Facing my fears

I am going to keep this short(ish). I just wanted to do a little writing/life update...

Towards the beginning of May, I received my third and final round of edits from my editor Stephanie for EVERY TRICH IN THE BOOK, which I handed back four days later and since then, I have been working mostly on my WEIGHTING TO LIVE series. I have read through each book a few times and made small edits whilst working on acknowledgements, dedications, doing some cover research, planning and writing a new author bio, which will go up once I get it approved by my editor.

I have also changed my author photo (...we'll pretend it wasn't taken over ten years ago). I wasn't planning on changing it but a while ago, Trigger (my book publisher) asked me to send them a handful of photos and this is the one they chose and after seeing it again, I realised I wanted to use it too. Even though I have gone through quite dramatic changes physically in the time since it was taken, I don't feel like I differ *too* much from the girl in the photo - that, or I'm simply being delusional.

Trigger also made me this beautiful banner to use for my Twitter account which I absolutely love and am mildly obsessed with the blonde against the red hair. In Twitter related news, I have been doing my best to Tweet more regularly and am really enjoying it. I'm certainly not prolific, but at least I am tweeting more than once a year.

Lastly, I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about the novel I have been banging on about since the dawn of time. I have talked about it a lot on this blog but if you weren't aware, in a nutshell, I have written two drafts of a novel - the first nearly five years ago and the other, well over a year ago. My initial plan was to work with the two drafts I already have but after some soul searching, the answer was blindingly obvious, which I decided to ignore for a while as it would mean a HECK of a lot of work but after hearing that V.E. Schwab had to rewrite Vengful (the sequel to Vicious which is out this autumn), I just knew I had to face my fears and admit that I too need to rewrite the whole thing. The story and characters have been in my life for well over five years but to be perfectly honest, I don't think I have been ready to write this book, until now. In that time I have not only developed as a writer, but know exactly what I want to do with it and now have (limited) experience on my side. The earliest version of it was the first draft I ever wrote of anything and was written whilst being very ill. The second attempt was made during a very hard time for me mentally and in writing it for a third time, I hope I can make it everything it truly deserves to be. Call me corny but I believe this is the book (series) I am meant to write, so I want to do it justice. I will be reading through it when WEIGHTING TO LIVE is completely finished then see how I'm feeling about it then. Who knows, I might decide against it and just work with what I already have but in my heart of hearts, I know what I need to do.

...Talking of V.E. Schwab, I received some very special post recently in the form of the Forbidden Planet Signed Collectors Edition of VICIOUS. I read Vicious a few years ago and absolutely adored it and once I finish my current book (THE THORN BIRDS by Colleen McCullough), I think it's about time for a reread.

Before this post turns from 'short' to long, I will bring it to a close ... so until next time,
Cara x