Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! I’ve been pretty quiet lately at the Open Book Blog Hop, and on my website in general. In all honesty. I needed a break, some time away. I had a wonderful time off over Christmas and New Year. What a difference a year makes! 2020 – locked down, at home, unable to do anything, go anywhere or spend Christmas with anyone. 2021 – we took in a show, partook in Festive fun and got to catch up with friends and family. But fear not, for the writing was not on a hiatus just because I was! More on that, though, in a future post. For now, on with this week’s Open Book Blog Hop topic!

Today’s question is: What part of writing are you best at? Not compared to everyone else, but compared to you?

And remember to pay a visit to my fellow writers to see what they have come up with. You can find their works here!

I found this week’s topic quite intriguing. And rather timely, too. It’s something I’ve been considering a fair bit of late. Indirectly. My second novel, As The Crow Flies, follows on directly from Chasing Shadows. I started writing it immediately after I’d finished Chasing Shadows. Then I stopped. Chasing Shadows needed cover design, formatting and interior design, proofreading, editing and test reading.

Then there was the book launch, marketing, blog tours, and so on. And if that all wasn’t enough, at the back end of last year I also started some freelance proofreading myself. Throughout all of these activities, I learnt a lot about my writing. With all of that in mind, I started to reread As The Crow Flies for two reasons. One – to refamiliarise myself with what I had written. And two – to check over everything that I’d written still worked, and to refine and polish my work based on everything I’ve learnt since I started.

So to circle back to the question, what part of writing do I think I am best at? The actual writing. I am not sure I would have said this at the beginning. When I first started I attempted to write an historical fiction based upon the mystery of Jack the Ripper. But I struggled. I had a need to get all of the known facts spot on. I did a lot of research, read countless documents and materials on the subject. I became bogged down in the little details. It halted my flow and my writing suffered. Once I started on Chasing Shadows, however, things changed. The creativity started flowing, and I found my rhythm. The words came easily, and though it needed some editing, it wasn’t too bad. I enjoy the writing and love the feeling when I hit my stride. So I may not be the next Stephen King, but it’s the writing I feel most connected to in the process – creating worlds, characters, locations and dialogue. That is the part I am best at.