This week at the loch - 01/08/2025
This week has been full of household tasks - deep cleaning the kitchen, clearing out cupboards, recycling and donating things no longer in use. The type of jobs that often fall to the bottom of the list and take a lot of physical toll on me. So I’ve been breaking it up into blocks of an hour or two of furious scrubbing and organising and moving things around, interspersed with a couple of hours on the couch, working from my laptop. It seems to be working, as while my pain and fatigue are definitely at the higher end of normal, they’re not forcing me to come to a complete halt.
On Wednesday, I took a break from everything else to take the kids to Balloch Castle Country Park, one of my favourite places in the world. We had a great walk through the woods, where we found a variety of carved wooden sculptures and enjoyed looking at and talking about all the various plants currently in flower or fruit. The 8yo found a US quarter from 1995, which in his estimation makes it an ancient coin…
We spent some time at the playpark, then exploring the loch shore and befriending some ducks, with an ice cream to round off the day. It was really lovely, though it did mean having to rest for the afternoon to recover. We had great fun coming up with stories about the residents of the fairy house while I rested.
Today is Lughnasadh, or Lammas, the first of the harvest festivals in the wheel of the year. It is connected with Lugh, one of the Tuatha de Danann. Lugh is associated with war, kingship, craftsmanship, skills, trade and harvests. Some people hold games of physical skill to honour Lugh today, while others bake bread or spend time on craft work.
Lughnasadh is a good time to stake stock, to look at how the work of the year is developing - what seeds have you sown and how/when will you reap them? What is going according to plan and what may need a little more attention?
In thinking of my own work in this way, Daughters of Nicnevin has reached the point in it’s journey where there is little for me to do but wait. I’ve done the final check of the proofs, and soon the book will go to print. Review copies are being sent out, and I have to frequently distract myself from the urge to scour the internet for mentions of it - has anyone read it yet? Do they like it? Will this book succeed? Will it prove to be worth all of the time and effort put into it, not just by me, but by the whole team of people at Flame Tree who turn my manuscript into a living, breathing book? I’ve sown the crop and given it the best conditions I can for growth - now I just have to wait and see what the harvest brings.
While doing that, I’m beginning to sow the crop of Rise of a Witch Queen, because the wheel is always turning.
What I’m working on - I finished the copyedit and another round of proof checks for Daughters of Nicnevin. I’ve only added around 3000 words to Rise of a Witch Queen this week - it has not been a writing heavy week. Only two weeks until the kids go back to school, and hopefully progress will pick up some speed then.
What I’m reading - I have about 100 pages left of The Burning White and I hope to finish it this evening or tomorrow morning. After that, it’ll be either Out There Screaming by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams, or Ancestors by Professor Alice Roberts. I haven’t quite decided which yet.
What I’m watching - This week’s mini-series was on Prehistoric Ireland. I had read quite a bit about Newgrange before seeing the show, but the sheer scale of it took my breath away.
What I’m listening to - This fantastic short story by E.M. Faulds: PodCastle 902: Godzilla as a Young Man Named Mike - PodCastle
Something Interesting - The Needfire by MK Hardy came out this week. A sapphic, gothic tale for fans of Rebecca. I’ve been really looking forward to this The Needfire a book by MK Hardy.
