february 2023

in which the sun returned a bit and i did what i had promised, but the two things are not related (i think?)

To begin, I did it. I’m not going to bury the lede here, I finished the draft of the YA folk horror and I sent it to my agent. It is done and no more will be said about it for now¹.

What I want to talk about are jigsaw puzzles. During the writing of the aforementioned book-I’m-not-talking-about², I - in an increasing state of delirium (the character is from the northeast United States so at one point I was talking ALOUD to MYSELF in a faux-New England accent so I didn’t lose her voice, which I fear is the wanky and embarrassing writer version of Method Acting, and when I think about it I feel a little bit sick, but I can’t do anything about it now, and I know I’ll do the same in the future if it comes to it, because this was not my first character-accent rodeo) - bought a jigsaw puzzle.

I don’t think in my adult life I’ve bought a jigsaw puzzle before (for myself, anyway, I used to get them for my nana). I’ve previously never had an interest in doing a jigsaw puzzle, if I’m truthful. But, mired in the bog of my own writing, I decided the thing I needed most of all in the world was a jigsaw puzzle. I told myself I’d do a few pieces a night after finishing work, the psychological equivalent of commuting home from the office, a little time to switch off and switch out.

Well, for those of you who don’t know about jigsaws (me), they are A LOT of work. You can’t just be sitting down and doing a puzzle spontaneously. For starters, you have to have a space big enough for it to be laid out, or one of those fancy boards that pro-puzzlers³ have, and then you have to sit and sort all the pieces into sections (corners; edges; main body colours), and then subsections of the sections (different colours for both edges and main body), and then sub-subsections of the sections (different shades and shapes of the colours, anything with writing/unusual detail) - and this is before you can even start it. This is just the prep. I’m going to come out and say it, jigsaw puzzles are for bureaucrats.

And writers.

It’s writing. I see that now: jigsaws are writing but with stupid little pieces instead of stupid little words.

I chose a pastime that was the same as my job (the exact reason I don’t play d&d - my job is making up weird little people and putting them in increasingly horrible situations, and I don’t want it as a hobby, too). If I can’t find a piece, I have to try to work around it (“put something good here!”) or just stare at it all, on the verge of tears, until I spot it.

There is probably a lesson to be taken here, but I’m too pissed off at myself to find it right now.

this is, i kid you not, after five nights of progress. sorting the pieces took three nights

Projects I’m working on: Not the YA folk horror (it won’t last, I’ll have to fix it, but right now it’s not my problem).

My agent was duly disgusted and horrified by the incredibly dark thing I sent her! As soon as contract negotiations for that are done, it’ll be off to its new home and maybe then I can tell you about it.

Next up I am working on the something new, which has an initial deadline of March 31st, and continuing into another project too, which I’d like to have a rough first of by the end of April. I also have 75% of a dark academia YA I put on pause last August to write the folk horror instead, so I need to return to that and get it finished.

As I keep telling you, it grows because you tend it. And this year I want it to grow.

Over to Mel on the News desk, I’m still in Publishing Announcing News Limbo for two of those three projects, so there’s no news there - this is very much the nature of Publishing News, nothing you can say until there’s something you can say, and in the meantime, you get on everyone nerves by being mysterious and cryptic and then when the news happens everyone is already over it, so you should probably keep your trap shut from the start.

BUT! I signed the contracts for the something new so it’s all official. I still can’t talk about it, though. We’re still in that limbo.

More News! Her Dark Wings was longlisted for the Sussex ABA awards, which as a resident of one of the Sussexes, is very nice! It’s also voted for by students, which is bad in terms of I can’t flatter or blackmail anyone to increase my chances of getting shortlisted/actually winning, but good in terms of the book’s own spine holding it up without my nefarious “help”.

Hr Dark Wings has also sold in Italy to Rizzoli, which is really exciting as it’s my first Italian translation. I ate gnocchi to celebrate. I would like to go there and eat gnocchi to celebrate.

