As I mentioned last week, I’ve been pretty busy with the nitty-gritty of publishing lately. The Last Dreamseer is now live at e-retailers and ready to launch on 27th November (yippee!), but the pace hasn’t let up as I’ve been liaising with friends who have kindly agreed to blog on my behalf to publicise the launch, as well as writing interviews and planning my own tweets and blogs and press releases.

So, it’s been hectic, but hugely enjoyable – writing is what I love most and I haven’t yet found any activity linked to writing or getting published that I actively loathe (some I’m not keen on, but I can see their advantage, so I just grit my teeth and get on the other side of them).

Aside from the nagging sensation that I’ve forgotten something (I don’t think that’ll ever go away) I’m pretty satisfied that my to-do list tells me it’s all under control. What I really needed was to get away from my PC to stop worrying about what else I could/should be doing, and relax.

So, I borrowed a dog and went here today.

I love autumn – season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and all that. It’s always struck me as a calm, relaxing season when things start to wind down, which maybe appeals because it’s the opposite of rarely-calm, finds-it-impossible-to-relax me. It was a particularly beautiful autumn day today – cold, but with clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine which reminded me what a beautiful planet we share, and how lucky I am to live in such a peaceful and well-cared-for corner of it.

I returned home with frozen fingers but feeling more relaxed than I have for a long time. Stress levels are at minimal and energy stoked to the max, ready for the next thing – The Last Dreamseer‘s launch, and then revisions for my next novel because relaxing is all very well, but I couldn’t do it for days on end.