Kia ora,
Welcome to Christmas Eve in New Zealand.
It started with a text to a friend who has a Christmas Eve birthday. I was first to say Happy Birthday so that’s a win. (Also a perk of living in the future.)
The rest of the day involved dessert making, washing, and trying out two new styling contraptions on Doris’s hair. We were pleasantly surprised how well they worked on super curly hair. Such fun.
Thanks Superman. (He doesn’t know yet what he got us.)
And it’s not that we opened them early. They arrived today so therefore were not wrapped. We cannot be held responsible for that situation.

I’ve changed the turkey’s name from Gerald to Richard because he’s far too annoying. He needs to try harder to thaw. The stuffing is waiting but Richard is still frozen in the middle – can’t get his giblets out when they’re frozen. He’s a right Richard.

In other news: this year I wrote a novel and two novellas. The sixth novel in the Veronica Tracey Spy/PI series and I completed the Fates Entwined Trilogy. Hooray. Not bad going. (The Fates Entwined: The Spellbound Bookshop books are all available now.)
There have been noises about there being more stories about Violet, Poppy, and Lily … I’m not convinced they need more. We’ll see.
Currently, I’m sitting with the first round of edits my editor sent back for [Indigo Romeo Lima] and revelling in the note from my editor telling me she loved the story. (Me too, so, YAY.)
I haven’t opened the edits. Amazing restraint on my part. You all probably know that by now. I like to dive in and get on with it. I love this part of the process. The fine tuning. The story is already there. The hardest part is done. Now it’s all polish and shine. 🙂
I’m forcing myself to take a real break before plunging into the land of edits. I’m trying a new thing. Waiting. Not being so impatient with myself.

[Indigo Romeo Lima] isn’t launching until April so I have time to slow down and try some patience. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My Knight told me last night that he thinks moving away from Ellie and the FBI-Byte Series was a good move. I think he’s right.
I enjoy Ronnie and the gang from the Veronica Tracey Spy/PI series but in a different way to how I enjoyed Ellie, Lee, Sam, Kurt, Sandra, Mac, and Mitch. The FBI-Byte series was a lot. It was intense, fast, sometimes terrifying, always emotional. (You laugh, you cry, you think ‘fuck this is going dark’ … is it really a Byte Series novel if you don’t?)
The VT books have more humour in them or maybe characters like Nana and Donald add a different dynamic and change the overall feel?
Could just be that they’re Kiwi stories and that’s how we roll.

Buy a book or two and we’ll chat about the differences. 🙂

Anywho, Merry whatever, and be safe.