New Year. Strange day. Late news.

And so this has been the strangest day of my life so far.
The kiddies are out with grandparents, and I just sat all day in front of my computer, tapping out new words added to the new “Thrownaway” (Tentative title) serial novel, and it’s coming along very nicely.
My first official day, at home, as a full time writer.
Cripes. This is weird as hell. Fun. But very, very strange.

Anyway. I suppose a new years update is due, like, five days ago. So I’ll do that now.

“Arisen” readers – don’t fret! We’ve taken a short while (until March I think) off from the series to work on other stuff, just as a short break, but realistically to put together our ideas and brainstorm for what is effectively the second half of the series. We know where it’s going, sort of, and we know what’s next, sort of, and you’ll get the next book in a few months.

“Displaced” readers – You’ve waited ages! Well, the good news is I’m basically half way through the next book, and halfway through another “next” book. The bad news is I’m not sure which is really “next”. As soon as I sort that out I’ll finish and publish the next in the series. Again, like Arisen, just a few months away.

My new project – Tentatively called “Thrown Away” is set a few hundred years after major disasters (of a currently unspecified kind) destroyed the world as we know it, except that it was the world a hundred years from now. Ruined cities cover the planet and are magnitudes bigger than the cities we know today. And it starts with one man, a loner by nature, meeting a little boy desperately in need of help.
It was inspired one day, not too long ago, by me standing in front of my son, telling him off for drawing on something he wasn’t meant to draw on, and then realising that it was in fact me that was the bad one, making a big fuss over something really not that important. An hour later (me and son now happily sitting next to each other playing plants vs zombies and the telling off incident forgotten) and the same image re-appeared in my head, fully fleshed out, but in a totally different setting, and one that really brought home to me how futile the whole thing is, or was, and how it is so easy to forget what’s important, and that we should think before it’s too late. I had to write it. So I have been.

Other news!
I’ve signed with Podium Publishing to do audio versions of Arisen, which is wicked. I’m dead excited about this.
Also we’re currently in discussions with a paperback publisher about a possible deal there. No further news on that until something is solid!
I’ve also got a Dark Fantasy collaboration project planned with a very cool writer, for later in the year.
And lastly, yet another secret, secret project that is so secret I’m not even meant to tell you it’s secret.
More soon.