One Month To Publication Day

During the week of this blog falls May 22nd - and that means there's just one month to go until publication day! It hardly seems possible: this time last year I didn't even have an agent. In fact, I was still writing the fourth draft of the book, which was the draft that - finally - was good enough to be accepted.

Talking of writing, I am still hard at work on book 2. When I was a child, I had a recurring dream in which I was hurrying as fast as I could to get to a particular place; I can't recall what the place was, but I do remember that in the dream it was right ahead of me. But no matter how fast I went, I never got any closer. At the moment, I feel rather like that with book 2. No matter how much I write, the ending doesn't feel any nearer. Is it just me or do others out there ever feel like that about their writing? Is it having a deadline that's making me feel like this?

Other than that, what have I done in my Debut Novelist role this month? Well, I have appeared in my first blog interview. Usually in an interview, I'm the one asking the questions, but this time it was the other way round, with the questions being put by Tara Greaves for her Behind The Book blog. Many thanks to those of you who followed me over there and thanks also to those of Tara's regular readers who popped over here to take a look round my website. Judging by the comments on the interview, the main point of interest seemed to be the writing tips Tara asked me for and which was more important - rule 1 or rule 2? Don't know what I'm talking about? Pop over there and take a look!

I also had some wonderful news from my editor at Allison & Busby: The Deserter's Daughter is going to be published in audiobook form by Isis Soundings. I have been listening to audiobooks with great pleasure for years and Isis is one of the big names in the business and a name I am very familiar with, because of the many authors whose books I love whom they publish, such as Anna Jacobs, Ruth Hamilton, Lee Child and Lyn Andrews. For my book - my book! - to be an Isis Soundings audiobook is just wonderful.

And of course, this past month saw the cover reveal of The Deserter's Daughter.

I am hugely grateful to the talented Christina Griffiths at Allison & Busby for creating such a beautiful and atmospheric illustration that perfectly captures the spirit of the story.

Many thanks to all the lovely people on Twitter and Facebook who shared and retweeted so generously. Your kind comments had me glowing with pride - though really it should have been Christina gathering all the compliments.

There we are. That's the round-up of this past month as a debut novelist. A happier month altogether than last month. Next time I write one of these Debut Novelist blogs, it will be at the start of publication week itself. Wow! In the meantime, it's back to writing book 2...