What’s happening in my world, this week:
- Work: my editor liked the revisions, so M&B #82 was accepted on Thursday, and A Diamond in the Snow will be out later this year; writing M&B #83 (cardiac unit, marriage of convenience book); updating my website one backlist book per day (going to take three months at this rate, but at least it will be done); and faffing about with my Big Book (not settled on whether I’m going to write first person or third or a combination of the two, but my writery day on Tuesday will help me sort that)
- Reading: Sarra Manning, House of Secrets (if you like Kate Morton and Rachel Hore, you’ll like this); Peter James, Love You Dead (he never disappoints); Kerry Barrett, The Girl in the Picture (loved the PRB background, aka my favourite art movement – note to self, haunt the Tate website *again* this week because I got fed up with the ‘booking shortly’ they’ve had up since last October and asked if they could tell me when the tickets for the Burne-Jones exhibition actually go on sale; apparently it’s this month. Can’t wait to see my favourite painting of all time in the flesh for the very first time – I’ve seen the cartoon (sketch) but not the real thing)
- Looking forward to: Writery day in London with Heidi Rice and Fiona Harper; Radio Days (comedy) at the Norwich Playhouse; Sheridan Smith (music) at Norwich Theatre Royal and dinner out first with DH’s best friends
- Workouts: Usual dog-walks, but planning to go back to the gym on Wednesday because by then last week’s dental work should be healed enough to cope
- Planet Kate last week: London on Monday – tour of King’s College London, a quick trip to the National Gallery (focusing on the 19th century rooms because my daughter shares my tastes – it was such a joy to see her face, the very first time she saw one of her favourite paintings in real life, ie Van Gogh’s Sunflowers) and a fly-by visit to the office so they could meet the baby who started my writing career (!!); what I thought was my dental appointment on Tuesday, but it turned out I had the wrong day so I had to go through it all over again on Wednesday (difficult extraction so it was by the dental surgeon, and I am a nervous patient thanks to an extraction that went badly wrong some years ago – but my surgeon was fabulous, really kind); horrible reaction to the Diazepam, which was supposed to reduce the nervousness but instead reduced me to a snivelling wreck on Thurs/Fri; son back to uni in Nottingham on Saturday; North Sea on Sunday (Wells-next-the-Sea and then Cromer) because I needed the sea to rebalance me a bit.
- Fave pic from the last week: I’m cheating and making that three. The first is from my back garden – it’s an iPhone snap so the colours aren’t quite right, but the sun was this beautiful orange orb in a peachy sky. The second is from Wells-next-the-Sea on Sunday; and the third is taken 20 minutes further round the coast at Cromer, where the sea fret had come in and made everything look like an MR James story (and there’s no filter – I didn’t take it in monochrome, but the fog leached the colour from everything and it made me itch to write something Gothic!).
