My posts might be a little bit Ambeth-centric this week. I’m immersing myself deep in the landscape, taking the path through the woods to the Gate and stepping between the trees…

Hills and Valleys is the third book in my Ambeth series. I’ve already written it and am now at the structural edit stage – however you’ll know, if you read the last book, that there are a few emotional paths I need to tread in the third instalment and so I’m keen to get them right. When I wrote the first three books, I really wasn’t doing much else in the way of writing. I didn’t have a blog, didn’t tweet, and my freelance work was a lot less regular than it is now. So my spare time was spend wandering the gardens of my imaginary world (a lot less creepy than it sounds) making it easier to focus on the story.

I’ve already written about re-reading the first two books to get myself back into the story. This has worked exceptionally well. My next foray into Ambeth involves creating images of the places I’ve dreamed to life. I’m working on a map, a floorplan of the Palace and some illustrations of key areas inside and out, concentrating on details already mentioned in the stories. And so far it’s been great. As I draw, I can see the characters starting to move about, like actors on a stage set coming to life after the director yells ‘Action!’

So what tricks do you use to get back into your imaginary worlds? Or are they already there, just waiting for you?