Back on the merry-go-round

I still have a book to polish up for publication by Del Rey UK, and I'm very grateful for that. But those books are written and I need to look forward to a new deal somewhere. I feel as if I'm back where I started but with a bit more to put in my writing CV. 

So a book I wrote several years ago will (hopefully) be landing in editors' inboxes at some point, courtesy of my new agent Jane. It only takes one of them to like it, I suppose, but the closer I get to a draft the less confident I become. I'm so familiar with the characters now they seem commonplace and ordinary. So I've spent some time looking through A Baby's Bones again and falling in love with my two principal characters again. 

It's also helped me with the sequel, because I am crawling through the contemporary strand incredibly slowly, barely making 3000 to 4000 words a week. (Note to self - check which box I packed my writing mojo in). It's growing, but I think I'm too distracted with other stuff (losing my mother-in-law, illness, settling into the house) to come up with story. As soon as a moment of plot suggests itself I'm off for a chapter or two - then stagnation again. It will all come together, it always does. Meanwhile I'm still playing with my ghost story. 

Meanwhile, one of my sons is studying archaeology at the University of Southampton, and I am JEALOUS. The more I read, the more fascinating the subject becomes. I'm looking forward to him coming home for Easter to see what his course has shown him - something will spark for the book, I'm sure. He was a fan of ABB and that's a good reason to get on with ABB 2. Love you, Isaac!