I have no personal news because I’ve barely left the house in six weeks. Showering and eating actual meals, that’s my big news. And buying a jigsaw puzzle.

I now have two events in the diary! I am not permitted to say more yet, but they’re not until summer, which is honestly a relief because of all the work I have to do (and the jigsaw puzzle).

Reading-wise, I’ve got nothing. I have read but one book since January. I have a ton of books I need to read because publishers and authors sent them to me, and a bunch I picked for myself, but I’m going to level with you here, gang, the book I picked up after I’d sent the manuscript off was Naomi Novik’s SPINNING SILVER because I needed it. I needed that horrible sexy Staryk lord.

On TV, I did manage to watch the excellent Lockwood and Co on Netflix. I love the books and I am delighted that it was so good; excellent script, excellent actors, excellent camera work, excellent effects - just excellent in every way. But that was it. Seriously, I was so busy that at one point my wifi went down and I truly didn’t notice for almost a whole day because I was so stuck in the writing, and it was only when I phoned the internet company they told me how long it had been (it was not helped by my phone defaulting to data and me not realising that, either).

Onto to what I cooked.

Well, fellas, again, there was a dearth of cooking for a while. The only thing I technically cooked was a butterbean, lemon, and tarragon soup in my Wonderbag (I am obsessed with it) and that was mostly because you can eat soup with a spoon in one hand so I could still tappy-type with the other, and a big vat of soup lasts a week so I didn’t have to think about food again. I lived on soups, crumpets, pre-cooked lentils from a packet, Marmite toast, apples, and blood oranges.

But then, the draft was done, and there was COOKING!

First I made hummus. This is a labour and time-intensive endeavour but that’s a lot of the joy in it. I soaked 100g of dried chickpeas overnight, then pressure-cooked them in my Instant Pot, then I went into a kind of meditative trance while I skinned them (you don’t have to, but it makes the hummus smoother).

In a mini-food processor, I added 60ml tahini (don’t judge me, I love it so much) and the juice of a whole, giant Amalfi lemon and blitzed them until they were creamed and sticky. Then I added the skinned chickpeas, a hefty splash of evoo (extra virgin olive oil, a really fancy one I got in an actual deli), a fat clove of smoked garlic, a generous dose of smoked salt, half a teaspoon of cumin, and a little water and I blasted them all together until it looked like hummus (you can add more water if you need to loosen it, it’s very much a by-the-eye thing). I like to put sumac and extra olive oil on mine.

Undeniably hummus

I ate my hummus with cauliflower roasted in lemon olive oil, chili flakes, cumin, dried coriander, and turmeric, with olive oil flatbreads (self-raising flour, olive oil, water, and salt, make a dough, roll it out, slap it in a pan and fry - they’re really flaky and your hands will get messy but who cares?), caramelised banana shallots, and some stuffed vine leaves left over from Greek Week at Lidl and it was so nice and good I felt full of love and magic.

So that was very sneaky, but it’s also this month’s magic (I conflate food and magic a lot, for the record). Good food, made with the best ingredients you can find, for no reason other than because you deserve that. There is a magic in holding yourself and your time in high regard, in knowing what you’re worth, in taking a long time to get something done, and done right (writing a book, doing a jigsaw puzzle, making hummus). It’s not as tangible as lighting a candle, or breaking a match, but it’s magic all the same.

This month take a long time to do something just for yourself and relish each step of it, be present for the whole process. I am going to do this again, too. I’m getting ready to bake bread on Sunday - I’ve been feeding spelt and white rye flour to my sourdough starter (two and a half years old, baby, though by now it’s very much Theseus’s sourdough starter) and I’m going to make a loaf of bread over a 36 hour period and maybe a soup too, because I am worth these labours.

I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day, I was going to post this then but I figured you were already swamped with messages telling you how great you are, so I held off.

See you next month x

1. This is a lie

2. I told you. I didn’t even make it a paragraph

3. I don’t know if there really are pro-puzzlers; I could look, but I don’t want to