if i could put timeeeee in a bottle | writing diaries #4

The end of May marked the close of a long-term education project which is now completed. Four years! Completed! With summer, comes a short window of time in which writing can flourish with no reason to procrastinate. (Note, I did not say that procrastinating would not happen *sobs*)

In June, I went to a writing festival (whaaaat) which was very motivating. There was an excellent session about self-editing which made me fall in love (again!) with words and writing and the art of it all. Plus there was lots of tips about pitching your novel to agents which really lit a fire within me to try.

(I have a friend who is currently querying agents for her novel and I want this win for her so badly.)

Here in England, we are suffering from *another* heatwave which is vile and disgusting and unnatural and if you didn’t believe in climate change before, you should now.

As Jane Austen said, the heat keeps one ‘in a continual state of inelegance’ and I feel that. I really, really do.

In other writing news, my next short story is coming out in the next edition of The Wanderer’s Post, which is along the lines of:

A romance novelist is kidnapped by someone from the mysterious country on which she has based all of her (factually inaccurate) romance novels …

It’s been a fair few years since I published A Most Irregular Prophecy, but I’m glad that I am getting some short stories out in the meantime.

My sci-fi novella series has ground to a halt simply because the story is all there in my head but I’ve lost the je ne sais quoi for it currently. I am patiently waiting for it to come back, damn it.

In the meantime, the project that I’ve dedicated myself to is fantasy but make it Georgian and nuns and is actually coming along which is terribly wonderful. I need to make the most of the next few months to see how much writing I can push out before my next new none-writing project starts and will hoover up time like, well, a hoover.

Ideally, I’d like to finish Draft Zero, but let us see.

(Writing, for me, is not entirely vibes based but it is passion based – sometimes it stays, sometimes it goes, and I follow where it leads. Perhaps it is not the most reliable way to write, but you can’t deny that it is *a way* to write at least.)

That’s it for my writing diaries, I hear the washing machine has finished which requires hanging everything outside in the heat. *shudders*.

happy writing/reading!