mind the gap

It’s done! I finished writing The Ghosts in the Castle on Saturday night and now have the daunting prospect of a week without writing. Unstructured time is tricky for me, but yesterday I filled the hours by “soaking the sponge” that is my brain. When I write, I wring the sponge dry and then I have to absorb new ideas and images in order to be ready to write again. Ghosts is out with some trusted readers and I’m looking forward to hearing their impressions. I stopped posting my word count on Facebook because much of the time I was cutting, trying to simplify and clarify the narrative so that it works for my target audience of 8-10-year-olds. I’ve been watching Black in Britain: a Forgotten History on YouTube and love the way my novel syncs with their survey of Black British history. But then, theirs is a four-part miniseries and mine is a 25K-word novel for kids…

Yesterday I watched The Hollow Crown and The Danish Girl, and I’m thinking of going to see Moana this afternoon. I started my Xmas baking yesterday and did another batch of cookies this morning. Pandora’s giving me a lovely assortment of Xmas tunes and hearing tracks from A Boney M Christmas makes me think of my Caribbean father and all the history I now dig for alone because he chose to withhold so many stories about his childhood in Nevis. We have family in the UK but I don’t really know where because my father never talked about that part of the family. So many silences…If I can keep my mind busy this week, I should be able to turn my attention to The Return next week and I might even finish it before 2016 ends! We had snow but then rain; gloomy weather still creates perfect conditions for keeping the tree lit all day long…but I’m hoping for a white Christmas. Hope you’re feeling festive, too!