Flaming Nora: Virtual book launch and other people's novels

Friday, January 22, 2021

Virtual book launch and other people's novels - my writing week

This week I've been chopping and changing the writing plan for my current novel in progress as I'm now just three weeks away from ending first draft. As I spy the finishing line in sight, I need to make sure that all loose ends are tied up, all characters are being given the send-off they deserve and the story falls neatly into place.

A lot of planning is needed, I feel, at this stage, so that nothing gets overlooked. It's a first draft, of course, so things might (and will) change, but it's good to bring the loose strands together as best as I can right now. There's been a day or two of planning and the rest of the week spent on writing. I'm fully immersed in this novel, I like it a great deal and my heroine is one like no other I've written before.

With the end of writing my first draft in sight, this week I rewarded myself by ordering the ultimate luxury - novels for me to read. I've ordered Actress by Anne Enright, Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan and The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey. I've read all of Roffey's books so far and adore them while the other two authors are new ones to me. As much as I LOVE writing my own books, I'm looking forward to downtime and reading other people's words.

In other news, my new bookmarks arrived which look stunning. They have all five covers of my novels published to date plus the new one which will be coming out this year. If you'd like a bookmark sent to you in the post, let me know by leaving a comment below.

And I've been invited by The Word (National Centre for the Written Word) to give a virtual book launch for the paperback release of The Paper Mill Girl. It takes place on Thursday March 18th at 2pm.

All details here.

I had a fun short story called Fabric of Life published in My Weekly magazine. More on that here.

I crafted another episode of my weekly soap opera Riverside for The People's Friend magazine. I've been writing Riverside weekly since 2016 and you can find out all about it here.

And finally, I wrote another Coronation Street weekly update and sent it to my emailing list of thousands of Corrie fans around the world. I've been running this list since 1995 and if you'd like to sign up to receive these weekly updates, all details are here.