Next

The summer turned into one long-held breath for me, working on bits and pieces and waiting for the US release of Blackfin Sky, and for schools to go back so that I could start up again with the talks and visits and so on. And then September rolled around, and it was my US RELEASE and ALL THE EXCITEMENT, and then again I disappeared back into my writing cave to become a feral writer.

That, by the way, was my long-winded way of saying 'Oops, I haven't posted an update in over a month.' Sorry. My bad.

I went to visit a book club today in a little village about an hour away from where I live, and I hadn't a clue what to expect before I got there (I wasn't even sure whether it was an English-speaking or Welsh-speaking group, but I was braced for either). But the whole group were lovely, and had a bunch of great questions already lined up, and some real brain-stretchers too.

There were better pictures than this, but I quite like how randomly windswept I look.
I have this weird expectation that one day I'll be invited to speak to a group just so they can tear me to shreds, but -- spit three times and spin in a circle for luck -- it hasn't happened yet. Maybe next time...

Speaking of this intangible 'next', what else will I be doing from now on?

Well, hopefully some more groups and visits, but what I'm mainly looking forward to is getting really stuck into WRITING. I know, shocker. And didn't I just say that's what I've been doing all summer? Well, yes, but that was polishing off a now-polished manuscript, and I can't not have a story to work on.

So now I have 2.

I'm breaking one of my own decrees here (THOU SHALT NOT DOUBLE-DIP THE MANUSCRIPT INK or something), but there are 2 stories jostling around inside my sticky brain, and I've gotten into a situation where I can't set either aside. This isn't any big thing for most writers, but I'm generally very single- (simple?) minded about things like this, so working on 2 manuscripts at the same time is like leaping into the abyss. Or something less dramatic than that, but still.

And as always, I've self-imposed a ridiculous deadline, so I'm not even going to commit to a finish date in this public space. But I'm aiming for The Fast and the Furious-style productivity.

I'll try to be a bit better at posting here now, but if not, please assume it's because I'm being authorly (and not just watching X Factor repeats).

Kat out for now x