Hello all. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and I am feeling smug because I’ve written 1250 words this morning and started a new book!
CampNaNoWriMo has begun. Well, it started yesterday but I was running a poetry and short story event at Stockton Heath festival, so for me today was the day. I’d aimed for 1000 words, so I’m very happy with 1250! The plan is to try and write 50,000 words this month. I’ve done it a few times now, and I suspect I’ll have the usual wobbles and where-is-the-rest-of-the-plot moments. However, I’ve planned my word count for each day based on all the other stuff going on, and barring the completely unexpected, I’ll get there.
And what’s the book? It’s another cozy mystery, called Murder In The Choir, and it’s number 2 in the Pippa Parker series. I have my usual few sheets of scribbled A4 and a chapter progression in Post-It notes, so I’m as good to go as I ever am. If you’d like to check out the first Pippa Parker book, you can find it here:
Murder At The Playgroup book page
This week I also finished editing a Halloween novelette (long short story) with the working title of Sherlock Holmes and the Deathly Fog, and that has gone out to beta readers. The aim is to publish in September, ready for Halloween, but I will be offering advanced review copies to my newsletter subscribers before I publish. So if you’d like one, sign up! You can get a free book there, too.
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This month I’m also planning to continue editing the sequel to A House Of Mirrors, which is called In Sherlock’s Shadow, ready for an autumn release. It’s a bigger book than the first one – 90,000 words – and in some ways it’s more complicated, in others less. Currently I’m fact-checking preparatory to getting on with the big edits. The theory is to get my writing words done for the day and then switch to editing, but we shall see… Tune in to my newsletter for a progress update!
The featured image is my official CampNaNoWriMo badge. Only 48,750 to go!