Our Christmas tree is still sparkling in the corner of our living room, five days later. It was a lovely, busy Christmas with the kids - and I got all three of my knitted gifts finished in time. Whew! :) Now I'm knitting a scarf for myself with the lush, gorgeous cornflower-blue wool that Patrick got me for Christmas, which fills me with utter ( Read more... )

For the last several years, I've been linked into social media for most of my waking hours. Sometimes I worried about whether I was too linked in, but mostly I enjoyed the connection too much to worry about it.

This weekend, though, I finally downloaded the SelfControl app to cut the link, because in a time when a LOT of us are feeling anxious, ( Read more... )

I started writing the first draft of Congress of Secrets in April 2005.

Today, it's finally out in the world. It's been a long and varied journey...but I'm so happy to have arrived here now!


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It's half-term here in Wales, which means that the kids are home from school for a week and a half...and of course, not much writing work ever gets done in our house during school holidays, unsurprisingly. ;) I am really enjoying the novella I'm sneak-writing throughout half-term (Snowspelled), though, so much so that I'm starting to spin plans for ( Read more... )

It's three weeks to the day until Congress of Secrets will be published. Yay! And eek! In very good news for calming anticipatory author-nerves, it's been getting some amazing reviews. Booklist says it "[will] delight her fans and fans of historical fiction in general with its spin on political intrigue, historical romance, dark alchemy, and ( Read more... )

This is going to be a very scattered post, because I am feeling scattered at the moment! I spent the end of last week getting ready to host a kid-birthday party in our house (which had gotten VERY SCARY with accumulated mess after several months of constant Deadline Mode). Then it was time for for a nice family visit, and then my kid's actual ( Read more... )

It's the beginning of the school year here in the UK...almost. That is, my older son started school last week, but my younger son won't start for real until next week because his lovely, nurturing new nursery believes in staggered starts. That's wonderful in many ways...but this starting schedule has been a bit of a nightmare for a working parent ( Read more... )

We made it! We're back home in the UK...and oof. It was a rough re-entry, since my older son came down with a terrible case of the rotavirus (stomach flu) on our first night back. We're all still pretty jetlagged, and I'm dealing with with a serious post-travel M.E./CFS crash, but I've also been spending time in our beautiful garden, my parents are ( Read more... )

WHEW. I just sent off my final proofreading notes on Congress of Secrets. They'll be amended in the typeset manuscript, which will then be sent to print by Pyr Books this week...

...So in other words, I am really and truly done with this book. That is always a huge moment with each new book, exciting and scary both at once. This is it! There's no ( Read more... )

One of my very least favorite feelings in the world is saying goodbye to either of my brothers, and in the last 24 hours, I've had to say goodbye (for now) to both of them. Wahh! Luckily, my brother Ben is coming back into town next week with my wonderful sister-in-law, so I'm already looking forward to seeing him again soon, but it'll be at least ( Read more... )