The Girdle of Melian

retty things! I was about to say that it had been a while since I'd blogged about my characters' faces, but apparently it was only last year! The full set of character images are here. I wish now that I hadn't looked at that post, as I see it's taken me a year and a half to accomplish the goals I'd set for myself in January 2015, and two or three (involving being published) haven't even happened yet. Oh dear. On the other hand, those were simply the writing-related goals, and didn't include hobbies or life projects or anything else. So there is a positive side! In keeping with all that, and going back to character faces, I thought I'd share some pretty things today, one of which is a set of drawings by the talented illustrator and current UK Children's Laureate, Chris Riddell . He sketches all the time, and shares a lot of his work on social media. Sometimes he sketches real people, and I find it interesting to compare the expression of the p...

ew books! I finally checked to see when Amazon might be sending my copy of the latest Louise Penny , A Great Reckoning , and it's not till this Friday! I've been kind of at a loose end with my reading because of that, not wanting to start anything else that's going to take over my life in the way that such books do. Which is why I've been rereading lots of Agatha Christie. I'm not sure if she gets enough credit for her characterisation -- she really achieves so much with just a few quick turns of phrase. And Tommy and Tuppence are brilliant. I still haven't seen the latest BBC version of their adventures, Partners in Crime (featuring David Walliams and Jessica Raine) -- goodness, I just looked up the show site and realised that Major Carter is played by James Fleet, none other than Hugo Horton on The Vicar of Dibley. And, of course, he's the Reverend Wakefield in the screen version of  Outlander ! -- but now that I've been rereading, I'd like to...

heese! Guess who's revealing a cover today? Before that, a quick ROW80 update from me -- we're nearing the end of this year's round 3, and in true ROW80 style, I'm revamping my goals for this current round and the next. No, I haven't finished edits at all. I'm hoping that after this year's NaNoWriMo , when the writing is in full swing once more, I'll have the motivation for edits. Until then, I've suddenly got three new knitting projects! I'm not doing too badly with unfinished objects (UFOs!) -- I only have two at the moment. One will likely never get done, while the other is easy, and will hopefully fall into the knitting I'll be doing on the new projects. I expect all this to take up either my weekend reading time or my commute reading time. On the other hand, I'm actually starting to read regularly on the Kindle app on my phone, which means more reading time at night after baby falls asleep (in the same room) -- and yet this c...

appy Insecure Writer's Support Group Day! Today's question is: How do you find the time to write in your busy day? The short answer is, I don't! The long answer is, that when I'm drafting a new story, there's no question about finding time. Time just magically appears. I stay up late writing, and don't feel unrested. I scribble on napkins. I write notes to myself on my phone. I avoid social media because, hello!, there are characters to discover and exciting events happening. I hear conversations in my head while walking. Every image I see reminds me of the characters... Then the story is done. It needs typing up, most of the time, from notebooks. That's okay, too. There's time in the morning if I get in to work early. There's time during the baby's nap. Slowly the crumpled already-typed pages pile up. Minor edits are done and missing scenes have been written. And then there's a complete draft in Scrivener. Time to print and start ...