Dear Ellamir Diary,
Welcome to the first entry in a series of articles documenting the development of my debut novel, Ellamir. I'm aiming to self-publish the book in late 2026, but I've had so much fun talking about the story and taking part in writing prompts on social media (principally Bluesky), I decided I'd like to post regular updates before then on the website too. As well as this inaugural diary entry, I've also published an article entitled Ellamir: A Work in Progress to introduce the story (which will hopefully develop into a series) - a dedicated book page is coming soon, with the usual blurb and the first chapter available for free, but that will appear a little closer to the scheduled launch date.
It's been quite a busy month in my day job, with precious little time to get any actual writing done and a lot of my energy being directed towards launching my author website, and making additions and improvements to it that are important at this early stage. I'm not one of those writers that can sit down on a regular schedule and reliably turn out 1000 words - I have to be in the right headspace, and I get irritated and discouraged easily when my writing isn't working well, none of which makes for a huge amount of productivity. Often, if I'm not quite feeling it when attempting to write the passage I should be working on, I will instead write something out of chronological order that I am feeling - I call these 'sketches' - which can later on be stitched together to form the main manuscript: this approach comes with its own problems and challenges, but it does mean I'm getting content down that will definitely be used later on.
Getting in the right mood to write seems to be no problem for some, while for others, like me, being unable to do it is a considerable impediment. If you're a writer and you have a particular technique for getting your head in the right place for your best work, I'd love to hear about it: why not drop by my Discord and share your process with our cosy community of writers and readers?
I'd quite like to be able to post some snippets from these sketches here in the diary, but I'm always conscious of the need to flag up when content might contain spoilers. For this reason, I've added some new functionality to the website to allow me to include spoiler warnings in articles and article previews. I'm pretty pleased with the results - a neat, integrated solution that advanced my knowledge of PHP coding a little further! There are three levels of spoiler warning, and all are linked to a page that explains what you might expect from an article that is flagged with them.
The new spoiler bar in situI have, as usual, been busy on Bluesky when I have the time, posting snippets and taking part in writing prompts with the fantastic author community there. I'd highly recommend checking it out if you're an author or avid reader - take a look at some of the prompts and hashtags on my Social Media page or, even better, check out my Bluesky Starter Pack and follow some of my awesome mutuals.
Thanks for following along with my progress on Ellamir - another update coming soon!
Lots of love
