Happy New Year!
5th January 2018
Firstly, I’d like to wish you all a very happy and healthy new year and secondly, I’d like to apologise profusely for my lack of blogs in the second half of 2017. It has been a very hectic few months for a variety of reasons with me trying to juggle a number of balls at the same time. I love being busy and enjoy the pressure of a deadline, both in life and when I’m writing, but I must admit that I have been cutting things very fine lately and definitely burning the candle at both ends.
Actually, just to digress for a moment, the candles I have been burning throughout writing Alice in Theatreland and my new novella, Christmas at Carol’s, are a Yankee Candle fragrance called Snow in Love. If you love scented candles, you may want to give this one a go as it has certainly given me a feeling of calm and clear-headedness when all around has been chaotic!
So, to further explain my lack of blogging, alongside my day job at QVC I have been very hands on helping with the transformation of our Victorian cottage. We had been making some gradual changes, including my beautiful writing room in the loft, but decided to tackle our bathroom, which was barely functional, and our living room, which involved erecting a new dividing wall, before Christmas. To say it was a challenge is putting it mildly! Although we had to have the professionals in to do the big jobs (ripping out the old bathroom, installing the new and all the plumbing and electrical work) we have done all of the decorating ourselves and quite a bit of the woodwork DIY has fallen to my other half and our son, without whom we would never have made the 18th December deadline.
When we were about halfway through the project I decided I would like to try and bring out the Christmas novella I had been working on. I had the plot and it was around half written when I contacted my copy editor, Justine, my cover designer, Angela, and my formatter, Yvonne, the last week of October asking them if they would be able to work on Christmas at Carol’s for a mid-December release date. They are quite used to me being a ‘last-minute Lulu’ and all responded with no problem. With no excuse not to get it finished, apart from being knee deep in paint brushes and rollers, I ploughed on and had the first draft with Justine by the last week in November. I had also been helping Angela search for the perfect red-brick cottage image to use for the cover – I hope you agree we found it.
Christmas at Carol’s is my first attempt at a novella, it’s around 20,000 words, and it’s also the first time I have written in the first person. I found it quite challenging at first but, once I allowed myself to ‘become’ Carol every time I sat down at my writing desk and only think her thoughts, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I have already decided to write a sequel for next Christmas called ‘Carol’s Singing’. It’s also more of a romantic comedy with a hint of mystery and family relationships so very different from ‘Alice’. Do leave me a comment if you have read it and enjoyed it, and Amazon reviews are always much appreciated – there are twelve so far and I’m delighted to say they are all five star.
I even managed to squeeze in a blog tour – massive thank you to all the bloggers who gave their time so close to
Christmas to read and review or feature an excerpt – it really is hugely appreciated.
So, we are already a few days into 2018 and although I don’t make New Year resolutions as such (I always feel such a failure if I break them) I have set myself a few goals. I am going to write a minimum of ten hours each week which will include my QVC weekly blogs and more blogging on here, hopefully monthly, along with getting started on my next book and possibly a short story for Valentine’s Day, exclusively for the blog initially. I think that’s enough to be going on with for January particularly as me and ‘im indoors are going away on holiday to celebrate our fortieth (yes, 40th) anniversary of living together. I hear there is a BIG wedding happening this year, maybe, just maybe we should follow suit!
One last thing, quite exciting actually, Amazon have selected Alice in Theatreland for a month long 99p Kindle deal which started on January 1st. If you haven’t read it yet or you enjoyed it and feel like recommending it to a friend (especially one who got their first Kindle for Christmas) please do spread the word for me.
Speak soon (I promise)
much love
Julia xx
