This week at the loch - 25/07/2025
Sitting here just now, thinking back over the last week to try and summarise it, I find myself struggling to remember anything that happened… The joys of fibro fog! Memory issues and feeling like my brain is only working on half-speed is one of the symptoms that I talk about less frequently, but it can really interfere with my work. Sometimes it feels as if I can’t keep a thought in my head for more than a minute and it’s even more challenging when the kids are home all day during the school holidays and I’m dealing with constant interruptions.
In an attempt to minimise the interruptions, I’ve been trying to do a scheduled activity with them each day with the understanding, that round about that, they need to find their own entertainment and that it can’t all be on a screen. This has had mixed success, but at least there has been fun. We’ve drawn pictures, made edible slime, been to the park, walked in the woods, and there’s been plenty of reading. Nowhere near as much work as I would like though. And still too much screentime.
What I’m working on - I’ve been making slow but steady progress on Rise of a Witch Queen this week. This early stage is always a bit slower in terms of wordcount, while I figure out the world and the voice. There’s a lot of typing things and then deleting them because the phrasing doesn’t feel quite right, or maybe that’s not actually the thing the character would notice in this moment. I’m also still working on the copyedit that came in at the end of last week, and all the usual BFS admin and planning.
What I’m reading - Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve not had a lot of reading time this week, so I’m still on The Burning White. Still really enjoying it.
What I’m watching - I watched a really interesting mini-series of documentaries this week on prehistoric Scotland, on the History Hit network. It paid particular attention to the neolithic sites on Orkney, such as Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar, places I would really love to visit. It’s incredible to think of the level of building skill involved in making something that could stand for over 5000 years, all with only stone tools.
What I’m listening to - Mostly the kids… I’ve not really had the mental space for listening to much this week.
Something Interesting - I enjoyed this post from Cherie Priest this week: Getting Naked on Main: It Was Her House First — The Haunt* I’m not sure enjoyed is actually the right word, so much as empathised with her. It has prompted me to think about how I define success in terms of my writing career, so you can probably expect to see a post about that in the coming days.
