer needs it more than ever.

A proofreader is paid less than a copyeditor, and this is due to the level of artistic skill required. A good copyeditor should be thoroughly involved with the text. She should be able to suggest improvements to infelicitous sentences, eliminate word echoes, and highlight points at which the narrative fails to flow smoothly. She should notice when character X has brown eyes on one page and blue on another. While wider structural edits – plot, pace, character development – don't fall within her remit, she is very much in charge of the details. Consistency is the copyeditor's superpower.

A proofreader's job, on the other hand, is far more technical. The proofreader doesn't care about style (though proofreaders are often also copyeditors and, if you're lucky, may point out an awkward sentence or two the copyeditor missed). Instead, a good proofreader will flag up any misspellings, missing apostrophes and other punctuation/grammar issues; in short, anything that's an error rather than a stylistic choice. He will also – and this is the key point I'm getting to here – mark up problems with the layout and presentation of the text.

The role of the proofreader harks back to the days of typesetting, when the physical process of laying out the text for printing could introduce all kinds of errors, even after the book's content was signed off and completed. Nowadays, of course, everything is done on computer and (depending on the layout package being used) what you see is pretty much what you get. If your proofreader spots a mistake in your final laid-out-for-print manuscript, chances are it was there all along … except when it comes to ebooks.

In some ways, ebooks have taken us back to the error-prone days of manual print layout. Some ebooks have been scanned from printed texts, which is by no means a foolproof process and can result in a range of nonsensical word substitutions. Others contain characters that aren't recognised by one conversion program or another (ever seen a bunch of digits where there should be a dash or an accented character?). Even ebooks of new titles – which presumably haven't had to go through the trauma of being converted from an older format – often fall down when it comes to anything unusual, whether in content or in layout.

So here, finally, is my point. The proofreader's job is to view your text as your readers are going to view it – and with the rise of digital books, that means quite a few different ways. There's no point proofreading your print copy and leaving your ebooks to fend for themselves, because errors could have been introduced in the conversion process. Certainly the layout will be different in each format and needs checking. Yet despite the self-evidence of this statement, I can't count the number of ebooks I've read – produced by large, well-known publishers – in which the layout has been poor. Spacing and indentation of paragraphs, breaks before chapters, presentation of lists or columns: all these things can go wrong. You can't assume that anything other than simple block text (and sometimes not even that) can be poured into a new format without the need for tweaking.

So, indie authors, I beg you: proofread your ebooks. Get someone to read them in each of the final formats you want to make available. That way, you'll impress all of your audience, not just the part of it that likes print. Not only that, but you'll be ahead of many of your fellow authors – and quite a few established publishers as well.

Welcome to another new monthly slot, the Sunday Showcase. (You can tell I've been trying to become more organised recently, can't you?) In this one, my intention is to share some of my work with you: bits of finished books, pieces of up-and-coming projects, maybe the odd poem or two. If I get enough interest, I might even turn this slot into a serial story. But for now, here's an excerpt from the very beginning of Dawn Rising in which Alyssia has been asked to describe her earliest memory. I'd love to know what you think. What did you like? What didn't you? Would you want to read more?

Welcome to Recommended Reads! In this new monthly slot, I'm going to be recommending a book or books I've read recently. There are so many good books out there, and sometimes I want to do more than just fire off a tweet about them – so hopefully this will help me spread the word about the ones I've enjoyed the most.

Welcome to Barren Island Books, an interview show in no way related to a popular music-based radio programme. Every Thursday, I will be exiling my latest guest to a remote island with only five books for company, selected from the categories I give them. It’s up to them to make sure they choose wisely, because they’re going to be stuck with these books for a long, long time …

My interviewee this week is Kay Kauffman, author of The Lokana Chronicles. When she's not being banished to a desert island, Kay can be found at suddenlytheyalldied.com.