Hello everyone and welcome to my first blog post! A few months later than I had first intended, but all the various elements of creating novels have taken up vast amounts of my time, having had three books published in such rapid succession.
My fourth novel, Buried Dreams is due to be published in January and I am thrilled to have a short story of mine in Written in the Stars, a very special anthology of Christmas tales, available to purchase in October. All profits from Written in the Stars will be donated to two charities – Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and The Butterfly AVM charity.
I’m guessing that some readers of this blog are writers hoping to get a publishing deal too, so apart from giving you a peep into my day-to-day life, I will walk you through the various stages of writing, researching, editing, and generally pushing your book baby into the world, from my perspective of working with an established publisher. Hat’s off to writers doing it all themselves! I will be interviewing some of those amazing people too, so lots of takeaway advice for those of you thinking of taking the self-publishing leap.
After a red-hot summer filled with family visitors from far and wide, it’s time for a busy writing month. I am currently researching book number five, so lots of ideas bubbling about, and in the middle of the month I will start working on the copy edit of Buried Dreams. I will also no doubt, be chatting with my publisher about the cover artwork for that book.
On September 25th, I am so looking forward to appearing at Richmond Walking and Book Festival and being interviewed about my novels by former ITV news presenter Pam Royle. Many years ago, long before I thought of writing books, I worked as a TV/Film Make-Up Artist and regularly found myself nattering with Pam whilst getting her prepared to appear on TV, so we have lots of hot gossip to catch up on when we meet again at Richmond Town Hall. Here’s the link if you would like to join us https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/select/oKCLbcXSfMDj
The Richmond Walking and Book Festival actually takes place from 16th – 25th September and offers a great chance to explore the beautiful Northern Dales in Autumn as well as engage in a huge range of diverse book events, from meeting authors writing poetry, children’s, adult fiction and non-fiction books, browse the book fair and even join in a bookbinding workshop! Here’s the link to the whole programme should you wish to learn more. https://www.booksandboots.org/Programme/Sun-25-Sept