Category Archives: Writing Progress

So, my working title for my next novella is The Man From Porton Down. It’s a part of the Post-Apocalyptic Gothic series and, much like any other book in that series, it’s directly inspired by a period gothic novel. I tend not to reveal ahead of time what that inspiration is, so as to avoid people coming in with preconceived ideas of what the plot will be.

I’ve been reviewing my notes, refreshing myself on the story, and I think I’m actually in a good position to actually start writing the first draft. I’ve got the very rough basics of a plot outline and I know who my characters are. I’ve already done a decent bit of research — this one is set in the communities that have sprung up in the London Underground post-apocalypse, so I did a bit of reading and looking at maps to work out where stuff is. Also had to do a bit of research on bore water, purification systems, and some other stuff. Notes are all lined up. I’ve even got a short write-up, a couple of paragraphs long, of what will happen in the very first scene.

I know from past experience that writing regularly is a momentum thing for me — it’s very difficult for me to start a daily writing habit, but once I’ve started it gets easier and easier over time. To give myself a little space to do a little more work on my notes and to maximise my chances of getting back into a daily habit, I’ve decided that I’ll start writing the manuscript properly this Saturday. I’ll reinstate my tried-and-tested goal of writing 500 words a day, every day, seeing as that’s how I successfully completed my previous works.

I’m also going to have to work out what my music playlist will be for the story. While writing Prometheus’ Daughter, I basically listened to Where Is My Mind by Maxence Cyrin on a loop. It felt like it captured how I was feeling while writing it. For me, music is generally an important part of writing. I prefer stuff with no lyrics, as that tends to distract, so I listen to a lot of classical and other piano stuff. This story has a bit more of a mechanical, technological edge to it, so I might look for something appropriately unique that captures what I’m looking for.

Long time no post.

I haven’t done a lot of writing lately. My initial plan of taking much of this year off my day job to focus on writing as a full-time occupation, which was part of the reason for me actually starting up this blog, ended up taking a back seat when I was offered a temporary, higher-level position doing something I had wanted to do for a while. I accepted, and for the last few months it was really uncertain, week-to-week, how long I’d be there doing it. Either way, I figured that I’d coast along, take advantage of the good work and higher pay for as long as I could to build up additional paid leave and pad my savings account out a bit more. Once the job had finished up, I’d just take my time off then.

I hadn’t intended on stopping writing in the interim. However, the uncertainty of the work and a couple of other factors (I starting seeing someone new, started up some fresh gaming commitments, and got a fresh bout of depression) made it very difficult to get into the headspace for it. I did a little bit of work on my next novella, but not very much, wrote a short piece of fiction that will never see the light of day, and that’s about all.

Today, paperwork was sorted out and I now have real confirmation that I’ll be sticking around in my current temporary position for another eight months, at a minimum. So long uncertainty.

This has solidified two things in my mind:

(1) I want to jump back into writing and finish off at least a first draft of my next novella while I’m still working full-time; and
(2) My original deadline to publish it this year, to maintain my pace of publishing one book per year, is almost certainly not going to happen.

With those in my, I’m going to review the work I’ve done so far and set down some goals for the rest of the year. My intent is to start updating this blog regularly with my progress–that means on a daily basis, even if it’s just checking in to say ‘Yep, I’m still here.”

We’ll see how I go.