Never can keep a good author down.

I've been browsing some of my started and never finished projects. I seem to have a fair few of them. I've been looking through 'the pit' (the nickname for the hardrive on my computer where everything writing related for the last twelve years is kept) and have glanced at maybe half a dozen different things. Of course, I'm still working on 'The stars came home' the second short story in the series of four that I planned. However I'm growing interested in finally getting around to writing the second book to follow 'Orb of Arawaan'.

It might come as a surprise to some to find that for the last few years one of my books has been released with no talk of a sequel yet here I am finally discussing it. The truth was that when I created 'Orb of Arawaan' it was borne out of much planning for what would have eventually become at least a trilogy. I wrote the first one very quickly and easily, then I became distracted just after immediately starting the second, and never came back. I haven't exactly done much on it, but the first few little bits, introducing some new charectors and elaborating what old ones were doing. It's all just little snippets from the first part of the second book, but I've got a vague plot mapped out too. It's just, as ever, finding the time to put finger to keyboard and get stuff done. Time seems in very short supply these days.

I kind of like the idea of doing the sequel to 'Orb of Arawaan'. The 'Syndicates' books grew to now total four with plans for a fifth one eventually that follows on at the very end of the current series. So why not have another fantasy fiction series too? Of course, I would like to get finished 'The Stars came home' but again it all comes back to the simple matter of time, or lack of it. I shall have to make some time and actually knuckle down to get some of these lofty plans enacted.

In the mean time, I'm toying with perhaps putting a little teaser up of 'Orb of Arawaan part 2' (it doesn't even have a working title yet) on the website's portfolio page. I'll have to do just a little polishing first though.

Illness and time off for questionable behaviour.

I've not been able to do much writing at all for the last few days. This has been a combination of working hard at the 'day' job, and being ill. It seems that I have come down with some kind of flu-like cold which has really laid me low today. I feel exhausted and weak like I've run a marathon. All I did was get out of bed! I'm hoping that I'll feel a lot better tomorrow, however today was the last of my days off for a while, so it's back to the 'day' job again with still little time for writing. Still, it's nice to occasionally have a break even if it isn't quite a holiday.

Humidity is for idiots

It's been far too hot over the last few days. The thing about Britain is that heat = humidity, and humidity is not fun in anyone's book. Especially at night. So I've not really been sleeping well, and I feel a little sweaty all the time no matter how many cool showers I take. Still, I'm not alone. My biggest hate though is the idiots on the television weather report who always chirp on about how excellent it is the hotter it gets, from their air conditioned studios, when the reality is that less humidity and a few degrees cooler and it would be a whole lot better.

A rant about content specific adverts.

Some of you will have noticed that my blog has adverts on it. Well, the bills for the ISP host have to get paid somehow! They are sensitive to what is written in the blog. That means that the software running it all picks up on keywords in what I write and tailors what adverts are shown from a pool of available adverts as a result, presumably so the adverts are relevant to the people likely to be reading the blog. It just annoys me that they keep on latching on to the fact that I talk about my writing and having stuff published and decide that that means that adverts for vanity presses are somehow appropriate. Silly software. I find vanity presses the second biggest leaches in publishing. They freeload on people's desires and use that to con people out of money. I have never been involved with a vanity publisher and never would be. I can only recomend to anyone reading this that if anyone says that you have to pay to be published then that person is trying to defraud you of money.

Rant over. Jenny will get back in her box now.

"Madam, your personal life is showing"

I saw a heartening thing yesterday afternoon after I posted the last blog post. The little girl who normally sits alone or gets bullied was sat with two other little girls and they were all playing together. I felt somewhat relieved for her that at last she was part of the in-crowd. It would seem to me that there are a couple of dominant children in the street who want to ignore her. But the other children are rather like sheep. They will follow the dominant children until they are not there, then it becomes fine to play with the unpopular girl. It seems that psychology never changes; it was just like this when I was at school. It also is something like this in the workplace too. Of course, when people get older the dynamic changes as sometimes the bullied (like me) realise that the bullies actually have no power and we can fight back a little and even the playing field. People are still like sheep though.

I'm having a few issues with stalkers. Of course, it is true to say that you haven't arrived in the World of media until you've had your first stalker, and I got my first one back in 2005. Actually, I got around three or four back then, but the court order keeps them safely away now. However I've found that it's only a matter of time when you're publishing stuff and making moves back onto radio when the stalkers climb out of their box and come out to play. I've had to purge a few things only after a creepy experience yesterday when some-one I don't know came up to me and announced that he "knew all about [me]" and also told me that my favourite colour was green. Well, that is correct I suppose, but it unnerves me that you knew given there is only one interview where I admitted my favourite colour.

