A Little Bit of Catching Up

Oh man, life gets busy. That's my excuse for not keeping up with my blogging responsibilities, anyway.

But it has been crazy. I've been doing interviews (here's one of them http://bit.ly/hcPBQH) and getting ready for the release of 0.4 by working feverishly on the sequel, 1.4.

And that issue of SFX up above this entry, that contains the first printed review of 0.4.

And they liked it.

Another Review

Oh, I almost forgot, a lovely review of 0.4 on LibraryThing.

Here.

Another Book in the Post - USA Bound Proof . . .

. . . and it is really, really lovely.

It's also a slightly different version of the novel. Variant texts! How cool is that?

Just Look What Came in the Post!

That's me, reading the Uncorrected Bound Proof of 0.4. It came yesterday, but I was away and wasn't there to pounce on it like a kitten onto a ball of wool. 

I'm making up for that now.

A bound proof of my debut novel . . . that's the culmination of a lifetime's worth of dreams. 

And it looks great. The designers at Egmont have done a fantastic job, and I can now imagine what it will look like with the really cool cover they have ready for it.

It's been a tremendous journey from scribbling down the germ of the idea for the book in my notebook to holding the proof in my hand, and if there is a cloud that's even better than Cloud 9 - Cloud 9.4, perhaps - then that is where you will find me for the next few hours.

Someone Has Already Read and Reviewed Human.4

Just found this on Goodreads, the first review of Human.4.

http://bit.ly/cv3tGq

?

I don't know, but this might be one of the strangest things I've seen this week.

http://bit.ly/9wSFTD

The Routine

I'm at my desk by eight-thirty, looking through the words I wrote yesterday. A cup of coffee helps as I nudge those words into a slightly different configuration, hopefully a better one. I delete overindulgences, and simplify tangled sentences. It might look like I'm editing, but it's nothing that precise, not yet. I'm merely re-familiarising myself with the last things I did yesterday, so that I can flow onto today's words.

Then I can start.

My minimum goal is always 1000 words. Ideally I will achieve 1500 - 3000, on rare days of inspiration I can see that rise to 6000, 7000, or - on a really good day - 9000. But 1000 is a good target. It's enough. Not brilliant, but sufficient. It will push the project forward. It will give my characters a chance to grow, to move, to talk, to act.

And it will set me up for tomorrow.

When I'll be at my desk by 8.30 . . .