I went for ages without the urge to read any fiction. And I found what books I did try I gave up on after the first couple of chapters. But in the last three weeks, I have read a good 4 or 5 books a week, with only one being cast aside, and that within a page.

I usually go through the non-reading phase when I’m deep in a story, and the reading phase when I’m starting out on a new one. I just love having so many great books to look forward to and the inclination to read them. I’ve tried across the board, new-to-me authors, tried and tested favorites, some whose name I’ve heard before but never read. And aside from that one book, all amazing, great reads.

It inspires me to get cracking on my current WIP, and so that it can be a great read for someone, one day.

Do you also go through these feast and famine periods with reading?

After a very (very, very) slow start to my latest WIP, I am finally getting in the swing. This means that I make sure I write pages every day, that I think about the book as often as possible, and - and this is the part I love - now I’m hooked into the story.

This happens to me when the story clicks and I’m writing regularly. I HAVE to write. I can’t skip and if I do, I feel slightly sick about it.

It is a great feeling. What is the best thing about getting into the swing of a story for you?

I love ABBA. I’ve been a dyed-in-the-wool fan since the age of 7 or 8. Their music never fails to give me a lift. A few years back, the two male members of the 4 member band (long split up, sniff sniff) got together and wrote a musical called Mamma Mia, which incorporated their most popular songs. And after sell-out successes across the world in theatres, now it is a movie!

For those American friends who have heard me whittering on about ABBA, and have never heard their music, you MUST SEE Mamma Mia, the movie. It has Meryl Streep and Colin Firth in it. Can you really lose? It is being released in Australia (I found my soul country in a way, the Aussies have always LOVED ABBA as much as me) on July 10th, and I am looking forward to it. So is my 6 year-old daughter, LOL. My husband says I’ve corrupted her young . He can look after our 3 year-old while my daughter and I go watch Mamma Mia.

I love listening to ABBA while I walk. It makes me walk faster . And here in Perth there is a 9 kilometre walking / jogging / cycling track along the river. Looks lovely. I’ll be trying it out as soon as the kids are in school.

What’s your favorite exercising music, or the music that is sure to lift your spirits?

If you were wondering where this blog has been, and why there are no archives or links, well, my webhost deleted my blog database accidentally in a systems upgrade. And because it was so complicated, I had tried to back it up numerous times but gave up in frustration, so no back up.

Yep, I have to start from scratch. But a big smooch to my web designer, Justin Knupp of Stonecreek Media, he set it up again for me, this time with clever one click upgrade and back up buttons. So even if this very rare (so my web host tells me) event should reoccur, I am more or less covered.

It is late at night here, and I have a 6 hour round trip to drive tomorrow, so I won’t set up any of the links or anything now. I’ll save that for tomorrow, but I couldn’t leave my new blog with no post . I’m just glad to be back in action.