Turns out hand stitching is not my friend - at least until my sewing arm recovers from whatever weird nerve thing is going on in there - so I have gone out and bought another bunny:
It's the blue one I considered at first, and left behind.
I even had to rip out the stitches I did last week on the poor Mr. Fawn's permanent-marker-ridden ear lining, because they were not perfectly spaced and were cramming up the ear underneath, SIGH
However, I did have a big win since the last time we met - much, much bigger than if I'd successfully sewn on the bunny ear flops. Hard to imagine that, isn't it? but It Is So.
After working for ages on this one suspensey / crimey manuscript with a funny / scary heroine, I learned this week that it's been longlisted for this year's Emerging Author Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association!
This one is a mother-daughter story with a criminal bent and a sense of humour. The blurb:
Twenty-four-year-old Lee Amato returns home to overwrite her teenage reputation for violence and expose the mysterious figure who fostered it, but instead she's framed for a murder her mother may have committed.
It's super exciting to get this vote of confidence, because it's been a complicated story to write. I mean, look at that mood board photo - what was I thinking, stirring up a mix of my takeaways from Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Lee Child? Yet there it is, along with what's stayed with me from Wilkie Collins, Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters. (Terrible of me to lump them together, but they do such a great job with Fraught.) Plus, you know, a bit of the flipside of Nancy Drew.
It's also daunting, because I haven't finished the revisions on this manuscript. AND I have given up sugar for the foreseeable, so I won't have any cake to help me along.
So I hope you'll forgive me for excusing myself from Hugs for a few weeks to wrangle with words. My goal is to be back for a check-in on May 10, and for good on May 31, hopefully with something textile-y to show you.
Meanwhile, I hope you have a lovely weekend. An Easter-y one if you celebrate and, by early in the week, a half-price chocolate fest if you don't.
See you soon and thanks as always for dropping by!
