After a very pleasant weekend which mixed pleasure — a whisky tasting club Friday evening and an afternoon at the driving range on Saturday — with work around the house (including mowing and edging our rather large, uneven yard), I am now preparing for a five-day conference in Halifax, leaving on Monday.

I like Halifax a lot and am really looking forward to seeing the city. I hate to admit but I'm a little bit ambivalent about the conference itself: don't tell any of my colleagues that!

It was really good to have re-read the Abigail Massey stories the other day. The process of reviewing them has served to bring the characters and setting all vividly back into my mind. As I said in my previous post, I should start looking for a way to publish the stories.

To that end, I am starting to wonder about trying to write a longer story — a novel or at least a novella — to serve as a core piece for a published book. I'm a bit nervous about the prospect of doing enough research into 1940s New Brunswick to do it effectively but I think that central group of girls (Abigail, Martha, Jenny and Alice) provides an interesting set of characters who could carry a longer work.

I'll continue to give this idea some thought as I visit Halifax this week. I will also be bringing with me my working copy of The Silent Goodbye so perhaps, while I wile away the evening hours in my hotel room, I will find the time and energy to move that novel forward. I might also find the energy to look up the word "wile" to see if I've spelt it correctly in that previous sentence!

Or maybe I'll just wander around beautiful downtown Halifax! Either way, you won't be hearing from me until next weekend.

Tags: Abigail Massey