News and apologies!

Apologies first for my long silence on this blog. I have been working hard, so hard that blogging has come a poor second. but I seem to be back again. God's Islanders took up most of the summer, as well as a radio version of my stage play The Price of A Fish Supper, which was recorded during the Edinburgh festival, and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 some time next year. God's Islanders will be published next month (as soon as I have an accurate date, you will be the first to know), Fish Supper is completed and 'in the bag' and I have already started work on a new novel - provisionally titled The Fifth Mary. This is a contemporary novel, set in present day Scotland, with a background that involves Mary Queen of Scots and a mysterious embroidery. It is about a quest to discover an inflammatory truth, it is a kind of a love story, it is a story about secrets, and the ways in which they are kept.... and I am desperate for the time to really get down to it. Which is, of course, much easier said than done, since so many other things (like earning a living) seem to intervene.
There are distinct advantages to working from home but time management is not one of them. I can't blame anyone but myself, and I always get the work done sooner or later, but I also feel that it takes me infinitely longer than it should, because I am always willing to allow myself to be distracted by the little things. I think men, on the whole, are much better at being single minded than women. Men simply shut things out. Women feel guilty when they try to do the same. I make a million resolutions, but my time management is still rubbish. I am either overworking through the night or not doing enough. I sometimes think I need the likes of Duncan Bannatyne (Yes, I've just been watching The Dragons' Den) to organise my working week. Or maybe just rent me an office. How about it Duncan? I don't need thousands of pounds, (well I do, but I'm not asking you to provide them!) and you can have fifty percent of my business any time, if you'll only give me time and space to work, the benefit of your marketing experience and above all, an injection of your obvious ruthlessness.