{"id":1615,"date":"2018-12-01T09:18:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T09:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2018-12-01T09:18:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T09:18:36","slug":"back-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=1615","title":{"rendered":"Back to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m just back from three glorious weeks in the Mediterranean on a lecture cruise from Athens to Barcelona. As those of you who read my last blog may remember, I had to call a halt to planning and writing the next novel because I needed to spend time researching and preparing my presentations on ancient civilisations. This was my first time giving talks on history and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. My fellow lecturers were a great bunch and everyone on the ship from the cruise director to the waiters and our cabin steward were a pleasure to work with. I could get used to being waited on hand and foot \u2013 no meals to prepare or washing up and the bliss of stepping out of the shower knowing I was wouldn\u2019t have to clean it after. We were also blessed with good weather \u2013 quite a treat given the time of year. My husband got soaked to the skin when he escorted a tour to Aix-en-Provence but I was lucky not to get rained on my trip, first to the Abbey of St Victor and then to the cathedral perched on the hill top with magnificent views over Marseille – 120 steps!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Although we had been to all the ports on the itinerary before, several of the tours we went on took us to new cities. We even managed to visit Park Guell, Gaudi\u2019s exuberant design for a housing development, when we were in Barcelona which has been on our bucket list for some time. \"\"<\/a>One of my favourite trips was to the Doge\u2019s palace in Venice. We had been before, but it was so long ago, I\u2019d forgotten almost all we\u2019d seen. Several people asked if I would use any of the places we visited in my future novels. The answer is probably not as I have several ideas for the locations of at least the next three novels.<\/p>\n

I confess I\u2019m still a long way from settling down to the next book. My mind is still of Greeks, Romans and Byzantines to start working out a new plot. Plus, although the cases are unpacked, half of the washing is still to be done (it\u2019s been raining solidly since we got home) and there is a stack of shirts to be ironed. I\u2019ve emails to go through and answer, and there are Christmas cards to write, presents to buy and get in the post ASAP, not to mention all the baking I need to think about. I\u2019ve decided that I won\u2019t let myself feel guilty if I don\u2019t get down to writing until the new year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s not just the writing I\u2019ve put on one side since the summer. I\u2019ve done nothing about marketing. I can\u2019t remember the last time I even looked at Facebook let alone put up a post. I\u2019ve decided to make at least one positive step \u2013 my book bundle \u2013 The Fiona Mason Mysteries: Books 1 to 3 is free today and for the next five days so grab a copy if you don\u2019t already have it and tell all your reader friends.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t believe how quickly this year has flown by. It doesn\u2019t seem more than a couple of months since we were taking down the Christmas tree decorations and putting them up in the loft. The festive season now looms large so, as even the neighbourhood houses already have decorations up, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m just back from three glorious weeks in the Mediterranean on a lecture cruise from Athens to Barcelona. As those of you who read my last blog may remember, I had to call a halt to planning and writing the next novel because I needed to spend time researching and preparing my presentations on ancient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,21,11],"tags":[55,59,58,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-1615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-free-book","7":"category-marketing-2","8":"category-writing","9":"tag-cruise","10":"tag-lecture","11":"tag-travel","12":"tag-venice","13":"entry","14":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1622,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1615\/revisions\/1622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}