It teaches me that it is still unwise to allow too much of a personal nature to turn up on the ether and in print. There are certain things I have done in my past that really I don't want to forever be the biggest talking point about me. On the other hand, I am not a prude and have no qualms about having an interesting sideline in modelling. So what if I did several shoots for lingerie and fetish pictures? I like to think that it makes me a more interesting person for the fact that I got paid a big wedge of cash to parade around Fflint castle in various Gossard basque sets and get photographed for legitamate modelling reasons. Everyone has to have a hobby, and who wouldn't be proud that they had done professional modelling?

The strangest things trigger old memories.

I'm sat at my computer in my study/office/whatever-it's-called writing the synopsis for a book. I find synopses very difficult to write. How do you sum up 80,000 words of complex story, plot and sub-plots in only 2,000 words at most? I'd rather write a book any time because it is so much easier!

But that's not what is coming to mind at the moment. My computer is next to a window that overlooks the front of the house. There is a little girl who lives nextdoor who nearly every day goes and sits by the lampost at the front of our house and sits and plays with her doll. There are other children in our road, but none seem to ever play with her. At best I've seen them ignore her, and at worst just tease her. It's a little sad to see. I don't know if the little girl is autistic. I think they are somewhat mean though, if truth be known.

Right now there are three girls running around and playing, in between teasing this girl. She is looking to them, and I suspect she actually just wants to be part of the crowd and be allowed to play with them. Why do I find seeing this so upsetting? Because the little girl who is being ignored and teased reminds me a lot of me when I was young. I was very insular, bullied a tremendous lot and had few friends. I remember being so treated by so-called 'friends' who thought it was funny to exclude me from their games. Seeing this happen to this girl brings back unhappy memories of childhood.

It's hard to know what too do. None of these children are my children, so some may argue it is none of my business. I'm also not one for taking sides. However seeing this all acted out just a few yards from my office window is quite upsetting. I'm looking down there and seeing the eight year old me in 1987 getting exactly the same treatment from my peers.

Nothing stranger than reality

Now there's a thing! We've just had the Police out after a 999 call. The reason? A neighbour down the street tried to accuse us of 'stealing' his wheelie bin. He became abusive and violent and tried to first break into our house then our bin alley then threatened that this wasn't going to be the last we heard of him.

Actually, we begged to differ as I do not care for abusive bullies on my doorstep. The Police were over at his house a long while and appear to have at the very least given him a stern warning over his behaviour. We've been advised if he tries anything else to call 999 and quote our crime reference number.

How strange and surreal the little things that some people get all worked up over. I never thought I would live to see the day that some old boy decides to go mental over a wheelie bin. The Policeman said though that he's seen more trivial things result in 999 calls and criminal records because some-ne is an arse.

Turn around and walk away because there's nothing to lose

I have deleted my LiveJournal account. Why? Because I'm fed up of being largely ignored. I rather got the impression that I wasn't with the trendy 'in crowd' anymore amongst the people I had been associated with. In short, no-one gave a shit about what I was writing so I suppose I'm better off without people who ignore me.

Big box of books from UPS...

I've seen the first printed copies of my new book, "The Atlantic Connection" as UPS delivered a box full this morning. I have to say that I am very impressed with the printing quality of the cover. It is immensely sharp and detailed and there are no flaws whatsoever.

In the words of the Simpsons Comicbook Guy: "Best. Book. Yet."

Whilst sitting in a hospital waiting room today (I was somebody's ride for a scheduled appointment)I had a flick through a copy. It's all nice and crisp inside too, and actually even if I say so myself, a really good read. This book I heartily recomend to everyone to either go out and buy or at least get the download ebook copy. With a whole bunch of short stories on the cusp of (hopefully) being accepted and published by big-name magazines, this could be a collector's item very quickly.



Clicky link to buy"
The Official website
Facebook fansite - become a fan and massage my ego!

The Stars came home.

I'm writing the sequel to "Bringing home the stars". It's going alright: I've managed about 1,250 words so far and the structure of the story is coming together. It's a little harder to write than the first story, because there is so much scene to set and stuff to explain, such as why the main charector has lost his career and become a drunken drop out from society in the meantime. I also have to set up the main reason as to why he's going back after five years.

