Living the #amwriting life - January

Hello my loves and welcome to a brand new round-up post that I'm going to share throughout 2020 and will go live during the last weekend of every month. If I'm being completely honest, this is more for my benefit than yours and I had originally planned to keep all the info in a notebook, but then I thought you might like to have a look at 'the month that was' with me.

Being an author can be a solitary business and sometimes it's all too easy to overlook the little - as well as the big things - that have been achieved and so I thought I'd start to put them together to remind myself each month that #thewritinglife hasn't been all screen, screen, screen!

So here, we go...

January

The year got off to a really great start celebrating the launch of The Choice, by Claire Wade. Claire was the Good Housekeeping novel competition winner last year and is now a firm friend as well as a fellow Norfolk and Suffolk RNA Chapter member. Appropriately enough, Claire and I first met over tea and cake and if you read her stunning debut, you'll understand the irony!

I kicked the evening off with dinner and gin in The Ivy, Norwich with my wonderful agent, Amanda Preston (who happens to be Claire's agent too),

Rhubarb gin...

before heading to Waterstones to toast Claire's success with the rest of the local RNA gang, family and friends, as well as enjoying the incredible array of cakes on offer.

A truly memorable gathering

Gorgeous super-agent, Amanda Preston

After the launch party excitement it was back to work, but thrilling things were still happening...

I accepted an offer to give a talk to the RNA London Chapter later in the year with author chum, Jenni Keer

The Secret Seaside Escape copy edit was completed

The PLR statement figures were revealed and I was delighted to see that my books have been borrowed thousands and thousands of times

I went off on my blogging travels

The Secret Seaside Escape cover was finally revealed and extremely well received. Huge and heartfelt thanks to my wonderful #swainette blogging crew who helped spread the word far and very wide

I finished planning and started writing a BRAND NEW BOOK - hooray - details and title to come very soon

And finally, I was featured in the 250th issue of Norfolk Magazine alongside Rachel Hore and Pam Brooks, talking about how our love of Norfolk inspires our work

So, there we have it! All in all, I think you'll agree, the decade has got off to a pretty productive start and February is already shaping up to be every bit as busy. I already know some of what is going to be happening, but I'm going to keep you in suspense until the calendar flicks over to what is, allegedely, the most romantic month of the year.

Sending love, hugs, health and happiness your way,

H x