It’s been a while since I wrote about writing. This year we’ve been a bit inundated with COVID type stuff, and sometimes I let off steam by using my blog as my soapbox.

But I’ve still been writing regularly. For a little while it was a bit harder than usual. I think COVID fatigue may have crept into everything, but now I feel like my writing life is back to normal. I gave the book writing a very short break, and dabbled in The Australian Writers Centre Furious Fiction, and then spontaneously tried Specul8’s weekly short fiction prompt.

It’s been quite refreshing. I’m not generally good at short fiction. I can write a decent story, but nearly all my submissions to short story magazines or books come back with ‘great characterisation, good writing, sounds like the beginning of a novel…’

Anyway, I had the great good fortune to win one week. You can read my submission here.

Apart from that, I’ve now seen the cover art concept for Book 2 of The Chronicles of Albatar – Dark Days. It’s fantastic, and I’m very happy with it.

I’m also right in the middle of writing the third book of the series. Sometimes I wish I had more time just to sit and write, because when I’m on a roll, I’m really on a roll. There’s quite a juggle balancing all the stuff in general life – work as a physiotherapist, exercise, normal house stuff, husband’s total hip replacement etc.

I’m also toying with a couple of other book ideas. Every now and then something just pops up in my mind – usually as an image of some kind – and then I just want to stop and write the beginning of it. Consequently, I have a whole pile of beginnings written and stashed away in my laptop.

And every now and then, the starcats and Frontier come to mind again. I’d not intended to write about Frontier again, but just recently a few little hints of another story are popping up. I’m not certain that I’ll write it, but it’s hovering, just on the edge of things. Maybe it’s because we have lots of cats in our house. Well, three, but that’s lots. Particularly when they’re hogging the bed.