My goodness, how do I catch up on a year? Well, by subject I suppose!
WRITING: Oh I do wish I were like other authors who simply do a book every year or two! My books take between 9 months and more than twenty years - though the twenty year ones are generally tucked away in a drawer for many years at a time, so I suppose they take no more than 3-4 years each. BOOKS: I am in the rather strange position of being quite far along on at least four books, needing less than 6 months each to complete them. The Brownings has been put aside for a time, and the next novel to be finished is the one long dearest to my heart: a love story set in the English midlands 1900 between a 17-year-old boy artist and a man in his thirties who is in mourning for the end of his marriage and paralyzed by memories of his brutal childhood. It takes place over seven years. It's very passionate and intense. The other books which are slowly approaching the finish line include the third book of the Nicholas trilogy and the Brownings and one other...no, two others. An odd way to write perhaps, but the one given to me! So...
LIFE: Life remains strange without the loving presence of my husband Russell who I lost 15 months ago. But I have many friends and have traveled (to London with an old friend for a week and to New Mexico and Colorado with dear friends, my first visit there; at the end I landed in Denver for the simply enormous Historical Novel Conference.) I also see a lot of family and adore my church of St. Ignatius of Antioch. My Shakespeare reading group meets once a month to read through a whole play. I hear a lot of concerts and plays and get together with other writers and talk our heads off and drink wine and laugh and emote and share.
IN CONCLUSION: I hope to have more news of my new novel under contract soon. Wish me luck! Sending much affection to all! - Stephanie