I’ve been thinking about Time. Perhaps because my kids are young adults now and making their way into the world without me. (It turns out parenting young adults requires a certain shift in parental attitudes, but that’s for another day.) Or perhaps I’m thinking about Time because my nonagenarian mother is occasionally delusional and when she is, I’m often three years old and called Elizabeth.
Or perhaps my obsession with Time is down to the fact many of my contemporaries are retiring and have now perfected their recipe for lemon drizzle cake or are busy volunteering or looking after grandbabies. Or again, perhaps it’s down to the fact Artificial Intelligence is coming for us all, young and old alike.
What’s certainly true is that as your children need you less, you have to invest your energies in your own talents and adventures and friendships. And you have to live intentionally and with purpose in so far as you’re able.
Which means I am particularly happy this year to bring out my crime thriller, Heartbreaker, as well as republishing my Michael North thrillers, via the new digital first publishing company, Pellerin Books. Pellerin are trying to do something new and forward facing in terms of the digital marketing of their books, and they’re trying to do it with experienced writers, which to me seems the best of all worlds – for me at least.