Okay, so I’m a day late in posting this – mainly because I scheduled for the wrong day … ooops.

Last week was my first real week settling into the no corporate work thing and to be honest it’s going to take me a little while to get my days into any sort of structure.

It was, however a creative week topped off by a creative weekend.

Out and about …

On Saturday I caught up with a Melbourne-based friend and a few of her friends to celebrate my friend’s recent milestone birthday with an afternoon at Frida’s Paint & Sip in Mooloolaba followed by dinner at RB Dining at Mooloolaba wharf.

Paint and Sip is a super-fun concept (and there are studios all around the country now). Essentially you bring your own wine and nibbly bits and you paint. Naturally there’s an instructor to lead you through it step by step, but it’s definitely a way of stepping outside your comfort zone and if you like you can add your own spin to the art.

RB Dining is a relatively new “fine” dining version of the super-popular, super-busy super-vibey, queue-for-ages Rice Boi downstairs at the wharf. Rice Boi food fancied up without the queues. Perfect. We were a group of 7 so opted for the set menu. The food was great and there was so much of it some was taken home in doggy bags.

In the kitchen …

Grant had a couple of morning teas at work so I made a Vietnamese coffee cake, some ginger crunch (that featured in Wish You Were Here) and a couple of batches of the cheddar and rosemary scones that feature in Philly Barker Is On The Case. The recipes for the latter will be up on BKD in the next few days.

At the desk …

Onto the work front, with none of the fanfare they deserved, Philly Barker Is On The Case and It’s In The Stars were launched onto all digital platforms. I’ve submitted the print files for Philly so you should be able to purchase in print in the next week.

With respect to It’s In The Stars, I‘m experimenting with KDP Select so for the next 3 months it’s only available digitally from Amazon – although you can read it on the Kindle app from any device. It will, however, be available in print soon.

That now completes my rom-com series set in Melbourne and you’ll find blurb and all order links here …

I signed off on the cover for Christmas at Mannus Ridge and sent the manuscript off for formatting. It will be available in mid-November. You’ll find the blurb and preorder links here.

What else?

• I finally completed the legal deposit submission to the National Library of Australia (and State Library of Queensland) for all books – while this is a requirement for all publishers (indie or otherwise) I’d neglected to complete it.
• I taught myself how to create social media ads etc with Book Brush.
• I met with my editor regarding the next draft of the first (as yet untitled) Whale Bay mystery and have made a good start on that.
• I updated this website with the new releases and buy links and the book page on and anyways. Don’t they look lovely all in a row? I’m actually a little bit proud of them.

Coming up …

On the schedule for this week is to finish my rewrite of Whale Bay. I’m contemplating One For Sorrow as a title or maybe Mystery at Rose Cottage, but I haven’t yet decided.

Wednesday is November 1 so that means the start of NaNoWriMo. This will be the first year I’ve done it without having to juggle something else. Anyways, I’ve written a bit about it here and here.

Okay, I think that’s enough to be getting on with – this edit isn’t going to finish itself!

Until next time …

Jo