The Unglamour of a First Draft

Happy new year, you lovely lot! Yes, I know it’s the 21st of January and three weeks too late, but that’s what you get from an author on deadline around the holiday period. But I wish you all the best for this year, despite what we see going on in this wild world. I hope to be be able to bring you some distraction and escapism - and maybe a little faith in humanity? - this year in my books.

Being an author can be a glamorous job. Just look at Emily Henry (swoon) and scroll through author accounts on social media and you’ll see book signings and panel talks, conventions and conferences and visiting your book on the shelves in an actual bookstore. These are huge perks of the job, many of which I have experienced (but not the magazine makeover and photoshoot Emily Henry got - haha).

The last two months, though, have been distinctly less glamorous - the business end of being an author, where I have loads to do and none of it warrants a photo on my Instagram. To be perfectly honest, I like this stuff better than a lot of the ‘glamorous’ author life. I enjoy hanging out with my characters (even when they’re misbehaving despite the deadline), as well as thinking about what I’d like to write - and what I could write that would have a better chance of readers picking it up.

So, although I spent my recent birthday at my desk trying to finish a book, while also having a head cold and no mental space for anything except making these characters (finally!) say, ‘I love you,’ secretly, I was pretty happy to be doing it.

So why the time constraints? Some of it was what I requested. You all know I’ve spent pretty much the past two years working on the Adventure Weddings series. We’ve had a bit of a difficult time at my publisher with my editor being off with illness (she’s back! I’m so happy). And now we’ve had a meeting to give the existing two books a glow-up and make sure the next two have a strong chance to shine. I can’t wait to share with you all the changes we’re going to make to the series (including title and cover tweaks!).

Part of the result of this meeting is that we moved (slightly) forward the release date for book 3 (29 April - more to come on that soon) and book 4 (early August). Book 4 is quite significantly earlier than planned, which means I have to deliver it much earlier than planned - hence my snotty unbirthday at the keyboard. But it’s an autumn book, so it’s apparently important it comes out in good time and I’m happy to get all of the books in the series out so readers can binge.

The great news? I finished the first draft yesterday, so I’m gradually coming alive again. The draft itself is about as glamorous as I currently am (i.e. not at all), despite the bridesmaid dresses and bouquets and the hotel on a lake. There are continuity errors galore, some backstory I invented halfway through and now have to weave back in and core character motivations to strengthen, but as they say, you can’t edit a blank page. The story is there.

If you’ve been reading the series, you’ll have met both of the main characters in book 4. Ginny kind of stole the show for me in book 2 (the mistletoe!) and I’ve been looking forward to writing her romance ever since her questionable driving in the first book. The love interest is a bit of a dark horse, very quiet and a little bit afraid of how bubbly she is, but when I started digging under the surface, he grew into one of my favourites. You’ll be able to tell who he is from the mood board below if you’ve read either of the first books! Let me know your guesses and I’ll tell you if you’re right.

These two are thrown together during the wedding of Sophie and Andreas - the OG couple from the first book - in his home region of Südtirol (Alto Adige) in northern Italy, surrounded by autumn colours and the peaks of the Dolomites.

I’m only sorry this one isn’t out until August! But you will have book 3 (Toni and Gabri’s book) to keep you going until then.

Book 3 is already available to pre-order, although the title might still change and the cover isn’t up yet (hope to show you in February). It’s a widowed single mum and a male florist (with a bit of a mix-up at the beginning) finding their way through an affair that might turn into something more… This is the cover copy:

When wedding planner Toni Goschl arrives on the sun-drenched Tuscan island of Elba, she can’t wait to finally meet her online friend Gabri in person. There’s only one small problem… instead of the female florist she’d been expecting, waiting for her is heartbreakingly handsome, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, Gabriele Orzati. With only a week to go until the beach-front wedding Toni and Gabri are working on, they decide to make the best of an awkward situation and spend the time together as planned.

For seven unforgettable days, as Toni gets to know the breathtaking island – and the open-hearted man who calls Elba home – she finds it increasingly difficult, in the close quarters of Gabri’s clifftop villa, to resist turning their friendship into something more.

But Toni and Gabri both have heartache in their pasts, complex lives and commitments and as the week of the wedding gathers pace, real life swims back into focus. When the time comes for Toni to head home, there’s only one question she will have to answer - can a romance begun under the dreamy Italian sun ever become a happily-ever-after?

What else has been going on?

• Don’t Brake My Heart will be in copy edits shortly. This book really turned into something special, with a loveable rogue as the love interest. I cannot wait to hear this one in audiobook, for Colin’s deep voice and Australian accent. We haven’t cast it yet, but that’s one of those ‘glamorous’ things I’m looking forward to. The audiobook of Head Over Wheels just blew me away, the narrators did such a great job (Seb coming to life with his French accent is just amazing).

• I’ve been working on some top-secret stuff for the future. This is the author merry-go-round. If I’m going to keep releasing books at my current pace, we (my agent and I) need to start looking at new contracts, even while I’m still writing for the old ones. I spent a month late last year concocting outlines and samples for books I might never write (but gosh I hope I can!) It’s one of my favourite parts, throwing ideas in together and seeing what comes out. It’s not an entirely organic process for me. Occasionally an idea lands fully formed, but usually I have to collect hooks, characters and story elements and experiment with how they fit together, discard some things, search for other bits and even then some ideas never fully develop. I’ve had a few discussions with my agent about how we’re going to approach everything and then of course at the last minute, I had another great idea for a sports romance. I like the ‘anything can happen’ stage.

• I went away on a mini-writing retreat! Family life is so busy over the holidays and with my looming deadline, the stress got to me a little, so my Christmas present was a weekend in a hotel alone to write. It was bliss, especially because the town where I went (Karlstadt am Main) looks like this!

If you’re newly subscribed, it’s lovely to see you here! If you’ve been around a while, then THANK YOU for staying for my unglamorous news and updates. Now I’d better go wash my hair and eat something actually nutritious…

All the very best

Leonie xx