By which I mean I’ve actually delivered it now, all edited and everything. Almost exactly a year after I started plotting it. Man, this one took me a long time!
As ever, the feeling of delivery is actually kinda anticlimactic. I email it away to my editor, I look around the empty room a bit, I think ‘Hm, what shall I do now?’ Then I toddle off and tidy up a random corner of the flat or make some toast or bat at the toggle of a window blind for a while. I know it’ll be coming back to me in about a month with various corrections and changes. I hope they won’t be anything serious that can’t be fixed with a couple of sentences here and there, rather than the old finger-busting rewrites I used to have to do back in Braided Path days. I’ll probably take the rest of the week off (ie tomorrow) and next week I’ll start thinking about something new.
Not a book, though. Right now I feel like I never want to write another description of anything again, ever. I really badly need a break from prose work to freshen up the ole batteries or whatever. Probably I’ll get into doing some screenwriting for a bit. Comics. Video game work. Maybe a pamphlet of haiku. Some performance poetry. Copywriting for adverts. Possibly not those last three.
A world of possibilities has opened before me. I stare into the wide open spaces and think: ‘Ooo. What sort of story shall I tell next?’
Right now, I don’t know. It’s sort of nice.
Congrats, Chis.
Looking forward to it, as I suspect are many people. Man, I hope Slag get’s it, and get’s it good.
(I appreciate this may not be a popular point of view, or in fact very likely, but I live in misplaced hope).
Not a cat person, eh?
Good guess
Although as an aside I find the Hollywood approach of no-harm-to-animals-ever very annoying. People can be shot, killed, maimed, strangled, stabbed, tortured, beaten, burned, exploded, eaten or disintegrated: no complaints. Somebody kicks a dog: hundreds of complaints.
‘Tis a strange world.
Congrats Chris! That sounds so exciting! I’m going to be really cheeky and here mention that if you’re looking for something to do, the Creative Writing Society at King’s College London run a series of talks with different authors every year – it would be great to have you! Would that be something you’d consider doing/have time for?
(I’m sorry for posting this here – I feel like I’ve looked everywhere and am not sure how else to contact you…)
Hi Miki,
Thanks for the offer, but I’m not really big on public speaking when I can possibly avoid it
Well, it was worth a shot! Thanks for such a quick response
Heres a good Haiku to start you off:
Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Refrigirator
Hi Chris,
I love your books! I found you because I’d never been to the ‘W’ section of the library. Picked up Tales of the Ketty Jay at random and have read everything else since. I love all the characters and cannot wait for the latest installment. Thank you. You do have an Australian contingent of fans!
Sounds awesome , one of my favourite series