I know I said this last time but it really is a ‘quickie’ from me today because I am *supposed* to be doing NaNoWriMo and I am miles behind.
I should be on almost 22,000 words by the end of the weekend and I’ve actually done about 10k (I say ‘about’ because half of it is handwritten in my notebook, still waiting to be typed up. Yes, it’s that much of a disorganised mess!).
But I keep telling myself, that’s how the other two books started (erm, and ‘middled’ – there I go, making up words) and they turned out OK in the end, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, so hopefully this one will be the same. Although I could do without the wailing and the gnashing, obviously.
Right, here’s the news ‘in brief’:
The blog tour for ‘The Highland Girls at War’ has started. This means, in essence, that over the next week, 21 lovely book bloggers (who are not paid, or, I suspect, often even thanked but who do it for the love of books and reading) are featuring a review of my novel on their blog. It’s supposed to be 3 a day.. in the order listed below but it’s got a little out of sync over the weekend but hey, it doesn’t matter.
There IS a giveaway associated with the blog tour, sponsored by yours truly (and I’m sorry but it’s only open to UK readers because of postage and all that). You can win a £15 Amazon voucher AND a Scottish goody bag full of naughty cakes, sweets and biscuits, from Highland Fayre.
And all you have to do is visit one of the bloggers – for example, Bookish Jottings,
and complete the rafflecopter form (which is towards the bottom, under the review). Simples! But make haste (as the Scots might say?!) because it’s only open until the end of next week.
Goodies up for grabs!
Children In Read
Next Friday (18th November) is the appeal night for Children in Need 2022 and linked to that is ‘Children in Read’, an on-line book auction, raising funds for the charity by auctioning signed copies of books, also artwork and the chance to name a character in someone’s next book. All kinds of writerly/readerly goodies!
As I write, it’s raised over £15,000.
My novel ‘A Wartime Secret’ is on there, as I donated a copy (it’s only got one bid so far – bless!)
But there are lots of books and other stuff, so it’s well worth a look. You might find something by a favourite author or you might want to bid for a book as a Christmas present for that bookworm in your life. And it’s all for a good cause.
The Strictlys…!
And finally… Who’s watching Strictly? Ooh, isn’t it good? Saturday night is honestly the only night of the week when we sit down to watch the tele’, with a sneaky G&T, log fire on and the dog at our feet. Bliss!
Hamza to win! #Strictly
Blog About Writing 
Go Hamza!!
Yes, Hamza’s great, isn’t he?!
He’s an incredible dancer and such a great guy too.
Best wishes with the blog tour, Helen. Exciting! And best wishes with the latest WIP, too. I find the weeks immediately after Christmas to be much more productive than November and/or December – new year, new start and all that.
Thanks for your comment, Eirin! I agree with you that January is much better for writing but last year I made the mistake of ‘waiting until after Christmas’ to really get going on my draft and I’d really left it too late, which caused a lot of stress. So I’m trying to get a very rough first draft done by the end of the year. We’ll see if I manage it (probably not!)