Watching The World Go By

Happy Sunday morning from chilly Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Or maybe we’re in Antarctica? It’s certainly been cold enough for that recently. I’m typing this in my pyjamas, with a hot cup of tea in a thermos, trying to ignore the zombie-apocalypse climate so that I can hopefully string a few words together.

Tomorrow the kids go back to school at home. They had a lovely in-person delivery of supplies from their teacher and are both very excited, but when Stacey and I made eye contact, I’m pretty sure we were both doing the same internal screaming.

After spending the last few months in a mood I can best describe as ‘isolation blah,’ about a week ago I gave myself a proverbial whipping (not the fun kind) and decided it was time to get myself back into some form of administrative shape. Writing has been difficult lately, but I’ve got deadlines looming and tasks hanging over my head, so it seemed like a good time to put my big girl pants on, write a cute To-Do list and try to get some of it done.

First on the list; Sorcery and Sandstorms is now available directly from Amazon as a paperback. You can find it here. If you’re after a signed copy, as always, contact me directly and I’ll organise it. Those who have copies already in holding here with me, lockdown is making delivery difficult but don’t freak out – we’ll catch up when we can.

Next in line is the wonderful ARRLD. Or, in long hand, A Romantic Rendezvous: Lockdown Edition. The Australian Romance Readers Association are putting this together and a bunch of authors from around the world (me included) are getting involved. The event is taking place on the weekend of August 1st, and you can find the full details and the programme here. I’ll be doing a reading from Sorcery and Sandstorms and the best part is, because all the videos are going up on their YouTube channel, you don’t have to watch them at the designated time – you can make a cuppa and enjoy the videos at your leisure.

Last but not least is a personal note on my own writing. I’ve had a few lovely people asking about the third book in both The Weaver’s War series and The Kin Chronicles. They are coming, but I’ll be honest – when the first lockdown hit us, I was in struggle street. I started both those books three or four times over, and wasn’t happy with any of the iterations. Out of the ashes of this miasma of misery rose a novel I’ve had in the think tank for well over a decade, and in order to cut myself some slack without stopping writing entirely, I began to work on it.

I know, I know, it’s neither of the books you were hoping to hear about – but I promise, promise, promise that this new book (and the series which will spawn from it) are going to be an awful lot of fun. True to form, I have no idea how to explain where it sits genre-wise, because off I went ignoring genre as per usual. I’m almost finished the first draft, so with any luck, I’ll have more information to share in the next couple of months.

Before you all get super mad at me, this new project has allowed me the valuable breathing room I desperately needed to get my thoughts in order regarding the continuation of the other two series. Serieses? Serieseseseseseses. So I can safely promise that once I move to the editing phase of my new project, it will be full steam ahead with… one of the others.

I haven’t decided, at this point, which one will come first – if you want to cast a vote, then feel free to comment down below or on one of my social media channels and let me know whether you want to see more of Arcana and Flare first, or whether you’re burning up over Dominic and Kaira’s story.

In the meantime, I’ll be continuing to add characters to the online character glossary and if I get the chance, I’ll add some more illustrations as well.

Oh, and I’ll be eating ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream.

Peace and love,
Sammy
xoxo