May 2, 2025 - Sometimes you write characters, sometimes the characters write you.

"Swan Dive" my fifth novel and second in the Muse Chronicles series has been officially put to bed and sent off to the publisher for their consideration. Now the nervous waiting starts. Also, I should hear late July about the Wyld Magick short story I submitted for an anthology.

Usually at this point there is a bit of space to do something else, but the way Swan Dive ended I just had to get straight into writing the next one. In the week and a bit since I started I'm already 10,000 words in. I don't expect this pace to stay, especially with my paying job needing some attention, but even if nothing happens with the series I'm having fun.

Sometimes the story just demands to be told.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

28 February, 2024 - A leap day and an extra story

Yesterday I submitted "Nothing to Fear", a short story that sits between books 2 and 3 of the Wingless trilogy, for an urban fantasy anthology. My hope is that, despite it using the same characters and timeline as the main books, I've been able to write the short story so it stands on it's own without needing any knowledge of the rest of it to be enjoyed by readers. Now I cross my fingers and wait to see if it is accepted by the publishers 🙂 Book 3 is also complete, and has been for a while, but my blogging has fallen behind. "Learning to Fly" is the story I always wanted to see play out, with Joan and Hattie working together as equals. It took me a long time to work out how best to end this one, partly because I needed it to be worth the work I had put in with writing three books, but I think a large chunk of the angst came from the simple fact that I did not want it to end.   Writing the last line of a story is hard. In many ways it will be how you say fa...
Read more

July 22, 2025 - Long Service Leave and Writing

Yesterday saw my long service leave from work start. Ten glorious weeks. It is very much needed, I was on the edge of burnout at the end of last year and only made it through to now knowing that this leave was booked. I've been a teacher now for 33 years, and I can honestly say it has never been a harder job than it is today. I rather hope to be doing a lot of writing, although there are also some family matters that will require attention. I'm about half way through the third book in the Muse Chronicles science fiction series now. It still doesn't have a name, but I'm not overly bothered by that - book two didn't get it's name until it was almost finished. Of course I think about the lack of title, but not too often. Only about a dozen times a day. Because of the way the second book, "Swan Dive", finished, this one gave me the perfect opportunity to try something new in my writing. New for me that is, other authors like Becky Chambers use this techniq...
Read more