Reflections and what’s next…
How is it the 1st August already? ((Well, we have this thing called a calendar. It’s been around for a while…)) Oh, someone is feeling sarcastic as usual. Don’t think you’re forgiven for last months blog takeover.
It feels as if it was months ago that I was whizzing around at Newark Book Festival. All those months of planning with the team and in four days it was all done! I was absolutely shattered after working and socialising around 12 hours days but the whole team and the volunteers were amazing and judging by the feedback in my inbox, everyone had an amazing time, so I think those 3am stress out moments were worth it!
Sadly, these four wonderful booky days were followed by a funeral for a good friend but in true style, it was a celebration of his life and as seems to happen now as you get older, it tends to be weddings or funerals where you finally catch up with people you’ve been meaning to see for months and years.
As I was so busy I didn’t have time to worry about my book launch event and before I knew it I was sitting in the Tudor Hall with my good friend, Maria interviewing me and about fifty people in the audience as I waffled about my writing life and new book, One Step Ahead. ((poor people I bet most of them were asleep)) I was a bit nervous when we started but soon settled into it. I couldn’t have imagined doing something like this years ago, so it shows how much my confidence has grown. I even had a ‘proper’ book signing queue. Also a few people wanted to chat more about the books they are working on. I ended up selling out of my copies of One Step Ahead and sold a few of my other books.
I was planning on developing a mentoring programme for authors ((Oh lord have mercy! Don’t do it people. Do not do it. It’s a cult. I’m warning you)) and also a selection of writing workshops once we are back at our winter mooring in Warwick. It’s still very difficult to work from the boat with the wi-fi and continuous cruising but I’m going to hopefully organise a few sessions with the people I met at book launch before then to see if I can help them with their journey , which is very exciting.
Now I’m back at the boat and the festival is finished baring a few admin jobs to tie up, I’m back to working on my psychological thriller ((FINALLY!)) and I’m really enjoying getting stuck into a full edit and preparing it ready to go back out into the submission world. I’ve found an agent which I’m going to send my details to. For those not in the know, an agent means you generally have access to the bigger publishing houses for future novels as normally they wouldn’t accept looking at a manuscript from an unagented author. But as you will know if you’re a regular reader of my blog there is also a specific publisher I’m also going to submit the novel to so we will see what happens. I’m hoping to have the book finished by mid-august and then it’s in the hands of the Gods what will happen.
Once this is done I’m going to work on the mentoring and writing workshops I’ve mentioned ready to promote those for November. We also have some other work planned for the winter but we haven’t signed on the dotted line yet. Also some of my books might be on the move to a new bookshop but I cannot share too much on that at the moment. ((Oh great update that is.))
Right as the summer storm kicks off in earnest, I’m off to crack on with my novel… wish me luck!
Peachy. x
