Nearly the end of November, and no writing update yet this month! It’s always the way: just when it all seems to be going so well, life has a way of pulling you up short. I made it to about 45,000 words, then had a fortnight dominated by a couple of nasty migraines that each lasted for days on end and made further progress impossible.
It was during that time of feeling disengaged that I realised that part of the draft would work much more powerfully as a separate story, perhaps a short novel. The more I thought about it the more convinced I was, although I was hesitant to suggest it to my literary agents in New York and London
When I did get back to my desk, it was to make tentative attempts at the new novella, leaving this autumn’s work in limbo for a while. But the stories are connected, and the idea is that the three books will form a very loose trilogy with The Lantern.
So I’m only now easing myself back into my writing routine, and building in plenty of relaxing walks which really do help focus the mind. I took my camera out the other day – a nice uphill metaphor here I think!
