In July 2014 my author website went live. I had three novels to promote on there, plus two books of short stories and five books of poetry.

It was the first week in August 2014 when I first came up with the idea for my next story, so I made some simple notes in my trusty notebook.

What did I write as the basis for the new book?
Vigilante, young female, NYPD, trigger – family connection, short time scale, fast pace, outside influence.

Okay, so that wasn’t much to go on, but as any writer would agree; it was enough.

The mention of outside influence was essentially because I was asking for ideas from anybody to keep the story going after the first chapter. There wasn’t much of a response on the ideas side of things, but I did have suggestions from several people that I should go it alone to maintain my writer’s ‘voice’.

I gave myself an estimated publishing date of mid-December 2014.

Why so tight on time?
I know I feel more of an incentive, so work more efficiently when under pressure. I completed the first draft six weeks later.

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It is now 16 weeks since I started and I’ve completed the fourth draft. I’ve just finished editing my latest printed copy of the manuscript and gone back to the screen to make my amendments – again.

For a couple of days, I’ll be working through the whole file to check punctuation, grammar and suchlike. One minor issue I’ve created for myself is that this novel is Americanized. The story, characters, and locations are American, so why would the spelling and phraseology be any different? I particularly want it to appeal to the people who live where the story is set.

The file will rest for a week before I complete final checks.
Towards the end of the first week of December I’ll print the manuscript and read it again.

Monday 8th December I’m aiming to publish my new creation, ‘A Taste of Honey’.

The first five chapters are now updated on my blog as a taster.
Thank you as always for being patient with my absence from the blogging community, and thank you for reading.
Any comments are welcome as always.