Sorry the blog has been a little sparse of late, but when I began my career break I thought I’d have all the time in the world for writing. It turns out I don’t know how I ever had the time to work at all!
So, a brief update on the writing side of my life, to excuse my seeming tardiness in posting. The memoir “Has The Lady Been Yet,” about my experiences caring for my mum when she was diagnosed with dementia is complete, and off with my editor and cover designer, and is planned for release this December. It’s quite a departure from my other writing, but hopefully the contents will be of interest and help to others in the same situation, or to anyone who has a friend of colleague going through that difficult journey.
Eight short stories have been revised and sent out to magazines and competitions. No acceptances yet, though there was a longlist from the wonderful https://crankedanvil.co.uk/ which was encouraging, and four yet to be announced. The revisions to the stories have made them so much better too, so the effort wasn’t wasted.
In my previous life I created a number of children’s picture books for a friend, so these will be hitting the shelves under a pen name at the end of the year (just waiting for the first proofs) and I’ll post on this adventure soon too.
Finally, I’ve started the plotting and first few thousand words of the next novel planned for publication, under the tentative title of “Glass Onion”. This is my ‘go to’ draft title, and has been used half a dozen times before, so don’t expect it to be the finished name. This should be enjoyable but challenging to write, as for the first time I’m doing detailed plotting in advance of the actual writing. Hopefully this will mean a shorter editing process for me than usual, as my usual method means extensive re-writes are always needed to properly link and smooth the story into a coherent whole. This time I know what will happen up to the last page already, which is novel. I shall post on where I’m up to with this soon.
So that’s my excuse for not posting, I haven’t been lazy, honest! Normal (ish) service will resume soon.
Stay safe,
Kit