Missed Blogs, Changed Plan and a Rejection

Well, I’ve managed to miss a couple of months blogs over the last couple of months for various reasons, so apologies for the delayed update. There have been a few things happening whilst I have been away, but the main reason for this blog is to get me back on track for some of my ambitions for the year.

One of my main objectives was the completion of the fourth DI Christie novel and with this one set over the festive period, I want to get this released ideally before December. Progress has been slow in recent months, mainly due to every day life factors, which has led me to change the plan slightly in terms of length.

Many authors, particularly new ones, get too caught up on word count rather than the story itself. I’ve certainly been guilty of this in the past and most of the Christie novels, as well as my debut Alive, are all around the 70k-75k length. My initial plan was for the ‘Festive Christie’ to be similar, however, I have restructured my plan and reduced this closer to 50k. Now, that could lead to a ‘is it a novel or novella?’ question, but at that length it will be a short novel rather than a novella (I’ve already written 2 novellas which are closer to 25k length, for those interested in such things). This will give me the best chance to complete it on time, ensuring that the story is not spoiled by the change.

Something else that happened recently was that I received a rejection for a short story I had submitted for publication in an anthology. Although it is naturally disappointing when the work you put into a story is not rewarded with publication, I’m trying to take the positives from the experience. The story had a number of firsts for my writing. Firstly, it had to be set in a specific location (rather than country/city which I had written for previously). Secondly, it was for an American publisher, which meant writing it in American English. Thirdly, I had to plan a murder that involved wildlife, which meant researching a specific animal’s behaviour, reading autopsy reports on animal attacks and watching a few too many YouTube videos on the subject. I was really pleased with the outcome, so I hope that it can be either published elsewhere or shared on another platform.

Of the other plans for the year, little progress has been made. I am still working out a new series that I have planned, which is actually two separate ones and I will need to get writing the first one soon. Agent planning continues, with research into who I will be querying to.

So, with that in mind, I better get back to DI Christie in the snow…

Thanks again for reading. You can access my books and contributions via the Books tab of this website.