It's been a while 🎼
Where the hell have you been, loca?!
Hello, people in my inbox.
How are we.
I get it. It's been a while. There was a whole month there with zero (0) posts. I can explain.
It's been busy. Good busy. August was full of summer camps; September was back-to-youth-theatre month, plus the Children's Books Ireland conference; October was everything-is-in-full-swing mode…lots of groups I work with are writing their own plays, or drafting work for the Cork Zine Fest. We had a CTC residency week and I wrote another (better) draft of a play for young audiences. I was supposed to go to the Bournemouth Romance Writing Festival, but couldn't at the last moment, which really sucked, but thankfully everyone was very understanding. I went to Japan for the first time ever and had an incredible two weeks on the other side of the world. A Fix of Light was nominated for a Carnegie (HELLO????)
It's all good busy, engaging and envigorating and creative — and happening all at the same time.
Some things fell by the wayside, the blog being one of them, which I feel more than a little guilty about! I had a good streak going there for a while. But I'm trying to remember to take it easy on myself sometimes, and to rest properly, because over-working and then berating myself for not being able to keep up has not proved the most effective strategy thus far.
Anyway, I am wobbling back towards a schedule, and hopefully some photos from my Japan trip will make it up to all of you who have been desperately refreshing your email inboxes.
Also…Marginalia is officially one year old! Can you believe it? I feel like I started this blog last week. The last 12 months have passed in a blur. Sometimes I flick back through photographs and balk at how much has happened. Everything happens so much, as they say.
Despite non-stop travel around Japan for two weeks, I've actually come back feeling rested and refreshed, which is great because I really need to delve into the Project H&H draft again. I'm SUCH a slow drafter — getting the words out takes me forever, and even when I do my best to write plans and summaries and synopses and chapter breakdowns, it doesn't speed me up at all (though it helps with clarifying my ideas). I must embrace my snail pace, I suppose, and just make sure it's a steady one.
And, actually, Project H&H is going well! I'm so excited by the characters and the story, by the weird half-science half-magic stuff I've woven together, and by the challenge of writing something so much more complex (craft-wise, anyway) than Fix. I can't wait for everyone to meet these characters! I promise I'll keep working hard to make sure they're with you soon <3
For now, I shall bid you slán, and leave you with some snaps from Japan. The trip deserves its own post, I think!
Tóg go bog é x
