(I have a feeling I’ve used this post title before – inching gradually is often the only way I can make any kind of progress!)
Although I knew I would probably not be able to do a lot of writing during my scheduled hospital stay, I didn’t realise there would be absolutely none, and very little afterwards either. It’s only during the past couple of weeks that I’ve managed to do anything, and even that has been at quite a slow rate. Still, I thought it was about time I updated this blog with some news!
People who follow the Cecilia Peartree Facebook page will know about some of this already but there have been a couple of very recent developments that I hope everyone will welcome.
The first thing is that I’ve completed a light edit and chapter summary for the thing I was writing before hospital, ‘The Body on the Hill’, also known as ‘Pamela 3’. I deliberately chose to write this while waiting to be called in for my operation, because the Pamela books are even lighter-weight than anything else I write. Also, because they’re set in locations that are very familiar to me, I don’t have to worry about inventing yet another weird place in Pitkirtly, or researching ferries in early 19th century Cornwall. The chapter summary was an essential preliminary to writing what will be the second half of the story. In general I am not unhappy with the way the plot is going, which is a pleasant surprise, though there is a hint right at the end of the part I’ve written so far that the story might get more complicated very soon. (Not sure I can cope with that!)
The people from cardiac rehab who are currently on my case keep suggesting I walk down the garden and back as a way of starting to get fit, so this morning I did this every time I completed the light edits on one chapter. I must admit I didn’t feel very much better for it though! Maybe it has to build up a bit more.
The second development is that I’ve been secretly working on a tentative plan for Pitkirtly XXX! I discovered I’d made notes about a vague idea as part of a summer writing challenge I took part in earlier, and now the notes are stored in a separate file entitled ‘POSSIBLE PITKIRKTLY XXX IDEA HOLD THE FRONT PAGE’, though the title of the novel is more likely to be something along the lines of ‘Unwelcome Manoeuvres (in the dark)’ – the part in brackets is just my mind running away with me and not necessarily part of the final title.
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 