I've drawn out in my head a rough plan for four short stories, of which this is the second and the first is already written. They would ultimately go together as the four quarters of a novella to be the full story, and hopefully they could appear one after the other serialed in magazines if some-one takes up the option of buying them (part one is currently being considered by the first magazine - no word yet). I would ultimately look to put them together into a book, most likely with some of my other short stories and it would become "Bringing home the stars and other stories". The total word count of the four related stories I would estimate at around 55,000 to 60,000 words.

I seem to have spent a lot of today asleep. I suppose it is no surprise after a Mammoth seven out of eight days working clocking up nearly 70 hours in the end over this extended week. But due in part to a cheque cashed late from my account for a photographer (damn these people who sit on my cheque for nearly a month making me assume it has already gone from my account when it hasn't!) and lots of other wedding related expenses I needed to put in a lot of overtime. Usually I only aim to work three days a week, occasionally doing the odd fourth day. This week though I'm back to doing the usual three days. Unfortunately it still may be tight towards the end of the month though. I should still remain in the black on my bank account - just!

Zoë and I have tried to record another Youtube video. The only problem was that we discovered afterwards that the Apple laptop's programme has a weird cut off point of only recording a maximum of three minutes of video, so we'll have to look into the idea and software used again. One thought is to make use of the redundant DAT tape eating camera at my Father's house to record stuff. I reckon it would make things an awful lot easier.

Tomorrow I seem to be busy again, despite it being my day off. Zoë has asked for a lift to a hospital appointment, and I am having my parents around for a meal in the evening. All this means is that yet again I have almost no time to put to my writing. I never seem to get enough time these days. Wah!

All work and no writing.

I seem to have almost no time for writing at the moment. I worked at the 'day' job six days last week, clocking up over 60 hours. On my one day off I went out for a meal and had neglected cleaning to do, so have neglected my writing. I have however managed to start a new short story out of a similar vein as "Bringing home the stars". I don't have much time at the moment to write a lot on it, but I'm hoping I can get it done over the next two weeks or so.

On Monday I have a day off, but I need to head off to do lots of everyday stuff like visit the bank. I'm also going to spend some time with my partner because I feel that I have been neglecting her a little recently. I might get some time for writing. I do however have two more short stories to post out to magazines, so I'm keeping up the rate of getting stuff out there.

I watched the grand prix today; one of my few vices. Unfortunately the DVD-RW I was recording to went corrupt so I don't have the recording I made it seems. This sucks - the last four grand prixs have been lost due to recording issues now. I'm not happy about that. I have recordings going back to 2005 of various races (I would have also had the 1995 Monaco grand prix if my little sister hadn't taped rubbish over it), but this season has been rendered patchy in my collection by the problems. Oh well. At least I got to watch it whilst it was on this time.

Time is transient

Gosh! Time flies past quickly when I'm not looking. The reason I haven't been updating here is because I've been putting in a lot of overtime on the day job. This week I seem to have worked every hour there has been and have already clocked up nearly 60 hours worked. Hopefully though I will have a little more time this weekend to myself to get on with some writing.

Captain's log, additional.

It has just been pointed out to me by some-one that the descriptions used for Homo Superior and for Syndicate Dawn on both the bibliography section of the website and also on the distributor's website are the same. To coin a phrase: "ooops". That, I'm afraid, is something I should hold my hands up to and admit that's probably my fault. The description for Syndicate Dawn should be something slightly different, though as it is the third book in the trilogy from which Homo Superior is the first, then technically it still holds true.

I must try and look up what the second decription should actually be. But don't worry; they're not the same books I assure you.

War Survivor

"War Survivor" has gone up on the Portfolio section of the website today.

It is only a short piece, but I had been worried that I had been neglecting the content of the website recently because I had obviously been holding back all the stuff I had been writing and sending off to magazines because they like exclusivity during the magazine's run if they buy it. Well that's fair enough. So I put together a quick piece that was not intended to be submitted to magazines that could go on the portfolio section and make it feel loved!

The piece is a deeper sci-fi than some of the stuff I've been writing for magazines. It was done quickly, so don't for a moment consider it polished. But it's okay I think. The idea is that the charector is a survivor of a battle and is left amongst the detritus of the fighting, alive but marooned and stranded with little prospects as a result. Is it better to die in battle than to be left a prisoner of a battlefield that you cannot escape from? That's sort of the key theme to this one.

Anyway, let's not read into it too deeply, shall we? After all, it's jusdt a string of words that I threw together in thirty minutes ;)

Promoting the book at the expense of writing something new - I need a publicist.

