Progress Report April ’23
A busy bank holiday weekend followed by a rush to get a contract signed has meant that I’m just a couple o’ days late for my April progress report, so here it is at the very start of May…
The good news is I’ve finished a draft of the last part of The Devils and delivered it to my editors! According to my notes the first draft of the book is a bit under 220,000 words. Normally I cut quite a bit in the editing and revision but I also end up adding about as much so books stay about the same length. That’d make this the longest book I’ve written since Best Served Cold, with only that and Last Argument of Kings being longer. Wasn’t the plan but, you know, once you’ve started writing the thing you have to let it more or less be the length it wants to be.
The bad news is as a book it’s nowhere near finished. There’s a fair bit to do the other three parts just to get them to match the last one, and give me a coherent second draft, but I’m also not really happy with some of the character voices yet. I just need to spend some time sitting in front of it and making it better, working on the detail. It does feel good to have the bones of the story and setting in place, though. Picking at the carcass is the bit I generally enjoy. As it stands it doesn’t look like I’ll have anything close to actually finished until the end of the year, even though the WGA strike has brought all US film and TV projects to a screeching halt, which may well give me a fair bit more time on the books over the next few months…
Progress Report February ’23
Finally, I actually produce a progress report when I’m supposed to. We’ll have to see whether that continues… I had a discussion with my UK and US editors about the state of The Devils thus far – three quarters of it, that is, and I think we’re all feeling broadly positive, though there’s a lot of work […]
2022 In Review
Another New Year’s Eve rolls around all too soon, and we all know what that means. Happy birthday to me! 48 today and STILL a fresh new voice in this GODDAMN GENRE. This time last year I was crossing my fingers for better times ahead as the pandemic faded in the rear-view mirror. Hasn’t quite […]
Progress Report November ’22
I blink and it’s been 5 months since I did a progress report, god damn it, so HERE IS ONE. I’ve finally finished part 3 of The Devils, and sent it off to my editors. We shall see how they respond. Hated it while I was writing it, which isn’t entirely unusual, but somehow always […]
Progress Report June ’22
I’m conscious that my progress reports have been few and far between lately. I’ve got a lot going on but not that much that I can actually announce or discuss, which makes progress reports every two months a bit of a pointless exercise… The first draft of my next book The Devils is grinding on, […]
2021 in Review
What’s that you say? It’s New Year’s Eve, I must be 47 goddamn years old today, and ANOTHER year passes under the bridge? Those bastards keep coming, don’t they? And this one has, I think it’s fair to say, been particularly hard work on the whole. I don’t think any of us really imagined a […]
Progress Report June ’21
That time again already? Honestly, it’s been a slow couple of months. Lot of tedious administrative stuff to do, and I’ve been grinding away in a rather unsatisfactory manner on the new book, but I’m trying not to worry too much about it and let it take as long as it takes. If there’s one lesson […]
Progress Report April ’21
The progress report is a couple of days late, this time around, probably because I could hardly believe that May has come around so quickly. Honestly not a huge amount to report. UK cover of The Wisdom of Crowds was revealed, and the US cover is pretty much finished and should be revealed soon. I’ve […]
Progress Report February ’21
In some ways a strange, slow period at the start of the year. As lockdown drags on into infinity, and with the kids at home all the time, I must admit it’s sometimes difficult to make headway. So it’s nice that The Age of Madness is very close to finished. The final instalment, The Wisdom of […]
2020 in Review
Well, it’s New Year’s Eve, so I guess I must be 46 today, and what a strange and messed up year 2020 has been. I’ve been able to stick to my plans for The Age of Madness but other than that all bets have been off, and with new strains of Covid appearing and tougher lockdowns coming […]
