OK, I realise I haven’t updated this for a very long time. The trouble is once I am really deep into a book other stuff seems to recede in importance and unless I am reminded by someone I forget. (memo to PA, this is part of your job). It has been a frenzied summer yet again, writing against the clock to meet a revised deadline so that we can still publish next July. Which I understand we can. What a relief!
Having had the ms read by publisher, editor and agent I now have a window of sorts to respond to their queries and suggestions, re read it and fill in all those gaps I had left in order to check out the historical facts from the two periods involved, visit some of the sites of the action which I hadn’t got round before to because there wasn’t time, check out the natural history of the settings in October when the three parallel stories happen and start to prepare stuff for the website next year when the new novel , working title, River of Destiny, appears.
The book is set in Suffolk which I know well and where we used to live, so there is no excuse for getting things wrong – perhaps this is why I didn’t feel I needed check until the last minute. We have also taken lots of pics to go on the website . Plus some rather rocky bits of video which I took by mistake with my new phone and show how much the boat I was on at the time was batting into the choppy river water. Maybe not those!
In between times I have given a few talks, taken part in some festivals and some private events for various charities and authorised a bit of house improvement both in Essex and in Wales. I must have been mad! My desks both ends have disappeared beneath clouds of dust and I have discovered it is not as easy as I used to think to work no matter what is going on round you. The end of the garden, the kitchen and the attic have all hosted my attempts to flee the chaos.
Hopefully now autumn is here things will calm down a bit. I love this time of year and I am planning to use the longer evenings to start researching novel No 12. No peace for the wicked!
