It’s early on Sunday morning and the rest of my household is sound asleep. I should be too, but arthritic hip number two woke me at two thirty this morning and hasn’t really settled down since. Number one, which was replaced in January is mostly well behaved these days although the scar sometimes objects if I sleep on that side all night.
It’s a grey morning with on and off drizzling rain and a breeze which feels oddly warm. I can’t really get my head around that. I went outside with my first cup of tea to sit on the bench at the back of the garden and expected to feel cold before I finished it. The sight of trees and shrubs dancing in the wind and leaves beginning to swirl down onto the lawn says autumn to me but this mild breeze speaks more of summer.
The dogs enjoy an early cuppa on the patio. They waited patiently while I caught up on some work on the laptop, clearly wondering why I was awake and typing in the middle of the night but the moment I put the kettle on they were waiting hopefully by the back door ready to join me on a morning inspection of the garden. It was pretty much the same as during their evening inspection but they have to check all the same.
I’ve just left the latest instalment of the Peninsular War Saga with my editor along with the next volume of short stories and the notes for a talk I’m giving next week. It feels very satisfying to move work off my desk and on to hers, even if it’s only for a short while. Fairly soon chapters will start winging their way back to me for corrections. At the moment though, it’s quite a pleasant limbo.
I wish I was better at knowing what to do with that time. I’d like to spend it in the garden; I love gardening but it’s a funny time of year. The weather is unpredictable and as much as I love autumn it’s not the same as the excitement of sowing and planting and watching new flowers grow in spring.
I’ve spent a few days getting my website up to date. I was honestly embarrassed at how behind I’d got with it but I’ve decided to blame that on a hip replacement and a new book. I’ve also finally committed to uploading regular posts onto Substack. I joined ages ago as part of my ongoing quest to find a new way of connecting to readers. One of the things I’ve never managed to do in the eight years since I started publishing is establish any kind of mailing list, despite being told regularly how essential it is for an author.
I think I was put off the whole mailing list experience by my fear of spamming my poor readers. I have a Facebook page and a Twitter / X account which for years worked very well at getting the word out to people but although I still get a fair bit of engagement on Facebook, Twitter is not what it once was. I’ve experimented with BlueSky and Threads but neither of them really did what I wanted and I found them terminally irritating. Instagram remains the ultimate mystery to me although I think that might be because I’m old.
I like Substack so far because it’s easy just to transfer blog posts over from my website. So easy in fact, that I’m going to start transferring my short stories over gradually in the hope that they’ll reach a new audience. More to the point, it’s possible for readers to subscribe if they want, to keep up to date with new books, short stories and general ramblings from the world of Writing with Labradors.
So if you want to keep up with my news, please subscribe here. I’ll try not to spam you with endless links to BUY MY BOOK, though there will be book related news. But there are just as likely to be pictures of Labradors, flowers in the garden and my new obsession, Colin the fledgeling hooded crow and his family who seem to have moved into my garden.
Thanks for reading.
