It’s Sunday night. It’s been an okay weekend. Bit of writing, bit of movie watching with Kid6, some housework … and the knowledge that next weekend My Knight will be home. Hard to be unhappy with so much joy on the immediate horizon. Not that I tend to unhappiness anyway: I’m generally a happy person. I was made that way. There is always something good just around the corner, and anything can be funny. Yeah, I’m that person. Not ALL the time though. everyone has bad days and shitty moods. I can turn the air blue within seconds if my buttons are pushed. Thing is, it doesn’t last long. I can go from zero all the way up the F scale, like you wouldn’t believe. Then it’s done. Business as usual. Sagittarius trait? Perhaps. Life’s too short to hold onto shit. Let it go! 🙂
The last 18 months have not been the easiest for any of us (worldwide it’s been pretty shit). It’s been quite tough at times holding on to hope that Geoff and I would be back together. Fingers crossed that his flight lands in Auckland and he gets safely to Wellington on Sunday morning.

As for writerly news … I’m enjoying writing the new book [Leave a message]. Decided I hadn’t quite started the story earlier enough so added three chapters (and counting) to the beginning. Definitely needed it. It’s early days with this story, I’m not a hundred percent sure what’s happening, but I know who it involves and that it’s going to be a puzzle for Crockett and Ronnie. I get the feeling they quite like puzzles, so, shouldn’t be a problem.
Word count it going up. Story is filling out.

Tonight I’m listening to the playlist from Qubyte. Each song takes me back to the writing process and reminds me just how bloody awesome it was having those characters in my life. To be honest, it was a stroke of writer genius to use songs as my chapter titles in the Byte Series. Songs hold memories and each chapter title brings the team back.

Music was a device I used during the writing. I used it to tune into the various characters. It became part of each story. Ellie used music to help her make connections within cases so often the songs she heard were also ones I listened to.

How many of the playlists have you heard?
Do you have a favourite?

I don’t use music when writing anything else. It was very much a Byte Series/Ellie thing. It’s not that I don’t listen to music when I’m writing (because I do), it just doesn’t speak to me like it did before. I listen now because I enjoy the song or album, completely different to listening because something was stuck in my brain and I had to hear the lyrics to unlock it or understand what was happening. Funny how it works.