April Wrap Up
Hi friends,
The months are flying by. Autumn is finally here in the Blue Mountains, and I have pulled out my cardigans, which is making me very happy. There’s nothing I love more than being cozy while I write or read. It’s lovely.
The weather isn’t the other thing that’s changing. I’m trying to find my footing with new writing practices as my editing job becomes more of a focus of my days, and my writing needs to be squeezed around it. I love that I have the opportunity to work with writers on making their manuscripts shine, but the day-to-day juggle of projects is real.
I feel like I’m striving for the perfect balance, but I’m not sure it exists.
Something exciting that happened this month is that Evie and Wren Hate Each Other was released, which you might know from previous substack posts. It’s been amazing to know that people are buying and reading the book. It’s a nerve wracking thing to put yourself out there but I did it and I’m proud.
Anyway, on to the monthly wrap up.
Reading
This month I’ve been continuing with my romance kick for the most part. I read five books, which isn’t much compared to last month, but I’m pretty pleased considering I’ve been so busy.
The Way I Hate Him (Almond Bay book one) by Meghan Quinn
The Boyfriend Goal (Love and Hockey book one) by Lauren Blakely
The Romance Line (Love and Hockey book two) by Lauren Blakely
The Proposal Play (Love and Hockey book three) by Lauren Blakely
I ate these books up. Devoured. I don’t know when I became a hockey romance girlie, but here we are, and honestly these are the best hockey romances I’ve read. Swoon.
And for something completely different…
Sunrise on the Reaping (Hunger Games 0.5) by Suzanne Collins
I’m not sure I can adequately articulate my feelings about this book, except to say it should be called Sunrise on the Weeping.
Writing
As I touched on in my introduction, I’ve been working on balancing my writing with my editing job, and my life stuff.
Luckily, Katherine Larsen of Debut Books has come to the rescue with her perfectly-timed 4 week writing challenge, which I’ve joined! It’s running through May and is going to be a great way for me to not only make some progress on my new manuscript, but also figure out a new writing schedule and practice.
Last night we had a group zoom call where we looked at what what was and wasn’t working in our writing practice and put a plan in place for the next four weeks.
I’ve just started writing the second book in my adult romance series (Golden Point) so the plan is to really give it a good kickstart. I’ll be doing four writing sessions a week and aiming to achieve 20,000 words during the month. It sounds ambitious, but I have two writing groups I attend which I am very productive at. One is Write Stuff, on a Wednesday night from 7:30-8:30pm, organised by Debut Books (reach out to Katherine if you want to join). The other group is an in-person one here in the mountains. It’s Friday afternoons for two hours and I look forward to it all week.
While drafting the second book in the Golden Point series, I’m also editing the first. I’m a little behind schedule, but I hope that with putting writing plans into place, I can also do that with my self-editing. My aim is to write, edit, publish as much as possible.
Listening
This past month I’ve been going to the gym. It’s something I put off for a long time, even though I enjoy exercise. Life gets in the way and sometimes I just feel like I’m too busy, but I finally joined and I love it.
Along with exercise comes music. I’ve been listening to some great playlists on Apple Music, including 90’s and 00’s workout tunes. It’s been awesome to listen to music from when I was a teen, and get all those good vibes going.
I’ve also been listening to Lana Del Rey’s new singles, trying to learn the words before I see her in concert in the UK in June!
Fun Things
It was my daughter’s 20th birthday this month and we went to Taronga Zoo to celebrate (her choice). It was wonderful to see her so joyful. It made my heart feel full.
I’ve also been doing Lego recently, and finished building the Natural History Museum which took so many hours I don’t even know how to start counting them lol.
Thank you for taking the time to read my posts. I appreciate it.
Steph xx
