Going, going … gone!

I’ve just had to say goodbye to our latest aupair, a lovely girl from Austria who has made life in our household a lot more stable over the last 10 months.  As we’re without an aupair for the next two weeks, the childcare issue for our 7 and 2 year olds has become much more pressing and time consuming.  When you’re self employed, the distractions that children offer can sometimes destroy any hope of getting work done, no matter how important it might be.

 In some ways the timing has been quite good - I’ve finished the first of the Dragon Orb series and am still awaiting feedback from the Editor at Simon & Schuster, so I’m not under any great pressure to produce another book in double quick time.  On the other hand, I’m very aware that I’ve got a monster promotional season lined up for September through December, so I don’t want to find myself being forced to write the next book dog-tired in the evenings.  Now is the time when I should be looking to get ahead and write great chunks of the draft of Book 2.  Unfortunately, I can see little chance of that for the coming weeks.

 So, roll on the arrival of our next aupair in two weeks!  Lots of fun things are happening at the moment - the last of the school visits before the end of term, another session of filming for Codex, an authors’ retreat at Charney Manor in Oxfordshire is imminent, the World Final of the Kids’ Lit Quiz in Oxford next week … the list just goes on and on.  I’ll not deny I’m having a lot of fun, but at the same time, the guilty feeling that creeps up on me when I don’t write for a few weeks is lurking in the background.  I imagine it will not be long before I start getting the jitters and shakes if I don’t get going with the next book …