I’m actually amazed at how much progress I’m now making on ‘The long summer of war’. I’ve written around seven thousand words in two days so far, and I really feel like I’ve got a very good handle where it is all going. I’m guesstimating that the finished thing will be around 15,000-20,000 words long; firmly in novella territory.

Along with ‘Bringing home the stars’ it will form the backbone of the new anthology. I’ve also taken a look at some of the other material I’ll be working on next. It has no title, but it was cut from ‘Syndicate Dawn’ because I felt it strayed from the direction I wanted the book to take and slowed the pace down. It will be heavily rewritten and edited, but it might be interesting for some; it contains a charector written out of ‘Syndicate Dawn’, though I don’t know yet whetehr he will find himself written out of this in the edit too. I also found a cut bit from ‘The Atlantic Connection and whilst I’m as yet undecided, that might get edited and finished and make it in too.

This year has been exceptional in terms of my writing productivity. I only hope I can keep the pace up: despite effectively a few months largely off because of other commitments, I’m back on form and looking at completing a second book this year on top of two revised other books and a whole bunch of short stories (okay, small cheat in that some of the short stories are also part of the anthology! But shhhh!)

I’ve also been contributing a lot of ideas for the collaborative webcomic I’ve been working with Zoë on called ‘All over the house’. We don’t have a syndication deal, but it may yet get a website yet and we’ll work on building it up in the same way that webcomics such as penny arcade built themselves up. Eagle eyed readers may also have noticed that the other webcomic that I occasionally help script has been conspicuous by its lack of updates recently. However, Zoë’s other commitments have eased with the passing of her exams, so hopefully new strips will start appearing regularly again sooner rather than later (hint, hint!).