Writing during a heatwave

Chiltern Brew Cafe Garden

It's thirty-one degrees today and while we've been waiting - it seems - forever for summer to arrive, the humidity makes it hard to do anything but gently perspire. As some Covid restrictions have now been lifted, I've found myself veering back to air-conditioned cafes and coffee shops to write for the first time in nearly two years. A cool blast of air and a pot of tea - maybe a slice of cake - does wonders for my creativity.

Since my second psychological thriller And Then She Ran came out in April, I've signed a contract to write two more with HQ/HarperCollins and have started plotting my third. It's different to the one I initially outlined for my lovely editor Belinda Toor and I'm currently waiting to hear whether I can go ahead with it. It's one of those ideas I don't want to let go of and have presumptuously written the first two chapters.

Alongside that, Amanda Brittany and I are writing our third thriller, spurred on by the success of The Perfect Nanny. As with our last two books, we're thoroughly enjoying the experience, bouncing ideas off each other and writing a chapter a day, motivating each other to keep going. Motivation (or maybe it's discipline) is something I struggle with when writing solo - until two weeks before the draft is due when I write about 10,000 words a day. (Not recommended.)

Lovely Husband and I managed a weekend away last month - the first in nineteen months - to Whitstable, Kent. The weather wasn't great but it was good to have a change of scenery, and I had a wander around and made notes as I'd like to feature the area in a book at some point. Author Julie Wassmer has already written a whole mystery series based there - Whitstable Pearl - which has been made into a TV series and we're currently enjoying watching that, yelling 'We went there!' and 'That's where we ate oysters!' (Newsflash: I didn't eat oysters, but my husband did - I couldn't face them.)

Whitstable

Whatever you're up to this summer, I hope it's a good one in every way.