August 2025 update

Hello!
 
Welcome to my bimonthly post with all my writing, reading and editing news. I'm posting this one a week or so early because I'm off on holiday this weekend (hooray!).
 
We've been so lucky with a long, glorious summer here in Eryri/Snowdonia, and I've enjoyed being outside as much as possible. The toddler has done his first wild camp and his first boat trip, and I've managed a couple of lovely and restorative toddler-free trips into the hills. The balance between family time and solo time and work and hobbies and actually relaxing is always going to be a tricky one, but there have definitely been weeks recently when it's felt like we've finally managed to get it right. (There have also been weeks where everything has felt like complete chaos 24/7. It's a balance!)

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A perfect day meandering around sunny mountains with a good friend.

on the blog

Over on the blog last month, I was chatting about the importance of connection. If you've got any thoughts on how connecting with other writers has been helpful for you, I'd love to hear them.

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editing updates

Goodness, I've been so lucky with the manuscripts I've been working on recently. These last couple of months, I've been busy with a developmental edit of a fantasy novel, featuring dragons and nature-based magic. It's been a joy to work on. I've posted some notes on Substack about how I do a developmental edit, and I'll probably turn these into a more in-depth blog post once I'm finished with it, in the hopes of demystifying the process a bit.
 
I've also done a proofread of a delightful nature memoir. I've worked with the author right through from her first draft to the proofread, and it's been an absolute delight to see this book take shape and to see the author's skill and confidence as a writer grow. This book features lots of photographs, so I was delighted to see the proofs and finally be able to see all the photographs after reading so much about them. It's rare that I get to work on one book right the way through all the different stages, so this has been a real treat. 
 
And I've also just taken on a couple of new coaching clients. I'm excited to get to know them and to learn more about their writing! For coaching, I particularly love to work with writers
who are passionate about the craft of writing and keen to hone their skills as much as possible, which both of these new clients definitely are. I’m looking forward to working with them both once I’m back from my holiday.

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writing updates

​I'm not sure I actually have much writing news this month. I've been tinkering away with edits for a couple of short stories, but with a busy work schedule and lots of outdoor adventures, it's been tricky to find much time or brain space for my own writing. That's okay; I always write less over the summer, and sometimes my brain just needs a bit of time to re-charge.
 
Autumn feels like it's just around the corner, and I can feel a couple of new ideas already stirring. I've printed out a couple of drafts to take on holiday, which I can edit if I fancy or ignore if I don't. I'm excited to get back into a regular writing rhythm after our trip – lots to make progress on!

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reading udpates

​I read and quickly became obsessed with The Second Death of Locke by V. L. Bovalino. If you're on bookstagram, you might have seen lots of excitement recently about a run of "lady knights" books being released soon. This is one of that group, and it's absolutely brilliant: complex and nuanced characters, a slow-burn romance arc that avoids a lot of the usual romantasy tropes, a unique magic system, and plenty of nods to Arthuriana. One of the best things I’ve read this year. Incidentally, I’m just about to start Alix E. Harrow’s The Everlasting and am so excited for it. She’s one of my favourite writers and the blurb sounds incredible.
 
I've also read and really enjoyed Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor. The writing in this is so beautiful and careful; it's a stunning read. It's set on a Welsh island heavily inspired by Ynys Enlli/Bardsey Island. I'm always a fan of island settings anyway, and as chance would have it I'd actually been over to Ynys Enlli a couple of weeks before reading this which made it all the more enjoyable to read. And I’ve just finished Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith, part of Canongate’s series on myth re-tellings. The story flits between a re-telling of the original myth, and looking at how that myth might be re-imagined into the present day – it was an intriguing read.

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A new favourite.

​And with that, it’s time to switch my Out Of Office on and shut down my laptop for a couple of weeks. We’re off to the Outer Hebrides, and I'm so looking forward to being somewhere so quiet and remote, to being outside the entire time, and to working my way through some good books, although there is a chance that I have significantly overestimated exactly how many books I can read during a two-week camping trip with a toddler.
 
I hope all of you are also enjoying the slow transition into autumn and all the new starts that inevitably seem to come along at this time of year. 
 
Wishing you happy reading or writing or even just day-dreaming about stories, if that’s where you at the moment. As ever, if you want to drop me a line about anything I've said here or want to recommend me a book, I'd love to hear from you.

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