Another week, another several thousand words. This week I’ve finished one project and made a solid start on another. I’ve sent off the final draft of Grizzly, an adventure story for the series of books aimed at people learning English as a second language. I sometimes find it sad to send manuscripts off, as if I’m farewelling good friends. I do like the sense of completion, though – and the payment!
Luckily I have a number of other projects on the go, and I’m now writing The Singing Stones, a fantasy story. One minor hitch is that I’d named my mythical country ‘Lirriel’, only to find that Garth Nix has a new series called ‘Lirael’. I’m loving the freedom creating my own universe gives me. No facts to check!
Next week I have the honour of being the guest speaker at the Society of Women’s Writers lunch, so I devoted a day this week to preparing my speech. I find it good to work on a speech well ahead of time if I can, so that I can polish and refine it – usually by pruning back hard. When in doubt, cut it out.I have a number of speaking engagements in the next few months. I do enjoy them, but must say I prefer writing to talking about writing.
