Author Update | Books, Crafts, Garden Days & New Music 🎵🌿

I thought it was time for a proper little life-and-author update because the past few months have honestly been a whirlwind of creativity, chaos, plants, paint, words, and caffeine.

The biggest news first…

Awakening Book 3 Is Finished!

After many late nights, rewrites, emotional damage (the fictional kind 😅), and staring into space while plotting scenes in my head, I’ve officially finished writing Awakening Book 3.

I’m now deep in the editing process, which always feels like a completely different phase of the journey. Drafting is chaos and emotion, while editing is where I tighten everything, smooth out the pacing, fix my inevitable typo disasters, and make sure the story hits exactly the way I intended.

This book has been a huge undertaking and probably one of the most emotionally intense stories I’ve worked on in the series so far. There are scenes in this one that have lived in my brain for a very long time, so finally getting them onto the page has been both exciting and slightly terrifying.

I’m really proud of how it’s turned out.

Creativity Everywhere Lately

Outside of writing, I’ve been throwing myself into crafting again and honestly loving every second of it.

My little Scottish studio has been full of wood stains, tartan scraps, beads, paint, resin, and half-finished ideas scattered absolutely everywhere. I’ve been creating handmade jewellery, cottagecore pieces, nature-inspired accessories, bookmarks, trinket boxes, and restoring old materials into something new instead of letting them go to waste.

A lot of my recent makes have been inspired by Scotland itself. Spring arriving here always changes the mood completely. The daffodils, the sudden bursts of green everywhere, the colder mornings turning softer… it always sparks ideas.

I still love the idea that beauty exists in ordinary things here. Wildflowers growing through cracks, moss-covered stone walls, old forests, rainy skies, sea glass, tartan, weathered wood. Scotland has a way of making even simple things feel atmospheric and magical.

Allotment Life 🌱

The allotment has also become a huge part of my routine lately.

There’s something genuinely grounding about getting outside and working with soil after spending so much time inside fictional worlds. It clears my head in a way nothing else really does.

I’ve been planting, digging, planning fruit bushes, tidying beds, and generally trying to convince myself I know what I’m doing while hoping nature cooperates. So far the garden chaos includes berries, fruit trees, flowers, and a lot of optimistic plans.

Honestly though, I love it.

Writing can sometimes become very intense and isolating, so having something physical and real to focus on has been really healthy for me creatively.

I’ll be posting an allotment video on my YouTube soon to show you how much work I ahve done since I took it on.

Something A Little Different… Music 🎶

Some of you may have noticed that I recently uploaded something unexpected to both the main page of my website and YouTube…

My fan-made theme tune.

This was honestly just a creative passion project that spiralled into a full cinematic music/video experiment because apparently I’m incapable of doing things halfway. 😂

It mixes together a lot of the themes, atmosphere, emotions, and darker fantasy energy that inspire my writing, and creating it was ridiculously fun. Between the visuals, lyrics, editing, and overall vibe, it became one of those projects where I kept saying “just one more tweak” for about twelve hours straight.

The response to it has genuinely meant a lot to me.

Creativity has always overlapped for me. Writing, music, visuals, storytelling, mood, atmosphere… they all connect together somewhere in my brain.

One thing I absolutely didn’t expect to fall in love with this year was learning the drums. What started as a random “maybe I’ll try this” moment has somehow turned into daily practice sessions, sore arms, obsessing over timing, and a whole new appreciation for just how skilled drummers really are.

I’ve been slowly teaching myself coordination, rhythm, posture, and technique while trying not to annoy the entire household with endless paradiddles and metronome clicks. It’s challenging in the best possible way, though. There’s something incredibly satisfying about finally locking into a groove after struggling with it for days. Music has always been a huge part of my creative life, but actually learning an instrument has given me a completely different respect for the craft behind it.

I’ve also quietly found my way back into lyric writing again, which feels strangely like reconnecting with an old part of myself that had been sitting dormant for years. Writing the theme tune I recently shared for my readers and followers ended up reigniting something creatively, and since then, I’ve filled notebooks and files with half-finished songs, choruses, ideas, and lyrics that will probably stay hidden away for now.

There’s something very freeing about writing music compared to novels. It’s rawer somehow. More immediate. Sometimes a single line can hold an emotion that would take pages to explain in a book. Whether any of those lyrics ever properly see the light of day is another question entirely, but I’ve genuinely loved rediscovering that side of creativity again.

What’s Next?

For now, the focus is:

• Editing Awakening Book 3 and publishing it ASAP
• Continuing handmade projects
• Continuing my drum journey with a view to one day once again going back into that industry as a hobby
• Spending time in the garden and on the allotment
• Trying to balance work with actually sleeping occasionally
• And probably creating several more chaotic side projects, I absolutely do not have time for

So… business as usual, really.

Thank you, as always, for sticking around through all the different creative directions my brain decides to wander into. Whether you’re here for the books, the crafts, the music, or the general chaos, I appreciate every single bit of support more than you know.

Until next time,
Leanne / L.T. Marshall