I know, I’ve been terrible for blogging. It’s been four months, I’m sorry. All I can say is that I’m better at writing than I am at blogging / marketing / tweeting!
But it’s with great pleasure that I can announce that the first draft of the third and final book in the Navigator / Parasites trilogy, tentatively named Exodus, is finished. It was an odd book to write – I had a lot of freedom in the first book because I had a rough framework for where I wanted to go, but I could essentially make the worlds from scratch. The second had a few limitations, and a rough sense of direction, but I very much felt that we could still be exploring and experiencing the wonders of the universe.
Exodus was a lot tougher. Our heroes are on the run, up against the wall, and have a very, very narrow window for success and survival, not to mention big ambitions. They’ve got a lot riding on them, and although they’ve got some remarkable individuals on their side, they can’t pause for breath – and that’s not something that comes easily to Lyrans.
But we’re there, and I’m now starting the editing process, which isn’t wildly exciting to blog about or report on. I want to do a re-read of Parasites and Dusk to ensure good continuity – and if either of them get a tiny little sprucing up in the process, then all the better!
In other matters, one of the reasons why I’ve been quite quiet has been works on the house, which has been quite disruptive (and expensive). The house seems to have been cursed (hopefully not literally) with a number of leaks in a number of rooms, and rather than tackle them piecemeal, we’ve had major works done to correct them – which has been stressful, and often meant that I’ve not been able to write as much as I wanted to. I’m still slightly embarrassed to say that even when I had a full day to write (and only write) I barely managed 7k words. I did 4k in an afternoon at the weekend, which just goes to show the power of good mental health and the lovely Cherry Stream keyboard (scissor switches for the win!).
So I’m looking forward to bringing you all a new book soon – and then we can get onto the very exciting subjects of Grace and Vengeance, and the Slow and Gentle Wyrd, which I’ve been putting off to get Exodus done!