This time last year we were buried in snow, and edits. This year Christmas day was something like 20 degrees warmer than last years and the holiday has in general been a bit more rushed and fraught, and oddly enough, ill. Tummy bugs and the head cold from hell forced us to hibernate almost as much as the snow did.
So here’s the round up of 2011.
In January I went to Rome and Songs of the Wolf got some nice reviews.
In February I painted the Tardis Wardrobe, Writing.ie launched and I started to get excited about P-Con.
March brought further edits for The Treachery of Beautiful Things, which was still called May Queen then, sending me to my playlist for inspiration. It also took me to P-Con which I wrote up for Writing.ie. But mainly I was editing, and writing about editing, including a post on self-editing tips.
In April I launched a newsletter. It isn’t terribly busy but it means subscribers can get any news I have first. I also saw the most gorgeous hawthorn tree in full bloom, which made me happy as it’s the May Tree, and figures strongly in The Treachery of Beautiful Things. Oh and Cheryl Morgan did a video interview with me for Salon Futura and I discovered I mainly talk with my hands. Warning, s.e.x. is mentioned!
May had me thinking about fairytales in fiction, thanks to Claire Hennesey. And then more edits. The Patchwork Cat stole my pen which complicated matters a little but I prevailed and finished them by the end of the month.
In June… ah in June… we went on our research holiday. We visited Wayland’s Smithy and the Uffington White Horse, which are both so important to The Treachery of Beautiful Things. We explored the area as Jack might have and it was wonderful. We also went to Bletchley Park, a place I’ve long been fascinated with. It was one of those weekends away that felt like a week or more worth of a break. Oh and in Oxford we saw the “wicked” bible, which made the rare book geek in me squee SO HARD! Then they threw us out.
In July, May Queen got its new name and The Treachery of Beautiful Things was officially born. So were cheese and rosemary biscuits, but that’s another story.
In August the free Octocon Anthology came out, with my story Carrying Keptara in it and we went on holidays to France, seeing medieval towns, Carnac and so much that I had to do two posts to cover it and didn’t get them up until September.
September – the COVER of The Treachery of Beautiful Things. Great was the swooning and the squeeing. And the book was finally finished with the last edits turned in. And I tried to figure out what I was going to work on next.
October is always Octocon for me. It was fantastic fun as always. It also brought the blurb for The Treachery of Beautiful Things. Wonderful wonderful blurby goodness.
In November we went to Ashford Castle for a Harry Potter night again. Always a ball. On 
the way back we had another research trip that wasn’t and visited Loughcrew. It was fantastic. We even saw a fairy tree. And the ARCs of The Treachery of Beautiful Things arrived. So cool. Took quite a while to stop cuddling them.
Finally in December I brought out The Wolf’s Destiny, the final part of Jeren and Shan’s story, a Tale of the Holtlands. Dayna Hart created a perfect cover and with the magic of Smashwords and Amazon, the novel made its way out into the world.
The main theme of this year was edits. It had to be. Through all this time my little story changed and grew and became so much more than I’d ever imagined. May Queen became The Treachery of Beautiful Things and all the excitement started to grow. In one way 2011 was the slowest year ever, in other ways it seemed to flash by. There was a large amount of waiting, followed by periods of serious activity.
I can’t wait for 2012 and all that it has to offer, not least being the publication date of 16th August. I hope you all had a wonderful year, and have a wonderful year to come. Let’s hope all our dreams come true.
The Treachery of Beautiful Things is currently available for pre-order on Book Depository, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com in hardback and in Kindle format for both US and UK. It will be released from Dial Books on 16th August 2012.
229 days to go!