Its time to go large

So, the blog starteth. Normally I update on Twitter a lot, but as it is mostly shouting to the void, I have returned here for a more comfortable roundup of what's going on without the extra noise.

Over the next 2 weeks I'll have started--and finished--edits on Monstrous Heart. No, that's not a lot of time given that it's been over 12 months since I last looked at the manuscript and that was only at... draft 3 then, maybe? My editor, Vicky, is planning to get some samples out through YALC and Worldcon in Dublin next month--the A4 Times New Roman comb-bound special edition. Its a bit early for a cover design of any sort, I'm sure one will be mocked up in MS Paint. Publishing is slow until it is not. As much as someone leaping out of the blue giving you a 2 week turnaround is a bit of an imposition, its a dreadfully good opportunity to prove oneself not to not be tardy or a shirker. (I got to use the word shirker in an office meeting the other day. It made a good change to the more utilitarian and common "lazy fucker".)

I'm finishing off Book 2 at the moment. For those of you in the know, the Universe is equal in its distributions, so my book deal last year was swiftly followed with All The Worst Things, so writing has been a bit like swimming through sludge to get to the other side. The other side has been reached, and there is a book at the end of it, so, a big middle finger to you, universe!

So anyway, the journey must begin somewhere, and this is as good a place as any. I've joined a #2020Debut group on Facebook, and re-met a Twitter friend Samantha who I'd met about 4 years ago back when we were both newly signed to our (then) agent in Jenny Bent (fantastic, unfortunately we had to part for project/genre reasons). After I'd left Jenny, I'd taken a detour to writing a new book and hitting the query trail/new agent again, Samantha had stayed and worked on her manuscript. It was such a strange thing to finally meet up in the same place at last!

​Now I'd better get back to writing and my edit-orphaned family...