I know there’s a weekly thing where bloggers catch up as though having coffee, a conversational get-together with updates from the past week. I’m more of a tea drinker, myself, so, if we were having tea, this is what I’d tell you:
So, this happened yesterday.
Yay! I reached my 30,000 word target with Silver and Black, the vampire novel I’ve been working on of late. It’s far from finished, of course, but I have a good framework in place, as well as the knowledge of where the story needs to go and what the characters have to achieve, so I’m pleased, overall. I’m still thinking about serialising the whole thing on my blog, as the response to the small snippets I’ve posted so far has been pretty good.
The weather here this week has been quite mad, one minute bright sunshine, then the next snow and ice falling from a clear blue sky. At one point last week we were walking through the park on the top of the hill where we live, and all around us, in almost a perfect circle, I could see vast towering grey and white clouds dumping rain and ice, while above us the sky was blue. A bit of Spring weather madness, I guess. But the tide seems to be turning, so to speak, with sunshine and warmer temperatures forecast for next week – with May Day just around the corner, this is welcome news.
And I’m also expecting, finally, to be able to publish Hills and Valleys, the third instalment of my Ambeth Chronicles. I knew I was cursing myself by putting a publishing date at the end of No Quarter, and so it came to pass that the whole thing has taken longer than planned. However, the plus side of that has been more time to finetune the book, including finding (and fixing) a small continuity error. Plus, my editor thinks this is the strongest instalment yet, so it’s been worth doing the extra work. Everything happens as it’s supposed to, I guess.
And now it’s the Bank Holiday weekend. Rain is forecast, as is expected, though at the moment we have brilliant sunshine. The gorgeous girl had an excellent school report this week so, as a reward, I’m taking her to one of her favourite places, a craft store where she can do a project in store. They provide the paint, glue, apron and workspace then, for a small fee, she can choose something from the shelves or pottery collection and create a masterpiece. We are also going to visit The Treasure Box, the magical store I wrote about in a previous blog post, where she will no doubt spend time rummaging through the ribbons and buttons, looking for treasure.
Other than that, we’re planning to let the weekend unfold as it will, plans subject to change, depending on the weather. Hope you all have a lovely weekend, and that the sun shines on you, wherever you are. 🙂
Helen Glynn Jones 
Congrats Helen! I know you’ll have the most excellent time this weekend.
Thanks Kristin! I’m sure you’ll have a great weekend too – any disco dancing roller skating on?
Yes. That was yesterday! Hahaha it was a great time 🙂
Awesome! I’m about to check out your blog post about it 😀
Yay!
Congrats on the publishing and word target. Hope the weather is more predictable this weekend.
Thanks Charles! Hopefully I’ll get there with the publishing in the next week or two 🙂
Wonderful, Helen. Enjoy the weekend whatever it holds and whatever weather unfolds.
Thanks, Miriam, and the same to you 🙂
Have fun and enjoy!
Thanks, Ali – you too!
Fab news! Vampire fiction must be in the water as I have just finished a vampire story. It is nice to write something now which does not include references to blood…
Yes, the blood stuff does get a bit… overwhelming, doesn’t it? Looking forward to reading your story, Lucy – are you planning on sharing on your blog? I seem to remember you saying it had a bit of a comedy slant 🙂
It brings back interesting memories. I wrote it on Wattpad. It reached no 20 in charts. I got carried away with the positive feedback so I wrote a sequel and killed off a much loved character. I was inundated with negative messages from depressed readers.
Oh, that’s great about Wattpad. I did join, thinking I might share my story on there, plus run it on my blog at the same time. Might be an interesting exercise. I need to go over there and check out your story, at the very least! And I know what you mean about killing off characters…
YAY to the 30K : D: D: D and that place sounds like a real treat, something I’d have loved to of done as a kid too. have fun
Yes, it’s great – it’s like an Aladdin’s cave full of crafty treasure – it took her about 20 minutes just to choose what she wanted to do and get her supplies. Plus they have coffee and cakes for parents while waiting – it’s very well done.
That sounds like a win for everyone!
It really is 🙂