I brought in the time-shifty YA’s and cleaned out the box, and then I finished transcribing the last story in the Luckshill Riders series, which has always been provisionally called Now We Are 50. It’s a start. 🙂
We Rode For…
‘In midst of life we are in death’ 07/05/2026
I suppose I should say ‘Happy New Year’ – maybe I am just wishing we’d had one.
Too many things have happened between my last post here and now to write about. The most important thing is that my mum died a few weeks ago.
I have yet to resume either writing or gardening or anything else I was doing before Christmas 2025. I have not yet regrouped.
All I can say is that I can plant the vegetable garden. That the stories are where I left them, so I can write on when I want to. The grass is growing, so I guess we will be silaging soon.
Friday 25th July – Writing Week: Inspiration for my all fiction writing

Paths and ways where feet have trod and hoof-beats thud allow my mind to escape…
Escape into my stories…Ride through my pages…
Escape into my stories…
Alex Allington writes Young Adult and Middle-Grade fiction. She is working on a contemporary Equestrian Fiction series – ‘Luckshill Riders’. Also on the workbench is her, Middle Grade, ride-through-time adventure series – ‘We Rode For…’ starting with ‘We Rode For Wessex.’.
Ride through my pages…
Follow the Writing Journal to see how she gets on with her pony, goats, and ‘art adventures’ and as she juggles her own need to escape into the stories. 🙂 Or sign up for the Newsletter if you’d like to get notifications of up-dates when they happen.
14 July – 20 July 2025: My Fiction Writing Week

Some steps are prettier than others to climb and this week saw me brain storming in my favourite local gardens at Abbotsbury.
And So It Begins: The Week Ends in Inspiration :)
I honestly do not know how. All I know is I am processing huge amounts of whole manuscript feed back on both series and stand-alones.
Which way to go and what to do? Continue reading
23 Feb to 2nd March 2025

No decision on replacement laptop top, so took this as a sign to get out and work on terrace 😀
While I wait to start Big First Self Edit on LHR, I am moving on to The Other Side books, which is fun and low-stakes research and drafting new scenes.
April 2023 – August 2023: Brilliant Progress :)
Brilliant Progress 🙂
Mindset;
My mindset has shifted to the positive as the process of ticking things off a dreary list of To Dos has progressed – some of those things had stagnated for a while!
Clarity
I feel that by reviewing and reassessing my portfolio of ‘work to date’, moving and refreshing hard copies to new files and imposing a straightforward digital file structure, I can now visualise the whole fictional world. By making myself finish the series world bible and the magic system bible, I can see how the two worlds – the contemporary and the Other – fit together. I can see all my characters and fit them into a timeline.
I can see why folks give up on these jobs if they come back to them further into their writing careers, and I am lucky that my original method of ‘keeping everything’ meant that whatever I had was there to be found – I just had to look harder.
Process
The new process owes much to Sarra Cannon and Heart Breathings and her HB90 and Publish and Thrive courses, but primarily to both her Utube channels Heart Breathing and Sarra Cannon for inspiring me and keeping me company as I fathomed out how to proceed with what I had.
Research
My summer of research was derailed somewhat by circumstances on the farm but is now resuming with trips planned to the Roman villa near here and to Corfe Castle ( I grew up in Purbeck ), Dorchester Museum, and Mambury Rings are also on the list as is Wareham Museum.
7th – 12/04/2023
Easter Break.
I have been working and thinking about the stories over the last few days, but mostly I have been bounced out of story world by the computers’ and the EE Broad Band set-up suffering glitches.
I have just updated my Camp Nano times – and the hours I use instead of words are accumulating on the two parts of the set-up project.
I have also been thinking about the time-shifty fantasy historical series I am working on – I need to plan a setting walk after the Easter holidays. In the same town, I need to visit the Museum to see a Viking sword someone pulled from the river many years ago. I am not yet decided if this will be two trips or one. Though I grew up around that town, I am not at all familiar with the north and east Saxon wall walks or the lay of the land I will walk – it is river/sea tidal marsh. I think I should allow a couple of hours of actual walking time and probably take my wellies 🙂 Not being hugely fit or sound at the moment, I don’t want to carry too much, and I might cut myself a walking stick from the hedge even if I look silly in the town part of the walk 🙂 I think the town still has a market day so that I could combine one or both trips with that – I like a bit of bustle if I am blundering about looking at things – the last settings walk I did, I didn’t take a dog or my bike, and I felt as if everyone was watching me.
I have replaced my old Ordnance Survey Maps recently – the footpath level size – as those in the collection I have, span many decades and Things Change 🙂 I decided on actual paper maps as mobile phones don’t always work, and also my glasses are required to read the phone, let alone look around an ariel view of an unknown path. I also want to do some ‘drive arounds’ slightly off my usual rat runs. I am very stuck in the fields and place I live – I have been for several years now, even before the Pandemic – the maps help give me confidence.
1st – 6th April 2023



