Tuesday 14 March 2017

where did all the time go?

Last time I blogged was four months ago: I can scarcely believe it. Pre-Christmas and I was having some time off from actual writing but doing a lot of thinking about what the next book was going to be about. For a while I had been considering writing about my ancestry, only to come to the decision that most likely it wouldn't be interesting or exciting enough for those who read my novels. Perhaps I should write a faction book - a mixture of fact and fiction - the truth is that I still want to write about my ancestors' story as it really happened but I don't have the whole story - just snippets - that I could set against historical Liverpool during the period they lived and the places they came from. I made a start only to set it aside because I've been convinced for a goodly while that there was a novel worth writing based on my mother-in-law's early life. She passed away a few years ago but I've never forgotten the tales she used to tell me when my husband brought her to visit on Sunday afternoons.

The difficulty was where to begin and what names to give the people involved because I've always said at talks when asked that I never write about real people because I don't want to be accused of libel or is it slander, and should I change the era when events took place and what should I keep of her story and what should I miss out and what should I add to it? I began the actual writing at the beginning of January and I am 37000 words in and enjoying the challenge. But I have done little writing the last week, not because spring is in the air and the sun is shining and the garden needs work on it but because I've done something to my shoulder which is making typing painful.
So I've been doing a fair amount of reading Golden Age Detective Fiction. Now we are in Lent I am also attending weekly Lenten meeting as well as thinking about and preparing for the publication of my books that are due out at the end of this month, March 2017.
MERSEY GIRL paperback reissue of the former Going Home to Liverpool, also out for the first time in Ebook format by Ebury.
Also my latest hardback WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS published by Severn House.
MANY A TEAR HAS TO FALL is also out in trade paperback by Severn House.
 In April STEP BY STEP and A DREAM TO SHARE will be published in ebook format for the first time by Canelo. These books are the first two in my Chester/Liverpool series.
EVENT: Liverpool will be having a Litfest in Autumn and I will be a guest speaker 2pm on October 3rd in Penny Lane Community centre - do keep alert for more information about this event . I will also feature as visiting author on the Chicklit Chat website during the week before the publication of MERSEY GIRL  23rd March.