One Last Conversation

Despite my previous assertion at the beginning of November, upon publication of ‘Lost in the Music’, that I would be giving writing a rest until the new year, I have actually been doing quite a lot of writing recently. Finally, after a busy two months, I’ve decided that it’s time to share that news with my readers!

For several years now, I’ve had an idea floating around in my head for another novel, but I‘ve largely ignored it because I found it very difficult to formalise those musings into a workable storyline. To put it in perspective, this idea long pre-dates five of my published novels, including the entire Fairytale series.

In mid November, less than a week after publishing Lost in the Music, inspiration suddenly hit as to how I might make this work, and I started to get my random thoughts down in a word document. Ever since then, I’ve not only been writing new ideas down as they come to me, but also trying to make some sense of those initial ones. It is definitely a very slow process. I keep writing a chapter, then going back and reworking it a day or two later, then doing yet another rewrite a few days after that. I’ve got just shy of 27000 words typed now, but I’d say I’ve deleted three times as many words as I’ve kept!

With most of my previous novels, the hardest part has been establishing the most appropriate title once I’ve finished writing my manuscript. For this book, it’s the other way round. I knew the title from the outset, but writing the body of the novel has been much more of a challenge, and I’m still not even half way through (I need at least 60000 words for a full story!). This book (if I ever finish it, as it could still be relegated to the folder full of half written novels on my laptop!) will be called ‘One Last Conversation’. It’s very personal to me, for reasons I will explain if it ever gets published, but it’s also been a really difficult one to research and get right. If I do finish and publish it one day, then please forgive me for any factual inaccuracies. It’s definitely a work of fiction!

Watch this space for more details in the future, but for now, I wish you all a very Happy New Year!