After Australia Day I know summer’s past the halfway mark. Yeah, there’ll still be hot, melting, grouchy days, but I no longer have to brace for months of that. I can settle back and enjoy. Before I do that, a quick catch up.

The winner of my Australia Day giveaway was Miki. Congratulations! I’ve sent you an email so you can collect your stash of Aussie bookmarks 🙂

If you follow me on Twitter or FB you’ve probably already seen this visitor to the fig tree. I suspect he was also eyeing off the mango tree beside it, but the mangoes aren’t ripe yet.

I have high hopes for a manuscript I’ve just sub’d to a publisher, but for fear of jinxing things, I’m not saying more than that!

But the joy of sending off a project is that I’m now at the wonderful point of dreaming up a new story. I’m thinking I want to try writing a full-length novel … scary, since I’m a novella writer, but a new year means new challenges. I’m going to give myself a few days to plot a story that’s intense, compelling and has the legs to run for say three times the length I normally write. Yikes!

All of which means, I’m likely to be a lot less noisy on social media for the next couple of months. I hope I keep up with all your exciting doings, but if I don’t please know it’s not intentional: I’ve just gotten lost in Novel-land. I promise I’ll catch up as soon as the first draft is done! Now that’s an incentive to get writing 🙂