I seem to have ended up having a few days off from writing. Or at least, that's how it feels. I have of course actually been working on the setting up of "The Atlantic Connection" but that doesn't feel like a writer's work. It's administration rather than creativity.

It is a strange thing that these days not producing any fiction written content for a couple of days makes me feel like a complete slacker. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the importance you place on bills getting paid!) I've been called out on work yesterday at short notice, and for an overnight shift both tonight and tommorow night. The day (or should that be night/evening?) job pays the bills at the moment, so I cannot really ignore this sideline of work. However it does mean that creative time is limited.

I'm nominally still working on the revision of "Countdown to Extinction" but that too feels like administrative work rather than creative stuff. So I'm going to have to start on another short story or similar this week. I have a couple of ideas, but I need to develop them. Perhaps on Wednesday I'll find the time to put fingers to keyboard and get the ball rolling on something new. I could also do with promoting the version of "The Atlantic Connection" that is up and available. Remember kids: it can be bought by following the link on the website main page in both ebook form (a *.pdf download straight to your computer at a really cheap price) or in hard paper form (i.e: a regular paperback). Tell your friends too as every sale of a book from my six available gives me the figures that I can use to push for a better publishing deal!

I've spent today promoting the book. Whether it generates any real interest remains to be seen.

What's the backstory?

Now that "The Atlantic Connection" is complete, I felt it was a good time to talk a little about the back story behind this book. I don't mean plot, but instead how it came about and the significant milestone it represents in my life.

Due to management lawbreaking fuckwittage and criminal harassment and victimisation where I worked back in 2005-2007 I was left with suicidal depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I was vindicated in the legal process in the end, but was still left with the ongoing symptoms of PTSD. One of these problems through the period was that depression really robs you of motivation and creativity. I was pretty much unable to write for a couple of years. That, for a writer, is quite a hardship I can tell you.

So nothing got done. My writing career effectively went on hiatus in late 2005, although books written before then and finished at the time were subsequently published. I wrote nothing except a diary that followed, in part, the unbelievable criminal activities of the management where I was working.

In early 2007 I was illegally fired (mostly for having the audacity to complain about their discrimination and harassment of me and for taking out an Employment Tribunal against them). I must say, it was such a liberating experience as it made my legal case watertight, and I felt free of those idiots. However it was late 2007 before I felt well enough to sit down and try to write again. The piece that came together was just a short piece about an assassin heading out on a plane to follow a target with a view to killing him. It was an odd piece, reminiscent of 50s style detective stories. But it broke the writer's block. Later on I reworked that story and it became in early 2008 the opening for "The Atlantic Connection". From those beginnings the book grew as I recovered the gift of writing again. It was such an enjoyable experience as a result.

By the time I had finished the first draft I felt back on form, and launched into several short stories before taking on the second draft of the book. The book is a milestone because it is the first major writing project I have managed to complete since all the rubbish from where I worked. From here things just get better. I have never been this productive, and have quite a few new ideas to work through. Several are short stories, but there are a couple of book ideas in the pipeline.

So there we are; a milestone. 2008 has turned into a pivotal year, in much the same way that 2004 was with the completion then of two complete books within one twelve month period ("Daytrippers" and "Orb of Arawaan"). In between I like to try and forget about now. However maybe I should hand it to those idiots: you made me a very strong person as I learnt to fight back against dickheads who think they can push people around and get away with it. I've not lost a 'fight' yet (though I must point out I use 'fight' in the sense of a legal 'fight'). It also eventually made me find a far better job that pays nearly twice what their rubbish wages were.

And that's the story behind "The Atlantic Connection"

The Atlantic Connection

There is a version of "The Atlantic Connection" now available. It's a trial run just to iron out any wrinkles, but the cover is done as is the formatting of the interior. It is UK paperback size

The cover has been done by the cult artist Zoë Robinson and is pretty good. It uses some of the unused shots from the 'Syndicate Dawn' photo sessions plus several pictures from the Westwood picture library.



I would, of course, be very interested to know what anyone thought.

EDIT: The link to it

Spending a penny

The latest short story is done. It came out of an idea that I had a few days ago about the life and times of loose change (exciting life I lead, I know). I wrote it today after doing the second draft of "The Atlantic connection" and it is just a shade under 500 words. I wasn't so sure about it and was going to just upload it straight to the portfolio section of the official website. But Zoë really liked it, and it got me thinking that it might be worth giving it a go for publication, so I've dropped the idea of putting it straight to the portfolio for now and instead it has been submitted to a magazine. Fingers crossed.

