Christmas

I've been sledging with my daughter the afternoon. Bombing down a hill near where we live. She is getting braver about it this year. But on one of our early runs we nearly went over. I managed to keep it steady. Just. I think if we had gone over she would have given up winter sports for good.

This after I finally cracked the plot of Football Detective 4 in the Bear cafe, this morning.

I showed the first 20,000 words to my writing group last week and they were into the the villain, a nasty 16 year old who has just been released by a Premier League football club. He was just a fringe character, but, because they liked (or hated) him, I am going to give him a bigger role.

I like being in a writing group. It has a huge effect on the books. One, because their feedback makes the books better. Two, because I write bearing in mind their criticisms of previous books. Three, because the books seem to need less editing at Puffin if I've shown them to the group.