It finally happened. I sent off my latest book to my editor for the final edit. It's almost done. I will get it back in a few weeks, make the last changes, then it's off to the publisher - hopefully for a book deal! But at the moment I'm not thinking about that. At the moment it's time to take a moment to breathe. And relax.

I started this book in November and so it will be my quickest book so far. It's also the longest at 103,000 words, which is 10,000 words or about 30 pages longer than my last book, Sunday Dinners. There's a couple of reasons why this book has been written so quickly. 1) I've worked harder than ever before. 2) The story came to me fully formed pretty quickly and so was the easiest book to write in that sense. 3) The characters also came to be fairly quickly and so I didn't have to spend ages re-writing it trying to get the voices right. I really have worked harder on this book than any other before. All of my books have taken a year or longer to write, but this one just came to me so quickly and so easily. 

So what does that mean? Is it going to be rubbish? I hope not. It's actually my favourite book I've written so far. It was definitely the most enjoyable to work on. Sunday Dinners was a really hard book to write. For whatever reason the story never quite worked and the characters needed more developing and the whole thing just went on and on. It took nearly two years from start to finish. This book, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. I knew the story was really strong and once I started putting in the characters, the whole thing just came together. Sometimes in writing it does feel too easy, but I think learning to trust your gut is something that's invaluable. I didn't over think this book, I just wrote it.

So here I am with an almost finished novel seven months later. So what's this new book about? Well it's a romantic comedy. I say that because I don't think I've written one yet. People sometimes lump me into that genre, but I've never gone out to write one. This time I did. I mean really. I wanted to write a proper, full on, British romantic comedy that had everything a Brit Rom-Com should have. The beautiful settings, the comedy, the romance, the quirky friends, the dashing leading men, great dialogue, the music, a proper English wedding, and lots of booze. The story is something that I don't thinks been done before, but I think the real strength is the characters. I really love the characters in this book. Characters make romantic comedies. We don't watch rom-com films or read the books because we want a surprise ending - we want the couple to get together - we watch them because we enjoy spending time with the characters. I hope you love these crazy bunch of people as much as me. 

So right now I'm going to catch up on some reading, watch a few films, a couple of TV shows, and relax because I've earned it. I can't wait to introduce this book to you. Until next time my friends. 

Hugs,
Jon X