Update: It's been a while . . .

 Has it really been over a year since I last posted? I do apologise. With everything that has happened over the last year, circumstances have changed, my routine included. What worked well for me was looking forward to an hour's lunch break from work and jotting down a quick post in that time. Now my whole job spec has changed and that just doesn't work anymore.

Anyway, enough excuses. I hope everyone has been keeping well during these trying times. 

So, an update. I may not have been posting, but I have still been writing. I finally finished the latest novel in my 'Egaean Archives' series, Blood for Blood. She is now laying fallow so I can go over it at a later date with a fresh pair of eyes before starting the journey of finding her a home.

My latest piece is something that is far from my comfort zone. I'm writing a screen play. It's based in the early 1900's and is a fictional account of an author and the inspiration to the work that made his name. For those who have seen the film Winchester with Helen Miram, I use this as an example to the mood. But more about that later. 

In other news, not so long ago I happened across a submission call for an anthology on Twitter, and decided to write a short story to submit. Low and behold, it was accepted. The book, Chilling Crime Short Stories, published by Flame Tree Press, is due for UK release in October (December for UK/Canada), and will no doubt be filled with other chilling crime stories from some wonderful authors, and all this just in time for Halloween. This certainly put a smile on my face and I can't wait to read the other submissions included. You can read more about it here.

In the meantime, I wish you a safe and happy summer.

    

Writing Update . . .

It's been a wee while since I last gave an update on my creative endeavours, so I thought today is as good as any to bore you all.

I won't lie. Writing my current piece, Blood for Blood, has been hard, much harder than any of the other books in the series (none of which are published). This dark fantasy follows Reagan, a female assassin, who discovers that her current target has a connection to the murder of her father when she was a child, and seizes the opportunity to investigate rather than kill him, regardless of the wrath that falls upon her from her employees.

Whilst devising this story many many moons ago, it was going to be just as above, a bog standard story about a girl hunting her father's murderers, but it's evolved sooo much since those days. Yes, this is the basic premise for the story, but there is a reason this is 'DARK fantasy', and as horror writing scarily comes naturally to me, the dark element soon found its way in. I didn't have a problem with this at all. I really liked the twist it gave the story. It also gave the back story depth and fit in well with the rest of the series.

But suddenly I felt like I had bitten off more than I could chew. I felt out of my depth and a simple story suddenly turned complicated. I think that's when I started to struggle with it. It wasn't my enthusiasm for the story. That was still there, thick and fast. I think more than anything it was my confidence, and I began to question whether I was good enough to carry something this complicated off.

When that wall hits your confidence, it hits hard.

I even got to the stage where I felt I needed a break from it, and started planning my next WIP. But I inevitably went back, persevered, and finished it about two months ago with a word count of 120k. Not bad, all things considered.

I've now started editing it. It needs a lot of work and you can tell the areas I struggled with, and even though I've convinced myself that yes, I am good enough to pull this off, I can't help but sit back, look at the entire thing and think "ugh...can I really do this?"

The answer is yes. I know I can. There's also a sequal that's banking on this story to be completed. So deep breath and here we go...