"Countdown to Extinctions" revision is being done as the next project. I'm about a dozen pages into the manuscript, and surprisingly there isn't as much work needing doing so far as I was fearing. It might be a quicker project that I thought. I have an idea for a short story about a drought, as well as one about the social realities of immigration during wartime. We'll see which takes my fancy. In the mean time I need to come up with a few short fiction ideas to follow on from "Spending a penny". Stuff this short is quick to write, but you have to have a very clear idea for it to work. There is no room for waffle.

A necessary evil

I've finished the second draft of "The Atlantic connection" after a mammoth morning of work. I feel a little achy from having sat at this computer for so long, staring at text and editing. Still, I'm glad it is done and the file has been passed across to Zoë for a final edit. I really do not enjoy editing, but it is a necessary evil.

For my next project I'm thinking of doing the short flash fiction piece "the life of a penny" which I can probably get done this evening if it all just comes together. After that I plan on doing a second edition revision on "Countdown to Extinction" as it is about time that some of my other earlier books had the niggles fixed.

Finally, some of you may have noticed the adverts on the blog section of this site. This is all down to commercialism and is nothing to fear; they won't take over the site. They are merely a way of paying for this slice of internet ether, apparently.

Daytrippers

Just a little reminder that 'Daytrippers' is still available in the new second edition format with the niggles ironed out.

Still a snip at £3.99 (approximately $8) and the ebook download at £1 (approximately $2).

Whatever happened to Dubstar?

Of course, I could check Wikipedia, for Wikipedia knows all. Sort of. However where's the sense of mystery or fun in that? I'm listening to the limited edition double LP version of the album though nonetheless. I do rather like the second disk which is the dance remix album.

I like to listen to music whilst I work. It screens out background noises and generally sets the mood of a scene if it needs setting. Some time soon I'm planning on filming an interview which will feature footage of my little writing pad just so that people can see where I work. Author's lairs are sometimes quite interesting to me, so I thought via the magic of Youtube I might share a little view on my tiny corner of creativity.

Usually the computer plays the tunes these days. It is often easier that way to put on something and let it play. There is a CD player, but I have discovered the same piece of software that plays *.mp3 files can also play a CD in the DVD drive, and as the computer was already on it seemed sensible. There is a turntable too, and at times like now I clear the paperwork off the lid (it makes such a handy temporary filing system) and drag the needle in the groove.

I think I have talked at length before about music as inspiration, so I'll shut up about that. I just felt a need to boast that I'd been playing LPs today. It must be the only format that watching it play is interesting. There's something uniquely aesthetic about watching a stylus drag in the groove as the twelve inch plastic circle spins.

Editing goes well, and I'm well over half way. I'm hoping that by the end of tomorrow, if nothing crops up that needs my attention, I shall be able to pass it across to my editor for her to cast her critical eye over it. I must admit that I'm warily pleased that it seems to be needing only a small amount of occasionally minor tweaking as I'm going through it. Of course, it could just be that I am blind to grammer and spelling and actually there's tons of things wrong with it. But we can live in hope.

Once the book is done I'm not sure what I want to do next. I have a few ideas at the back of my mind which I talked about before, but I'm not sure exactly which one I fancy using. I did have an idea for a very short flash fiction piece about the life of a penny, and I might see what I could do with that. We'll see.

The walls have ears

"The walls have ears" is now finished and passed over to Zoë for editing. This story has, along with "Bringing home the stars" been an exercise in doing something different and keeping up some kind of writing momentum after finishing the first draft of "The Atlantic connection". Editing my own stuff is something I always find hard, and it was something I found with "Syndicate Dawn" that when I came back to that manuscript after a seven or so year hiatus, it was a lot easier to chop and change it than it would have been straight after writing the first draft of it.

It is something I always hear Zoë saying about Stephen King that he puts his manuscripts to one side for around six weeks before contemplating editing them. So that's what I aimed to do, using the time away to try my hand at short stories again and see about getting some published to raise my profile for the big sell of the book. I have to admit that I still do not like writing short stories. They really are the banana republics of literature. "The walls have ears" is something that I am particularly dissatisfied with, so we will see what Zoë makes of it. Personally I don't think it is good enough to be published, but I'll respect her judgement. It may be something which just goes straight in the portfolio section of the website, or even just gets binned if she doesn't find it all that good either. However, I must admit that I didn't think that much of "Bringing home the stars" either, but Zoë really liked the style. It was, however, more fun to write than this last one. Ultimately I had thought about developing it further into a book if I could get some success with a magazine with it. It has been sent to the first for consideration, but I don't expect to get a reply too quickly, as last time they took something like two months. The waits can be quite infuriating.

