The Valkyrie by Kate Heartfield has been my latest read.

With so much happening in my personal life I haven’t had the brain power to read as avidly as I would have loved to. But when I did sit down with this book I really loved it. It was beautiful.

I loved the voice to it. It did really feel like friends talking.

I didn’t go into it knowing much about the book. I will be honest, I saw this in the local bookshop, skimmed page one and thought meh why not? Turns out it was a great choice. It was a lovely story and gave new tones to Norse mythology that I wasn’t aware of. It felt like a lot of time and research went into this story and it really does benefit from it.

I recommend the book and will be sending it on to someone who I think will like and appreciate it. It was really lovely to read and there are some beautiful, and some truly frustrating moments.

I can’t recommend this enough if you want a different, lesser known aspect to Norse mythology to read.

Well it’s been over a year and a half. It has been the best decision we could have made as a family.

Orkney weather is something to behold. Rain or shine there is something eerily beautiful about it. Even with horizontal rain.

The people are lovely. There is a real chill calmness here that I’ve not known anywhere else.

Back in my twenties I struggled to reconcile how I would find living up here having spent my whole life in the hustle, bustle and danger of south London. I really couldn’t see myself making the move till I was much, much older.

Well now I am in my thirties and quite simply, we waited too long. Being able to breath is so unreal. I felt like I was suffocating in London compared to now. Every day used to feel so intense, now it isn’t a constant onslaught on my nervous system. There are days where I can breath, feel the wind or the rain and just know that might be the worst attack my nervous system will logically have that day.

While the mental health is still a struggle and it is alphabet soup, it’s different here. The support, the kindness, the understanding and patience, its unparalleled.

Best decision ever.

Honestly?

It’s a combination. Partly because physically and mentally it takes a lot out of me so I try to do small bursts.

But also because I have a short attention span and this little bite size bunch of words every so often is a lot easier for me to manage than having to write a thousand or more words. If I am going to write that much I want it to be words spent on my books. Either THE BIG PROJECT or PROJECT: MAC.

It really is that simple. To be honest I try to do these when I remember which isn’t exactly often.

Priorities with writing tend to start and stop brain power levels at working on the books. Anything beyond that is generally what I consider to be a miracle.

It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that my energy comes in short waves and I have to decide carefully where it goes. My spoonie self has to find a way to prioritise.

Why I thought I’d remember to explain that sooner.

So… Take the old TV show Charmed and smush it together with Shadowhunters and we aren’t far off in vibes.

It follows a FMC who is considered neutral on the power scale having to secure an alliance. Her species want an alliance with good. The MMC however is scheming to have her make the alliance with him (evil).

Did I mention he’s kinda hot?

Anyway I am enduring creating the first proper draft to work on editing and to be honest, there are some parts of it I don’t hate. Actually some of them I love.

It’s a completely different feel to THE BIG PROJECT. That’s ok. I think this probably would be more up an agent’s alley as far as debut’s go.

It will be a Romantasy. Lots of fantasy and a MMC that is a total SIMP and we love him for it.

Highly likely to be a duology doubtful I would ever want to make it a trilogy.

At the moment I am really enjoying this story and the pacing. I’m probably just over two thirds through the first draft so there could be a lot of changes in it’s future.

I am taking a much bigger conscious effort to avoid the white room syndrome. The imagination is having to work harder with words to describe what I see so that I don’t loose it in translation onto the page so we will see.

Ok so…

Step one- feel guilty for not writing in ages

Step two- fill out a scrap of paper with a goal for the writing session

Step three- dawdle on social media

Step four- remember I should be writing

Step five- put ADHD focus music on

Step six- open the documents and notes

Step seven- question life choices

Step eight- write for as long as the brain can be functional

Step nine- beat myself up for not writing more

Step ten- save docs and nope out.

My imperfect routine. Although question life choices may reoccur a lot more.