Flaming Nora: Carry on Cruising, YouTubing, Writing and Crying

Friday, February 10, 2023

Carry on Cruising, YouTubing, Writing and Crying - my writing week

This week I've had my head down, concentrating on writing my novel, the first in a series called The Toffee Factory Girls. I'm over two-thirds of the way through writing the first draft but there's still a long way to go.

One day this week I took to my external office, away from home, at the River Wear Commissioners' Building in Sunderland. It makes a change to writing at home and gives a different energy. Plus, there's no distractions so I can get twice as much work done. This week I took a top floor office with a very atmospheric view of rooftops and chimney pots.

I also created a very short, new video to tell you about the story in The Sixpenny Orphan. It's released next week in ebook, hardback and audiobook. Order it here. Watch the video here.

I created a competition for you to win a copy of the book with a box of jam tarts. Why jam tarts? Ah, you'll have to read the book to find out. Enter the competition here.

My cosy crime set in Scarborough, Murder at the Seaview Hotel was given a sterling review live on Facebook from the book club for Pumping Marvellous, the heart failure charity. You can watch Gary and Sarah chat about and review the book online here. Here's just a snippet of some of their wonderful comments as they really enjoyed the book. "It's a love story to Scarborough. Clever, funny and gentle. Twelvis are brilliant. I absolutely loved it. It made me laugh out loud. Yes, someone gets murdered but it's still a feel good read with dark humour."

I gave a talk to the Nifty Fifty Group at Arts Centre Washington, which went down really well. Thank you everyone for coming. Special thanks to the staff at the arts centre for looking after me so well. I wish every talk was as well organised, so that when the author arrives, it's stress-free!

For fans in the US - be a sleuth and solve cases in comfort with audiobook mysteries from Kobo - and my #Scarborough #cosycrime is featured! Listen to Murder at the Seaview Hotel and Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel at https://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/mystery-audiobooks

My bestselling novel The Paper Mill Girl was spotted by a friend in the lending library of MS Maud, a cruise shop sailing to Norway to see the Northern Lights.

This week I received a wonderful message from a reader, which I'm printing below but without the reader's name. It's messages like these that make me continue writing. And yes, I had something in my eye when I read it. I was touched.

This week the postman delivered the best kind of post - a box my new books! Get your copy now, it's available on Thursday 16 February at bit.ly/TheSixpennyOrphan

And for talks and events, I had a new banner printed. Isn't it gorgeous?!

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.