The honey moon is over, the bloom has gone off, the love has left and now there's just a life time's worth of grinding monotony to look forward to. Crashed America has been out for (just about) a month now and I'm glad to say the reception has been fairly good. Still waiting for that boat buyin' money to come rolling in but on the plus side I haven't been driven to the point of self-immolation as crowds of detractors cheer me on to the great beyond. So that's definitely a plus.
Now though it's time to get over my self-congratulatory fug and do what writers do, by which I mean writing, not drinking and complaining about other writers.
Over the past few weeks I've been playing with a few ideas, going over some old drafts and mulling things over in a manner that suggests, to the ignorant, that I'm not actually doing anything at all. And now decisions have been reached. From the long list of ideas I've got lurking around I've picked one to push on with and started work on the first draft of a new novel.
At this point I'm not going to say much about it, if only because it's (probably) bad luck to start sharing before something's actually written. What I will say though is that this new book is very, well, new. If you liked Crashed America it should work for you but the plan is to make it a big step forward in a lot of ways. Where CA was daunting for being my first complete effort for public consumption this one is daunting for being a generally bigger story. There's a lot more world building going on and while my love of irrealist chaos hasn't faded there's a more grounded sensibility this time round.
That said however it's too early for any of that to be set in stone because when you start writing you can never be entirely sure where it will take you.
Rest assured that I'll be keeping y'all updated through the process though and when the time's right I'll be throwing out some sample chapters. As well as looking for some beta readers to have a look at the first readable draft.
Until there's more though – have a song.