Sorry for my lack of post last month. First time I’ve missed since I started blogging here! Mum passed away on the 10th November, so I took some time out, then chased my tail for weeks afterwards catching up.

2020 has been a horrible year for pretty much everyone. I started the year with Mum in hospital unsure how long we had her for. When she picked up, but not enough to continue living on her own, I had a mad scramble to find a hospital level rest home—complicated by the fact that everything shuts down here between Christmas and New Year, so dealing with skeleton admin staffing levels—and then clear her house to sell it in order to pay for the home.

I was so relieved she was settled in the home before everything locked down here for 7 weeks. Luckily that all happened before she went downhill even further so we could still keep in contact by telephone. The week before lockdown my car decided it had had enough of behaving as well. I traded it in for a new one, then three days later couldn’t go anywhere to drive it, apart from the weekly supermarket run.

In happier news, we’re waiting for my daughter’s baby to make her appearance. She’s over a week late, so hopefully not too much longer. Given the year we’ve had I don’t blame her for liking it where she is!

Writing wise, I wrote a complete first draft while in lockdown, which was about the only writing I did during the year that wasn’t edit related, as the rest of it has been focused on getting my backlist out. More about that first draft next month, which, being my first post of 2021, I’ll talk about my publishing plans for next year.

Publishing wise 2020 wasn’t too shabby, considering everything else going on.

I now have 6 books of my backlist republished (out of 13), and Lou Sylvre and I also published a new co-written book, The Harp and the Sea, with NineStar Press. I’m enjoying being a hybrid author and wish I’d been able to do it years ago. I very much appreciate my writing community. I couldn’t have done this, or survived the year, without their support.

You guys rock.

Happy holidays, and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. See you in 2021!
Meantime I’d love to see some of you in my readers group and/or signing up for my newsletter.