Right now I have finally returned to editing "The Atlantic connection". I have decided to do a second draft, because as a book rather than a short story there is an awful lot more to this, and it isn't fair to lay a first draft straight on Zoë and have her try to decipher what I might have meant. Hopefully though the resultant second draft will be ready to go to her for editing.

I've got Moloko's "Statues" playing in my headphones, and it is time to get back to work on the keyboard that never sleeps.

Short, sweet and out of time.

I'm back off holiday, so normal service will be resumed. Or at least it will be after I've done all the many things that are cluttering up my to-do list. I seem to never get a moment to myself!

When there's music stuck going around in your head.

It has been a very tiring couple of days. Those of you who know me well will know that I suffer from PTSD, otherwise known as Post Traumatic Tress Disorder. It's one of those awkward illnesses where physically you are fine but mentally things are somewhat shaky at times. Yes, I function reasonably well and I have got a lot better over the deep dark times of a couple of years ago. People assume that PTSD comes from events such as car wrecks and military battles, and sometimes it does. However it is perhaps not so widely known that it can also come from things that seem further removed such as bullying and harassment in the workplace, which is where mine came from.

I have been having a few weeks where things were not quite all well at the circle of Jenny. It happens, thankfully not quite so regularly. It seemed to reach a peak yesterday (or should that be trough?) and I had some difficulty after being triggered by the hassle of trying to pick some people up from the airport who had left me wrong and inacurate flight information. It made me stress a lot which in turn gave me a huge anxiety and panic attack. It happens, from time to time. Unfortunately often people do not realise the thoughtlessness of their actions that around some-one with PTSD can cause such hardship.

Consequently I have got very little in the way of writing done. I've got just over a thousand words of a short story "The walls have ears" and I'll be hopefully finishing that off by the end of next week. After that I'm already planning the second draft of "The Atlantic Connection".

On the short story front, I got a rejection from Asimovs for "Three, my lucky number" which is neither here nor there because after far too long of waiting I have already sent out for consideration elsewhere. It came as a little odd though to get the email as only this morning I was at the post office posting a copy of "Bringing home the stars" to them. As they did not specify the piece's title in the email, the first pang of fear is that they have rejected the new one. But of course the post never travels halfway around the world that quickly!

I seem to have a lot of ideas on the boil at the moment, which is extremely comforting. Ideas are any writer's future, so having enough to ensure a steady stream of stories is good. I've got a few things to do over the coming months, and no doubt will be getting more short stories out there. You may notice that the portfolio section of the website goes quiet for a while and this is because I'm always sending short stories out to magazines first now and they will only appear on the website once they have been published and done the print run of whatever magazine publishes them.

Bringing home the stars

It would seem that long short story (what an oxymoron of a term, but it's the best to describe it so I'll keep using it) that I wrote is going down well with Zoë whilst she is editing it, so I'm rather hopeful. Aparently my writing style is getting better and better, so we'll see what magazine editors make of it. It's called "Bringing home the stars" by the way, if the title of this blog post wasn't obvious enough for you. I'm also impressed that it has lost only 400 words in the edit (and she says she is nearly done) which is far less than I was fearing. This means that it is still nearly 11,500 words so is a little too long to send to Interzone, so I'll start with Asimovs then the Edge to submit to. Hopefully one or the other will buy it removing the need to butcher out of it 1,500 words to make it fit the hard word limit that Interzone stipulates.

Last night I started on the next short story. This is planned to be a far more modest 2,500-3,000 word piece and is called "The walls have ears". I'm not going to get the time to finish it this week as I'm working tonight, out to the airport in the afternoon to provide a parental taxi service and I'm away from Friday through to late on Sunday with my Father crewing on his Garrett steam traction engine's rally outing (it's my one chance this year to play with a real steam engine and get covered in soot!). So more likely if I don't get time today or tomorrow to get a little more written I'll get it finished by the end of next week if I have time.

After that the plan is to do an edit on "The Atlantic Connection", the biopunk thriller which was the first half of this year's big project. If the short stories are gaining interest, I want to be able to get this manuscript out to follow any success up. After my rewrite I'll pass the manuscript across to Zoë for a full edit job. Be gentle now!