My current ambitions

My perambulations in Australia and New Zealand over for now – what a holiday we had! – I am back home again. And what are my current ambitions?

I been reading a lot of books, including lately a series of novels about love, dating, discovering one’s true purpose in life… I’m sorry to say, I find myself increasingly impatient with multiple characters who find themselves able to win Masterchef and Bake-Off at the drop of a hat, who attract, without seeming to try, the attention of major modelling houses, talent scouts etc etc or who are so obscenely wealthy that they can fly off in personal jets anywhere they fancy, in stories that seem to rely on constant scene flashbacks. I take my impatience as a sign that I should really get back to writing my own books.

So, in the last two weeks, I have finished writing my second novel, The Seduction of Susan Scott which I am now combing through with a final edit. Hopefully, it will be in reasonable shape for my next trip to Frankfurt in October. My second novel complete, my fifth book, and finally I feel I am taking my trade seriously.

My ambitions at the moment include polishing both my finished novels Lisa Somerville and Susan Scott for a submission which I have ready to go at the start of September. To have two clean novels to offer feels much more positive than a tentative one-and-a-half. I might, in the month between now and October, write more of novel three (though I find myself having to take time out to say a fond farewell to Susan, Richard and Sheila).

While stepping cautiously forward and hoping for the best, balance has always been my biggest challenge. So now I find that I would rather succeed gently in many small ambitions than think about the possibility of failing at a big one. (If I ignore the big ambition and collect lots of small ones instead, I suspect that I can get to the big ambition without too much of of a panic.) Besides, I don’t really see what failure means, these days, except perhaps that it takes us ten years to do something we thought might take a couple of months…

To celebrate the completion of Susan Scott I am publishing a novella in instalments in my next series of blog posts.

Thanks for reading.

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