Up until the end of April I contributed monthly blogs to a fabulous website https://girlsheartbooks.com/. Sadly the website is no longer posting new content, but the blogs, by a host of children’s authors, will be available online for another year. I thought I’d share a couple of my GirlsHeartBooks blogs here. One is about the launch of The Awkward Autumn of Lily McLean and the other is about my need for deadlines!

Autumn in Springtime

I have really enjoyed writing blogs for GirlsHeartBooks and feel quite sad that this will be the final one. Luckily I’ve got lots to share as it has been a busy month! My book launch was not a gigantic fail, which was a huge relief to my central nervous system. In fact, I think I’d even go so far as to call the launch a success, as everybody seemed to enjoy themselves, we sold out of books and nobody threw rotten veg at me.

There were cakes at the launch too, and they weren’t just any old cakes. They were book cover cakes, which if you’re an author, are the best kind. And they were lemon curd muffins, so I couldn’t really lose, even if the book cover toppers hadn’t turned up, or if I’d managed to break them all, which was a real possibility.  The toppers were extremely fiddly, but well worth it in the end.

But the best bit, the metaphorical icing on the cake, was the message I got a couple of days after the launch from a girl who’d bought the book. She had read it in one evening and loved it, and she was surprised by the twist at the end too, which was great to hear!

By the time this blog is published I will be back at school after a busy two week break: I spent three wonderful days in Athens, which is an incredible mixture of ancient and modern, and a city I’d highly recommend, particularly if you’re interested in Ancient Greece, as some of it’s still standing! During the holidays I also squeezed in a book signing event at Waterstones in Stirling, a trip to hospital with my daughter and her scratched cornea and I did a lot of writing. I’ve almost finished the first draft of The Unicorn Thieves and though I know it still needs a lot of work, getting to this point seems a massive achievement.

The next few weeks will be busy too: I have author visits scheduled, a new class topic to get underway and that first draft to finish. It’s just as well I enjoy it all. One of my mum’s favourite sayings (she borrowed it from somebody more famous) was “only boring people get bored.” I’m not sure if that’s true, but it certainly stopped me ever announcing I was bored when I was a child. Reading a book has always been my favourite method of keeping boredom at bay. Until the holidays, however, I’d barely had time to read and my  TBR pile is still huge, sitting by the bed waiting for the summer holidays to roll along.

Enjoy the warmer weather, the lighter nights and all the fantastic books out there, waiting to be read. May you never, ever be bored. x

Deadlines Rule

The puppy’s name is Bessie and she’s one of my many excuses, even though she’s not even mine and only comes to visit occasionally. It shames me to admit, but so far this year I’ve written only a few thousand words. I’m full of ideas, but struggling to get into an evening writing routine. I’ve blamed Bessie for being so distracting and I’ve whinged about the pressure of a full-time teaching job. And to be fair, I’ve been unwell, first with a sickness bug, and then with a sore throat/headache type virus. But I have also suffered from a general lack of energy and motivation and  I think part of the problem is the lack of a deadline. I’m the only one who cares if I finish a chapter, or don’t…

The sequel to my first novel The Mixed Up Summer, The Awkward Autumn of Lily McLean, comes out on the 16th March and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working on the edits, but they’re done now, and nobody’s breathing down my neck asking me to produce another novel … or else.

If I want to get a book finished, I think I  need to invent a deadline and pretend to myself that if my latest novel isn’t finished by a week on Tuesday, terrible things will happen. It would be lovely to hear from anyone with a better idea!

My book launch is on the 29th of March at Waterstone’s in Braehead. If you can make it, do come along!

Meanwhile, the job that pays the mortgage keeps me so busy that I don’t feel I’m sitting round twiddling my thumbs. So far this term we’ve built a castle and grown a massive beanstalk in the classroom and we’re now working on the Gingerbread Cottage.

The pupils in my class are enthusiastic writers and are full of amazing ideas. They’d like the castle to have a swimming pool with a diving board, but for the sake of historical accuracy I’ve suggested a moat and drawbridge could be used for the same purposes.

I love teaching and I think being able to listen to children talk on a daily basis is really helpful for an author, so I won’t be giving up my day job any time soon. But I’m determined that by the time the Easter holidays come round, I’ll have knuckled down to writing every night without fail. As Stephen King said in ‘On Writing’

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”