So it’s been a rough time these last few weeks, or should I say, months. I have to admit there have been more occasions during the writing of Scotch Mist: a Dottie Manderson mystery novella than usual for me to get hysterical, shout, swear and throw things, or descend into despair. I’m honestly surprised to have got through it, largely due to support from friends and family.

Writing a novella has been so much harder than I expected, too. Usually I write full-length fiction. And even in a text of 80,000 or 100,000 words, I can waffle quite a bit, and have to really cut out a lot of what the industry calls ‘padding’, and I call ‘chapter 47’ or ‘chapter 54’. Therefore I was convinced a ‘mere’ novella would be a doddle.

I had originally intended Scotch Mist to be around the 30,000-word mark. When I finally typed those…