Where I've been, where I am, & where I'm going

Hey! Time for the old fortnightly update that I promised I'd be... YEESH. Yikes. What? It's been HOW long?

Err, okay, so I fell off the wagon on my commitment to writing bi-monthly blog posts. Fell off it HARD. And then got sucked under the wheels of the wagon and dragged a quarter-mile down the road.

I'm sorry, in that I feel guilty, but I'm also not, in the sense that I don't intend to renew my vow now because actually, there hasn't been much I've felt like sharing (writing-wise) for the past 9 months. The Gravedigger Scribe didn't sell on submission to half of the publishers we sent it out to, and the other half just straight-up never replied. That's disappointing, but it doesn't mean it won't sell in the future. There is a plan, but it isn't a sure thing. Nothing is in publishing. I still love the book, I'm very proud of it, and I believe it deserves to be on a bookshelf, but that last part is out of my hands for now.

In the meantime, I wrote another book. Yay! It's called The Resurrection Men, and it's set in my hometown of Edinburgh. It's about the strained relationship between two brothers, each concealing paranormal abilities they can't quite control.

Luke seems to be an unwitting lightning-rod for the restless spirits of the deceased, who inhabit the vacant bodies of the city's many famous statues whenever he's around. Fortunately, Chris can exorcise them with a touch, and as a result has become accustomed to spending his life on high-alert, awaiting the all-too-frequent call to come to his younger brother's aid. Their worst fears are realized when their carefully-guarded secret is threatened by a mysterious blackmailer. And that might not even be their biggest problem, because statues have started disappearing under mysterious circumstances, and for once, Luke swears he has nothing to do with it...

I had just as much fun writing The Resurrection Men as The Gravedigger Scribe, even though the process was very different. Writing a book once you have an agent representing you is a whole other thing to writing one with the objective of landing an agent, and writing a book while you're still actively trying to sell another significantly lowers the stakes (at least in my experience). For one thing, I didn't impose a strict deadline on myself the way I did the first time around; I convinced myself Book 1 would sell and that having already begun even thinking about Book 2, let alone writing it, meant that I was ahead of the curve. Waking up at 4.30am every morning to write was one of the first things to go, as I found it in the long-term to be completely unsustainable. I was falling asleep on the sofa at 7.30/8pm in the evening, and constantly asking my ever-patient wife to recap episodes of whatever TV series we were watching as I'd missed the last 25mins. Where Book 1 was fuelled by so much coffee I might as well have saved myself the trips to the kitchen and just stuck an IV in my arm, Book 2 coincided with my eliminating caffeine from my diet altogether (go ahead and ask me whether that decision made staying awake easier...) And where before I spent a lot more time than I was comfortable with *engaging* on Twitter, ever since a certain self-obsessed billionaire took over, my profile over there now exists only as a placeholder so I don't forfeit the username.

Anyway, that about brings us up to date. I'm working on a new project - Untitled Book 3 (the idea for which my agent has been positively beside herself with excitement for since I first pitched it to her) - although it's in the very early plotting stages and, I can safely say, will be approached with even less urgency than the last. This is because I'm going to be tackling it in conjunction with another new project - fatherhood - which will happily be occupying most of my time from now until... the rest of my life. My wife and I welcomed a baby girl a few weeks ago, and she is - in the sincere words of every new parent ever - absolutely perfect. We love her fiercely.

So that's where we're at. I'm going to carry on writing a grand total of 500 words a week, if I'm lucky, of Book 3, in between learning to be a dad and working on the farm and trying to let my wife get some sleep. And who knows: if a miracle happens I might even manage to post on this blog once in every blue moon.

Hasta luego, mis queridas amigas x