I hold my hands up – I was that busy enjoying a post book release holiday that I forgot to blog about said book release. Do I lose author points for that?
The truth is, getting Amy over the finish line was tough. One of the great things about deadlines is that you know what you’re working towards. On the other side of the coin, they can be terrifying when they’re bearing down on you like an angry panther. So, afterwards, I went into a mini tailspin that was only halted by a trip to the Lakes with my wife.
Let me say this – I’m proud of Amy. My aim is to make every novel I publish better than the last one, and I think I succeeded with that. Perhaps the emotional fatigue came not only from pushing myself to meet that deadline, but also the subject matter. What was simply an idea a couple of years ago turned into reality the moment the Tories called a leadership election. It made completing the book exhausting, especially because UK politics is so toxic these days.
One of the reasons I write about it, though, is because it’s toxic. Unless you explore a broken system, you can’t even begin to fathom how to fix it. Something I learned from revising Amy in these last few months is that there has to be hope the system can be changed. There are plenty of good people who go into politics for the right reasons; it’s just that we’re not hearing much about them in an emotionally charged and reactionary era.
There will be a third book in the series, focused on Max (I know, I shock you). However, it’s definitely time to take a step back from politics and try to claw my way out of this brain fug. I’m sure this is how all authors feel to a certain extent once they’ve kicked their words out to the reader and washed their hands of it. I just wonder how many find the backdrop to their novel playing across national television during the editing period – I’d love to know how they handled it!
Amy is out now on Kindle and is also available on Kindle Unlimited.
Valerie is currently on sale until the end of September.
