It’s Summer

Hi all! It’s summer time! The garden is blooming, the cats are inventing creative ways of escaping through windows and I’m enjoying my DIY garden office.

I had a great week away in Yorkshire and got to be a superhero at the Bradford Festival. I’m looking forward to appearing at the Between the Trees festival in South Wales on the 27th August.  I’ve never been to the festival before and it looks fabulous – a mix of music, storytelling, science and nature.  You can see the line-up of speakers here.

I’m continuing my weekly writing challenges on my Facebook page every Friday along with other snippets of news and a round-up of books I’ve been reading throughout the week. I’m also taking bookings for the next school year so if you’re a teacher or librarian who’d like a visit, please do get in touch via my contact page.

I hosted a wonderful writing day in the garden for my critique group and other writing friends this summer. My long-suffering husband was on hand to keep us fed and watered throughout the day. We had writing activities and mini-workshops, Julie Pike, author of The Last Spell Breather talked to us about her publishing journey and there was loads of time for chat, laughter and catching up. Here we all are in the garden. It was so much fun, I’m hoping to make this an annual event at least, and host other get-togethers.

Finally – book news. I’m deep in edits for book number six, which is a sci-fi fantasy mash-up, starting in Swansea Bay and launching off into a thousand worlds linked by a river of memories. This one was hard work at first – I went through countless outlines with my agent before I came up with a storyline we both liked, and then I drafted and redrafted, added characters, removed characters, tweaked and meddled. And now my fingers are flying and I’m laughing as I write. There’s still over a year to go until it’ll be in the shops and I already can’t wait to share it with you all.

On top of that, I’ve just signed my contract for book number seven. I can’t say anything about it yet but it’ll be a fun one and I’m very happy.

All the best and enjoy the rest of the summer!