May - I apologise for the delay
I am late, late for a very important date, that date being 1st of May when this newsletter was supposed to be gracing the insides of your inboxes. So what’s the hold up? Honestly the last week of April which is when I normally write the newsletter was crazily busy and now I have Covid (again) and for me Covid is a big deal I’m in a high risk category and have some lung issues from my bout of it in 2020 so this has knocked me off my feet, so I’m writing this in my PJs under a duvet on my sofa whilst being off sick from my new job!
In the spirit of not being completely doom and gloom let me tell you some of the good stuff that happened in April.
I went to see The Mousetrap at the Playhouse in Edinburgh Courtney of my daughter who took me for Mother’s Day. It was a lovely surprise and a great performance which I thoroughly enjoyed. As it was the 70th anniversary they also had some great merch and I got myself a gorgeous notebook and a t-towel
I took a little break in my camper van and went to Anstruther for a long weekend. It was a much needed break and a gorgeous place to visit (I’ll be back for sure). We took long, very blustery walks along the coast, took photographs and decompressed. But the main reason for my trip was to have a small memorial type moment for my dad. Last year in April on his birthday we put his ashes into the water there, as per his request. And it was nice to go back to that spot - well almost the sea was very much rougher than this time last year and we couldn’t get out to the end of the pier without fear of being swept off. We made a donation to the RNLI, a charity that was very important to my dad and then had dinner at The Wee Chippy - which is not the famous one in Anstruther but as I can’t eat gluten it is the best as it has quite an extensive GF menu.
Where am I with writing stuff?
Well I’m going to be honest, I started a new day job in January as you know and I’ve found it really tough getting into a new writing routine, but things are starting to come together.
My plans for 2023 were incredibly ambitious and at this point in the year it would be easy to say I’d already failed, I prefer to think of it as having been challenged, but I don’t mind that. I still plan to publish books 4 and 5 of my Rowan books this year and my as yet untitled Standalone. The original plan had been to have books 4,5 & 6 of Rowan and book 1 of a new series. That’s changed a little but like I said I’ll have 3 books out this year which I’ll be incredibly proud of.
What’s coming up?
The main thing I’ll be working in May is the final things that need to happen to get book out to you all. The after that whilst book 5 is at the editors, I’ll be figuring out what the cover for my Standalone will look like and what the title should be.
And then…well then I’d like to get started on some new writing - having multiple editing projects on the go at one time is a lot and it has meant that I’ve found it very had to start writing anything new. The next thing I plan to write is book 1 of the DI Cara Ravenscroft and I’m really excited about it.
Final Thoughts for the Month
Just a quick thank you to all of you who have been hanging out with me for a couple of years - and an even bigger one to those of you who have been with me since 2016 when I started blogging about my writing, long before I had the guts to start a newsletter. I might not be (I definitely am not) always very good with publishing time lines (I’ll work on it) but I love writing and I love that you are all here for it and me. So let’s hope I manage to achieve all the things and keep everyone happy. Hope May is good to you all.