Happy June! How are we all doing so far this month? Summer has officially arrived here in the UK. We went from mid-teen centigrade temperatures, to over 30 degrees yesterday. It's made writing this week a genuine chore, because I struggle to think straight in the heat, but I've managed to not fall behind on my word count. I'm calling that a success! Are we ready for an update? Oh good! Let's dig in... Since my last update... Last time we spoke I had a couple of Arc's pending reviews, 'Soul of the Sorceress' by Cassanda Diviak, and 'The Simple Delivery' by Andrew Claydon. Soul of the Sorceress is the second book in the Shadow and Soul series, and was a fun read for a casual weekend. I greatly enjoyed revisiting the main characters, Cordelia and Percy, and you can check out my full review HERE. The Simple Delivery was a genuine surprise. I picked it up as an Arc because the blurb made me laugh, and I enjoy epic fantasy stories, but I didn't bank on how fresh, and clever, and genuinly hilaious the whole book would be. It definitely ranks up there amongst some of my favourite books, and you can check out my full review of that one HERE. On my last update I mentioned that I was working on a gift short story, and since that has now been delivered to it's recipient, I can talk about it a bit more. My best friend was blessed with a daughter at the beginning of May, and I spent a couple of weeks writing and formatting a childrens story book as a gift for the new addition and her parents to share together. Tale of the Shadowfox will not be published in the foreseeable future. I may release it at some point, but not for several years. I'd really like for the family to have a special story that's just for them, until their daughter's just a little older, but in the meantime I can show some pictures of the book and internal artwork. (Below) I managed to get both new parents in tears, so I'm calling the entire project a success! Finally, I mentioned that I needed to do some rewriting of the beginning of Changeling, and I've been making steady progress on that front. This week I've been working on changing the point of view that chapter five is written in, and I'm already loving the change. I mentioned that I wanted the final manuscript finished by the end of June, but I think it's more likely to be the end of July before I can move onto working on Darkling. Plans for the coming month... More writing, of course! At the moment my schedule is to try and get around 1,800 words a day, and that should see me finishing up around the end of July.
I've also got another Arc to read and review, 'The Stray Spirit' by R.K. Ashwick, from a fellow writer on Tumblr. I've been enjoying watching their progress in writing and publishing this story, so look out for the review soon. I have another book to read and review too, 'Autumn Winters' by J.S Malcom. This is not an Arc, but I did manage to grab a copy for free when I saw it available in a writers facebook group, so want to leave an honest review to pay it forward. Updates on my newsletter is that I anticipate having the setup for that complete at the end of July, but I'm still willing to delay it to the end of August if I'm struggling with setup. I can't say it's difficult, but it is complex, and I want to be 100% sure it's working how I intend before I open it up for everyone to access. And that's all we have to look forward to in this monthly update, Much love to you all, Ari x
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Arista Holmes
I'm a writer in her thirties, who is based in the South East of England. Archives
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