When I write a novel, I keep track of the timeline by putting specific dates to particular scenes, even if that information is never shared with the reader. Sometimes it helps because although the day or date isn’t mentioned, there might be some reference to past events and I need to know if that should be last week or months ago! Some of those dates stick in my mind.

This week has been very exciting, not least because I received a proof copy of my next book, The Missing Husband and this was the first time I had held a physical copy of my work – such a proud and terrifying moment. Surprisingly, however, it was the novel due out in January next year that has been occupying my mind in the last few days – or to be more precise, was on my mind on Thursday 23^rd April 2015 which just happened to be World Book Night.

My fifth novel has a working title of The Wishing Tree and as I may have mentioned before, it’s based around the Allerton Oak which is a thousand year old tree in Calderstones Park, Liverpool. I’ve recently finished the latest draft, firming up the timeline and I knew that Thursday was the day that my two main characters would first meet. The park is close to home so of course I had to be there at the moment their paths cross. I can’t tell you how strange it was standing beneath the sprawling oak as that crucial scene played out in my mind. I’m almost disappointed that when I took this picture the lens failed to capture my characters too.

The Allerton Oak, Calderstones

I know there’s still a bit of a wait until that particular book is published and I wish I could tell you more about what is missing from this picture – suffice to say it should have revealed a broken man with a secret past and a vulnerable child who would become convinced by the tree’s magic powers.