The last couple of weeks have made one thing very clear: it is very difficult - if not impossible - to rush a book! My desire to meet an agreed deadline with my agent began to overshadow all my efforts to put good words down on paper, until I had pretty much stalled, rereading rather than adding new words, and constantly finding things wrong in the story so far.
This is such a tricky part of the creative process, particularly as a career author, because taking more time means delaying any possibility of selling the book, which my finances. However, rushing to sell a book that’s not ready isn’t a great idea either for obvious reasons! Therefore, there’s really little choice but to replan, take the time, and let some space in so my book and I can breathe.
As soon as I’d had a good chat to my agent I felt so much better - and, ironically, the words started flowing again and now I’m on much more of a roll. Phew!
If you haven’t heard me talk about it yet, for this novel I’m working with a couple of Agatha Christie plays, because my characters are into amateur dramatics (and the drama refuses to stay on the stage, because the last time they performed someone ended up dead!). It’s such fun working with classic texts and reworking their themes into modern mysteries, and when I’ve got a bit further along I can’t wait to introduce you to my new bunch of characters: I’m even hoping a few of them might make it into a second book, but let’s not get too far ahead of myself hey!
My Outlander obsession continues…
If you don’t know that I’m an Outlander tragic already, then this may make or break our relationship, but the fact is I can’t get enough of the Frasers and the Beauchamps and the Scottish highlands and the forbidden romances (and all the rest) and I’m happy to say Blood of my Blood is getting under my skin in exactly the same way as Outlander did. I’m loving meeting the younger iterations of the characters we already know and love, I’m invested in both the primary romances, and I’m fascinated with Diana Gabaldon’s ever expanding world - it’s so clever, and such a great escape.
This isn’t to say I’m an entirely devoted fan: some seasons of Outlander have been better than others (I didn’t like Season 3’s Claire in America or the more recent Browns of Brown Town!) and I’m not a fan of some of the intensely graphic episodes of rape and abuse (there are some eps that I won’t ever rewatch). I’m glad it’s been toned down in the spin-off - although we’re only eight episodes in and there’s about to be a pretty grim ‘test’ performed on poor Ellen, so perhaps I’m speaking too soon. But so far it’s more like watching a Scottish Highlands version of Bridgerton.
I also have a few questions: first of all, WHY is the hero called Brian?! (This amuses me every time I hear Ellen gush ‘Oh Brian’, and I suspect when Diana Gabaldon first chose the name she wasn’t expecting Jamie’s ol’ da’ to have such a starring role. (I put ‘sexy Brians’ into a Google search and the first thing that came up was the dog in Family Guy, which I think completely backs up my point.) And WHY are we having to wait A WEEK between episodes like we did in the nineties? This really isn’t fair, and I’d like to tell Stan that I’m switching off in protest, but I can’t because I’m counting down to Saturday. Who’s with me?!
Reading recommendations from three of Australia’s top authors:
If you also follow my Resilient Author substack, you’ll have seen that I was lucky enough to go on retreat with some of my author pals last weekend. While I was there, I made sure to get their reading recommendations just for you! So here are their top picks:
, author of The Mademoiselle Alliance and The Disappearance. of Astrid Bricard, chose All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
‘He's just such a good writer and while I love a lot of books with teenage characters in them, I don't know what he does, it's like he's a magician. There is no one whose characters I love so much as I love his characters. And his character is doing terrible things, but you still find it compelling.’
, author of The Bad Bridesmaid and the upcoming Lucky Sisters, chose Sandwich by Catherine Newman
‘It's a quiet novel, but you get into the depth of these characters and the nitty gritty of their family life. It's actually quite mundane and simple, but you feel like you're there, you're part of the family. At the moment I’m loving a quiet novel like this one.’
, author of What Happened to Nina? and the Cormac Reilly series, chose The Silent Ones by Anna McPartlin
‘It’s period crime fiction, set in Ireland. And the beginning is really dark. There's a body of a baby found on the beach, and this young woman who is a cop, and it's very rare for a woman to be a cop, and she's really up against it, is trying to actively and practically investigate this while the misogyny around her threatens to pull the investigation apart. And to be honest, I thought, “Oh, I just don't want to read about misogyny, I've been here a thousand times.” But the character just draws you in. I cried in that book because I was like, “Okay, this is what my mother and my aunts and all these women went through. They did this so we could stand.” It was both really moving and had a really good story and a great central character.’
I haven’t read any of these, so now they’ve all moved to the top of my pile!
Upcoming events: come and say hello!
My next events are getting closer, so I’m looking forward to meeting you if any of these are near you and you’re planning to attend!
And finally…
I’m re-reading The Hush this week with an eye on the sequel as there may be some opportunities to finally write this one. Would you like a Hush 2? I can’t believe how much the world has changed since I wrote the first book, and the thought of peering another few years into the future is a scary business, but then again I’ll also be bringing back my brave and feisty band of women, who will definitely have something to say about the world and their purpose in it - so it could be a lot of fun too.
Until next time, happy reading!