#18 Where Have I Been? (Fair Question)

Dear buddies,

If the photo makes it look as if I'm stuck on the bank, it's because I have been. I know I promised when you signed up not to pester you, but not writing to you for eight months is taking it to extremes. I have to tell you though that I even considered continuing not to write at all—the purest form of non-pestering.

But me voilà.

Son of Hydra came out, I promised to keep you posted, and you could have assumed I'd been sentenced to death for piracy myself. I have not. I've simply been doing what writers do between books: being distracted, getting lost, and occasionally getting cream on my face. Literally.

Let me tell you what‘s been happening.

The Son of Hydra fandango continued being marvellous. It picked up a Silver Medal at the Global Book Awards in Historical Fiction, which I received with the same dignity I bring to most good news—that is, none.

Hydra in Winter, the little smart alec, considering that its brother was supposed to be having its day, took out the Gold in travel writing. I punished it by not posting that news at the time. But there was a small victory lap around the kitchen. John pretended not to notice.

And then, apart from taking three months off trying to restore my nervous system, I've been promoting Son of Hydra like a maniac. June alone aged me fifty years. It was a madhouse around here—I was seriously considering spending a day or two staring at a brick wall.

I fronted up to a women's club in Brisbane, a book club at a Greek restaurant in Toowoomba—that's Di and me on the left, where her thank you gift was omg omg a six-pack of cream buns I kid you not—and another Toowoomba event in a magnificent children's reading space complete with a giant suspended whale, all in the space of a fortnight. I also gave a live demonstration of the title of my next memoir by writing it while promoting this one—very meta of me. Mary (the pirate's wife from Son of Hydra, if you're new) was tapping her foot.

Add a bookshop launch, three separate Zoom calls at hours no sane person keeps—one at 2am my time, for an audience in Washington, because why not—a live Canberra event, and a literary soirée in Woombye. I loved it all, absolutely—readers, organisers, the different ways people connect with Son of Hydra, none of it ever gets tiresome. The Greek story. The women's story. Genealogy. Family, exile, love, and what's left when you lose it all. But I am still waiting for the white limo I feel this schedule has earned me. Disappointing, frankly, that it hasn't shown up.

In the middle of all that, Stockholm happened. The first five pages of After the Sensible Years made the longlist at the Stockholm Writers Festival. Five pages. I wrote roughly four hundred more to get those five on the page, but nobody wants that statistic.

Part of my three months off, incidentally, was that France trip—a writing retreat with two of my favourite tutors—so I have an actual defence this time. Though if you want the honest truth, it also went like this: Montmartre at dawn, a literary soirée in Renoir‘s garden (two soirées in a month yes, fist pump!), the gardens of Chantilly, and one entire afternoon spent in a class learning to whip actual Chantilly cream by hand, supervised by a Frenchman named Bertram who had strong opinions about whisks, and I suspect, about Australians. I would like to report I nailed it. If you missed the blow-by-blow, the Letters from France posts are still sitting there patiently waiting to be read, including the one where a boarding pass error gave me a fifteen-hour layover in Guangzhou and I wrote a post about it out of spite and jet lag.

• 

• 

• 

As for After the Sensible Years itself—I started it on 22nd December 2025. Those three are a few covers I've been playing with. It‘s easier to muck around creating covers than write a book. Anyway, it's a memoir about the contract women sign without ever seeing the fine print: the one that promises we'll be sensible, reliable, competent, and absolutely never, under any circumstances, ridiculous. And where I took a red pen to the terms and conditions and set fire to the notes in the margin. Writing it went well. Writing it also went badly. Some days both, before lunch. Anyway, I've submitted it now and have my fingers crossed. For several reasons. Firstly I hope the publisher wants it. Secondly, I hope they don't. I've got the collywobbles about writing a memoir. Collywobbles being a medical condition.

John, meanwhile, has been his patient self back at home—playing croquet, eating rice bubbles for dinner, and asking nothing of me except that I occasionally reappear. Then disappear.

That's the year so far. Still no sign of the perfect cream bun—but let's be clear, that's not a competition Bertram or anyone else was ever entering. Cream buns stay exactly where they've always been: on the untouchable shelf, in a category of their own, slightly above the rest of us. In the meantime, the sponge cake has become my new prime object of desire, mostly because I might actually be able to make one myself. Those two cupcakes were from leftover batter when daughter whipped up a sponge in no time flat. But I think the sponge-cake-making gene skipped a generation in me. Will keep you posted.

And there's one more thing. I'm starting back on Daughter of Cork—Mary's story, the pirate's wife. I had it half-finished once, before it got shoved in a drawer while Son of Hydra took over my life, and now I‘m trying to remember what on earth was in my head the first time round. And if this first publisher doesn't take After the Sensible Years, I might just shove that in the drawer in its place. It‘s a big drawer.

Next up, I'm off to a writing workshop in Sydney for three days. Because when you're not writing, the obvious thing to do is go and learn how to write. Better still, I'll get to see the Sydney cohort of my writers' group in person—my blood line, my circulatory system, my nervous system, my—look, I haven't landed on the right organ yet, but you get the idea. They keep me alive. I'm also catching up with other friends while I'm there—dinner, brekky, you name it—so if you're Sydney-based and I haven't messaged you yet, consider this your nudge. Or a warning.

If you've found me through Instagram and this is your first time here—welcome, you poor unsuspecting soul. This is where the longer sentences happen, as opposed to the fifteen-second version on Instagram. And if you already get these letters and you know someone else who'd enjoy watching a seventy-something woman give a blow-by-blow description of her own chaos, send them my way. I promise it will not be helpful. I will, however, try to be silly if not funny, and occasionally there will be a pirate or yummy food.

More soon. Possibly even before Christmas this time.

Quick question: cream bun or sponge cake?

Shelley