Writing Progress Log : W/E 4th September 2026

This Monday was a public holiday in the UK, so we went away for a long weekend to the North East of England, Whitley Bay, to visit Amanda’s family. We had a really nice weekend away and took the opportunity to relax. We also took Tuesday and Wednesday off to do some hiking and rest a little more as this was the last week of the school holidays. Our son is back at school next week, and our daughter returns to college.

Work-wise, we prioritised completing the final read-through of MMS Book 1 as we have to submit the first draft to our new publisher on Monday. I will try to find out when we can formally announce the publishing deal and the new series. We are very excited about it. The first book has turned out great and it’s a fun read. Don’t worry, though. We are still just as dedicated to the Bookshop Mysteries as we always have been.

For Bookshop Mysteries 7 - A Ring of Roses, we drafted chapters 21 and 22, totalling 1,867 words. We didn’t finish editing those chapters, but we have first drafts of them. We are about halfway through the draft of book 7 now, so it is progressing nicely and we’ll be ramping up the speed when the kids are back at school.

We also did some work on MMS Book 2 by editing chapter 1 and then writing chapter 2, which was 1687 words. So this week we wrote 3554 words as well as completed the read-through of MMS Book 1.