HOLLY ICE

After about eighteen months in production, The Approach has finally landed on Amazon. I'm so pleased to see the book available for readers to buy, and I'm even more pleased that I've had so many four and five star reviews within days of the book launch. My thanks goes to all my advance readers for helping with the launch, my alpha and beta readers for helping with production, and my new readers, for exploring this new world I've created. Here's to hoping the rest of the Coura

I've spent September putting together launch plans and tinkering with the cover design for The Approach but now it's official: I have a cover, and The Approach will land on Amazon on November 1st 2019! I'm very excited. Also terrified. I sway between both emotions a lot. :) Here's the blurb: When nanites consumed our solar system, they killed every human they infected. Only one ship escaped. They named it ‘Courage’. Errai Avila is the biological child of her parents, and shun

This month has been busy, but also a quiet one in terms of big announcements. It's mainly been about pushing things on to the next stage, ready for September. The Courage Colony books are still going strong. Fatal Glitch has now had nearly 400 downloads (thank you!) and The Approach is edited, formatted, and awaiting its cover design on 19th September before publication. I also commissioned a chapter heading illustration for the series paperbacks, which is super cool. I hope

June has been fairly busy for me. First, I've been working on Courage Colony book two, The Welcome. This book is at the first draft stage and I got around 27,000 words into the predicted 70,000 word book when my beta readers for Fatal Glitch reported in. Fatal Glitch then took priority and The Welcome was put on hold while I read through and dealt with beta reader comments on the prequel. Altogether there were 147 comments across six readers which works out at about 24 each.

May is almost over but my hayfever is still in full swing *sniff*. Despite the itchy eyes and sniffy nose, I got a lot done this month. Fatal Glitch's second rewrite was finished ahead of schedule and sent out to my lovely beta readers on May 15th. Three have reported back so far, and the feedback confirms that what I have appears to be a pretty strong draft. Here's hoping the rest of the comments are as positive. Everyone is due to report in by June 15th so I can get started

I promised I'd update you all on how the second rewrite is going in my monthly blog post. In short, it's going very well. I'm currently editing chapter nine out of nineteen (plus an epilogue), so I'm almost halfway through this round of edits and each change is making the manuscript stronger and more cohesive. It feels like a different beast to the book that existed before this rewrite began. Three readers read the book this time around. Two were less positive, with feedback

I kept to plan and worked on a rewrite for the sci-fi prequel Fatal Glitch this month, with changes based on the first alpha reader's comments and my own concerns. This consisted of a few stages: 1) Edit line by line on paper 2) Make paper edit changes to digital copy 3) Re-read edited scenes and tweak for mood and readability 4) Re-read edited scenes and add in additional scenes or change sequence of events where required I've now finished stage 1) and 2) for all chapters. I

It feels like Fatal Glitch has new meaning this month when we've hit twenty degrees Celsius in February - in the UK! It reminds me to get back into my edits too, so that's the plan for March. I've spent a lot of this month making the most of the weather in the garden, getting it ready for spring and starting off seedlings indoors. I've also been reading and commenting on the novels of the two alpha readers I swapped books with. One has given me their feedback, which brings me

It's been a busy month between work and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This year I managed to write 50,739 words on my sci-fi prequel to the Courage Colony books, Fatal Glitch. It's an extremely rough draft with a lot of padding on one hand and some scenes which will need to be fleshed out on the other. In other words, the rewrite is going to take a while... but I'm still celebrating! I'm also pleased that twice this month I managed to write over 5,000 words in one

Autumn is here – my favourite time of year. It's a time for fireworks, raining leaves, fiery colours, layered clothes, TV under the covers, fluffy clothes and shoes, bobble hats, hot chocolate, fresh night air, the first sparkling frosts and powerful thunderstorms, plus a new alpha book swap. Work on The Approach, the first book in my Courage Colony YA sci-fi series has spread the seasons of this year. I started the research and planning on boxing day 2017, finished the first

A lot has happened over the last few months. First, by the 24th June, my fragile first draft of The Approach had faced the firing squad of my alpha readers, and I had their feedback in hand. That makes them sound mean – they weren't, but they were honest, and it seemed like the book needed a fair bit of work, particularly in acts two and three. Between the four alpha readers, I had around 400 in-line comments to sort through, and pages of summary comments. I guess, in context

Those of you keeping an eye on the site will have noticed a big revamp. It took me ages, but I'm beyond pleased with the result. The colour scheme and layout is much more professional and more in keeping with speculative fiction. Hopefully you like it too! The major focus of the design is space. This isn't a coincidence. I'm currently spending most my writing time on a YA Sci-fi series tentatively titled the 'Courage Colony' series. More details are on the WIP page. Book one