So it's Monday. The first day of the long, summer holiday. I was still up at 6.15am but rather than rush about getting ready for work, making everyone breakfast and their packed lunches, I'm sitting with a cup of tea, gazing out of the window at a cloudless blue sky, wondering how hot it is going to be today. My youngest daughter is in Disneyland, Florida and my eldest is at work. I have an entire week to myself which means only one thing. Ok, two things. Writing and sunbathing!
I have got lots of other stuff to fit in as well of course, likes trips to the cinema with a friend, a walk to the lake cafe with another friend and a Rowing Fraternity night out but I also have lots of time to spend doing what I love most. And to be honest, with the heatwave stretching on for what seems like months, I have done very little writing recently. Instead I have been gardening, sunning myself, watching the football, watching the tennis, taking up rowing, rediscovering my love of cycling and generally enjoying the summer.
But this book is not going to get finished by itself. I need to get back into DWM (disciplined writing mode). I am about to start chapter nineteen. I have nine more to go. Realistically I could get the whole book written by the end of the holidays but my target is October half term. By then I want it to be a completed manuscript, read and edited, that I can start sending to potential agents.
In the meantime, I am also debating whether to publish my fourth book, Bad Habits, on Amazon. I haven't done much with it since I finished writing it. That novel was more of an unfinished hobby that I picked up again after a period of abandonment and gave it some time and attention and an ending. I've had several readers of The Charm ask me when it's being published so I may as well get it out there. But be warned, it's quite rude.
Enough waffle from me... I'm heading back to 1953. Christine's body is about to be discovered...
