It’s been a while since I just sat down and wrote about what I’ve been up to, and I’ve been meaning to do a catch up post for a few weeks now. Things were hectic for me in April. I was still arranging dates and appearances for my ongoing Paranormal Pandemonium 2011 Blog Tour (if you’re a book blog interested in hosting me at all, do get in touch – felicity_heaton (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk – as I’m always looking for more places to do interviews, articles, and get reviews done for my books) and I was trying to get the first draft of Her Guardian Angel written before my trip to Barcelona at the start of May.
Her Guardian Angel was the first book I had written since giving up my day job to focus on my writing and it’s been a bit of a struggle to grow accustomed to working from home on a novel. I was pleased with the amount of words I could get down onto paper, well screen at least, by being in my office at home without interruptions. I just need to find a balance between writing and the admin side of things when I’m actively working on a book. When I write, I just want to write and that’s all. Once I get going, everything else drifts into the background and I have a tendency to just ignore it. Of course, it’s hard to ignore all the emails, articles, interviews, etc when they pile up. Then I end up switching to admin mode for days on end to clear the backlog. What I need to do is strike a balance between writing and admin. I think I’ll get there in the end, but it’s something that isn’t going to happen overnight.
The good thing is that the first draft of Her Guardian Angel, the fourth book in my Her Angel series and the first novel length outing, is now complete at 92000 words, and that I got it done before I went away. I didn’t want to have to come back from holiday and try to pick up right at the end of the book and finish it. That would have been very difficult to do without reading quite a large chunk of it back, which would have taken time out of my schedule. I’m pleased with how it has turned out, but I know there’s a few places where I need to fix it up a bit, or iron out some wrinkles at least. That’s what the second draft is for.
The second draft on this angel romance book will be done when it’s had time to rest, which gives me time to write my next novel, or novella.
At the moment, I’m working on Masquerade, which is book number 10 in my Vampires Realm series. I think it’s likely to be a long novella, somewhere around 50000 words in total. Just shy of a novel. I have the story planned and this time we’re in St Petersburg with the Venia bloodline for a very special Creator Day masquerade. I’ll get to write plenty of old faces in this one, which I’m really looking forward to. I’ve managed to get the first chapter done today despite my muse’s protests. He’s tired from our holiday and having guests over, and just wants to slack off this week.
There’s not much chance of that happening though. I not only have the first draft of Masquerade to get into, but I’m putting together designs for promotional material for prize packs as I have a few big giveaways coming up and want to get some postcards, bookmarks, keyrings, magnets and other items made. I’m also knee-deep in articles and interviews that need my attention. There’s no rest for the wicked it seems. I’ve had my week off and now I’m back in the thick of it.
I have been enjoying the chance to devour a few books over the past week though, and managed to read two of them. I’ll try to get my reviews written up for them and posted soon.
Back to work I go… just wanted to drop by and let you all know what I’ve been up to so you can get a feel for all the crazy stuff that goes into writing my books 🙂
