Neurodivergent author who has always been tagged at weird (but why be normal when you can be weird?) and universally acknowledged as a troublemaker. Subscribe and be the first to know about sales, new releases, and events. PS: You'll also get some random snippets of what happens to be tickling my AuDHD brain that day...
November round-up: Exclusive first 3 chapters of my new cozy mystery!
November is always a busy month, and this year was no exception. Between drafting the new novel, getting A Slice Of Mystery ready for publication, and promoting my back list for Black Friday, all that while travelling and fighting a cold, I'm glad to see December just around the corner. The new novel (tentative title: Two Sparks Of Mystery) is progressing, not as fast as I wish, but the first draft will be complete in the next couple of weeks. After that, it will need a month of resting time (just like proving bread!), and I'll tackle revisions and edits in January and February. The scary bit is that I really should start work on that cover now, when the cover for A Slice Of Mystery was only just finished! Talking of which, I'd promised you a sneak peek... Do you like it?! And... I'm also ready to share the first three chapters with you! Now, the usual disclaimers around formatting and typos apply, and some words may change between now and publication day (I always have a "genius" idea right at the last minute!), but it's here! Can you tell I'm excited? Because I am!!! Click here (link removed - subscribers only) to download, and do let me know what you think. I'm hoping to share it with the rest of the world next month, once I have had a chance to set up the pre-order links, so this is exclusive to my mailing list ( this means you!!!) at the moment.
As expected, this month has been really bad for my TBR pile - not much time or energy to read, and I'm visiting friends and adopted family in the US for Thanksgiving... what's the link you ask? Easy - lots of great secondhand bookstores, with amazing Black Friday deals - my suitcase is full!
Not much to report. Novembers are always full on writing, which means no cooking (that's when the batch-cooking frenzy of October comes in handy - I eat out of the freezer!), and not much downtime for hobbies etc. The good thing about spending a couple of weeks in the US is that my writing group is here, and quite a few members have become close friends over the years, and my college friends are here too, so, paradoxically, I have a richer social life in November than any other month of the year!
|
Sophie Maddon's newsletter
Neurodivergent author who has always been tagged at weird (but why be normal when you can be weird?) and universally acknowledged as a troublemaker. Subscribe and be the first to know about sales, new releases, and events. PS: You'll also get some random snippets of what happens to be tickling my AuDHD brain that day...
Hi Reader, Hope you're having a good day / week / month? I'm not one for chit-chat, so let's dive in! Book news: Your Knowledge Or Your Life? made it to the next round in the BBNYA 2026 awards! Can you tell I'm excited? I am, I really am!!! In other exciting news, the Secret Santa revisions have started! I write very messy first drafts, so it takes a while to do the first read-through to identify ALL the issues - check out this Instagram video for an idea of what that looks like (also...
Hi Reader, Hope you're having a good day / week / month? I'm not one for chit-chat, so let's dive in! Book news: When you're a cozy mystery writer and are talking to a friend about a plot issue while walking on a fairly busy street, and you say out loud, "but what do I do about the dead body?!", you get a few strange looks! That was me a few weeks ago, when I realised the fix I'd found for my plot issue in Two Sparks of Mystery created another issue (body dump location). And then I realised...
Hi Reader, Hope you're having a good day / week / month? I'm not one for chit-chat, so let's dive in! Book news: I figured out how to fix the major plot issue I had in Two Sparks of Mystery (book 2 in the Abigail Palmer Cozy Mystery series), and revisions start as soon as I'm done with the Secret Santa novella: bring the scaffolding and your hard hat, I have my own sledgehammer... this one is going to be brutal! I am just over halfway through the first draft of the in-between-the-books...