A Quick Hello…

After around what feels like six months of winter, it is finally starting to warm up and we had some sunshine this weekend. It’s nearly the end of April. I’m still wearing thick pyjamas, for heaven’s sake!

A quick update while my cold fingers are working...

I’m currently sat in my chair, about to watch the Red Letter Media take on the new Neil Breen film (RLM: Best of the Worst: Cade: The Tortured Crossing) while I work through what needs to be done for each of my books/stories. The High Fantasy, as expected, is taking up the most time thanks to its extensive over-arching plot, and intricate character developments and so on. I’m taking breaks in-between working on that with writing Catchoak novellas and the outlines for other ones. I'm also making my way through the first Little Tangleling Mystery book, which I hope to publish this year (hope!!).

I’m writing two novellas set in Catchoak at the moment. One is fully written, but I need to edit it. The second one is only on its first draft, but I know where its going and I hope I can get it written pretty quickly. I also have the covers to both of these done, so excited to show you those once the stories are complete.

I’m still not updating much on socials, just so I have more time to write.

I thought I’d jump on here real quick to say ‘ello! And say that I’m still here and just getting them words down.

Ama.x 

Mini Stationery Haul - April 24...

I love stationery.

I carry my planner with me most days, and a diary too. I own more notebooks than anything else in my life like some obsessed hoarder. I love papers, stickers, washi tapes, pencils, fountain pens, ballpoint pens, and sticky notes. I generally only use notebooks and organisers for these bits (I don’t have it all over a desk or walls/doors etc. Just all in notebooks and Filofaxes/organisers). But I do have a lot of it.

So, naturally, I bought more. Haha!

This bundle was from Flying Tiger, Sostrene Grene, and The Works. The notebook is a Bullet Journal (Flying Tiger).

I’ve already started rearranging my duck egg Filofax (that I bought in a massive clearance sale when our WHSmith closed - very, very sad face), and now I’m sat just admiring it. 

It goes really well with my colour scheme (especially with my brass page bookmarks. Did I show you those?).

Okay, I’ve plan-crastinated enough today. 

Time to work on my books.

Ama.x

March 2024: Story Status...

March 2024 Story Status…

High Fantasy: Outline of prechapers and intro to first part complete. 

It was a bit tricky, as I'm rewriting the entire trilogy (which may not be a trilogy now, since adult books can be massive. It may not be necessary to split the story). I had written over 100k of this story and now I’m (and don’t vomit on my behalf) binning all of it to start again. Remember, this was originally going to be for younger audiences, and now I need to start from scratch to make it for adults. That means new character backstories - as they are older - the world needs building up, the story can be more intricate and have a different tone and so on. It wouldn’t be possible to rework what I’ve already written. I attempted it, but it was too much of a job and I reckon that starting from zero words would be, frankly, easier than that. But as the world is pretty fleshed out, I’m not completely starting from the beginning. I can keep all the planning and histories I’ve done that have nothing to do with this first story. So, after eating an Easter Egg on Sunday (along with birthday cake!) I made the decision to start again.

100k - gone in a flash. 

Horror/Suspense: Location rewrites and synopsis, along with new covers, complete for the four Phobia sets of short stories - they're available to purchase now. 

One novella edit underway. Aiming to do more overviews of new novellas, with a goal to try and get them published this year.

Cozy Mystery: Moved into another, much larger, notebook, so I can do proper overviews of the first few stories. To be honest, I feel like I’m plan-crastinating with this series. I should point out that I am starting over, as I mentioned before I don’t feel like my original story was something I could edit effectively, as it was written over a number of years. So, as with the High Fantasy, it’s going to be a complete do over.

This one had come up to around 30k, but it wasn’t finished. I can definitely salvage a decent amount of it, but not any of the original crime.

Websites: all websites have been set up and/or updated. Pretty happy with them, actually. This one - my Amasin Clare one - is where I’ll be blogging the most. The others will only receive updates when I have them for the actual stories being published. 

Plans are in place for April ‘24, so as long as I stick to them - which I am terrible at doing! - I should have more stories for you to read soon.

Ama.x