Is this thing on?

Hi! I haven’t quite kept up a regular blog lately, but I do actually have at least four (4) good reasons for that:

• Book
• Another book
• Yet another book
• Dog

Between roughly September 2020 and the end of May, I drafted, edited, formally edited and handed in three separate novels for three separate publishers. And we adopted a miniature poodle with separation and independence issues. Which was a lot. In hindsight, it was a lot. At the time, it was A LOT.

Also, you know, lockdowns, pandemic, a government that can’t decide whether to open up or shut down etc.

And while writing three books at once kept me busy during a time of global upheaval, I wouldn’t recommend it and I very much won’t be doing it again. That said, I recognise exactly how lucky I am to have been given that opportunity at all, but gratitude burns up fast in the face of zero days off for just over six entire months.

But now they’re done! Two of them have been copy-edited and I’m just awaiting the final proofread before they can go off as finished.

One, the Marvel novel – The Serpent and the Dead – is being published on 3 August and is available for pre-order, as well as being currently on NetGalley. The second hasn’t been announced yet, so I can’t say any more about it, and the third – the one that’s drafted only – is Songs of the Drowned 2.

I’m about to launch into the structural edit for that one after a call with my editor to chat through some options. Until then, I am exploring this strange new world that is known as ‘Time Off Land’. I think I’ve visited before, but I only have the vaguest memories of what the place is like.

Of course, I’m spending most of my vacation in Time Off Land by dog training, which is going as well as you’d expect when I’ve never owned a dog before. Still…

Panel Event alert klaxon!

I’m going to be on an online panel with Matthew Ward and Suyi Davies Okungbowa for #Cymera21 on Sunday 6 June at 6pm. Tickets for this and the rest of the festival – and there are some excellent-looking panels – are available here.

I’m also tentatively booked in for Fantasycon in September on the basis that it’s in my home town and I’ll have had my second vaccination by then. Obviously, an in-person event is still subject to government guidance, but I’m going a little bit feral at home so it would be absolutely joyous to geek out among my people once more.

If that goes well/goes ahead, I might look at Bristolcon as well, although in that case much will depend on the doggo’s separation issues.

The Stone Knife in paperback

Yes indeed. My monstrous child is now in her slightly less monstrous form of a lush paperback and is available wherever books are sold (probably not everywhere; I’m not quite popular enough to feature in supermarkets).

If purchasing is out of your price range, please, please consider requesting it through your local library. That way, you get to read it and other people might stumble across it when browsing the shelves, and then they’ll read it, and maybe – just maybe – I’ll get popular enough to be stocked in supermarkets!

Ahhh, the small and humble dreams of a midlist author. “I just wanna be in Tesco, mum, is that so much to ask?”

Patreon

I’m also back on Patreon after a couple of months off to turn in those books, so if you have a couple of pounds a month spare, you can get behind the scenes work, cut and edited sections, and original fiction, all for less than the price of a big coffee per month!

All Patreon content helps keep my ridiculous dog in hair cuts, peanut butter and kibble, the three things most important to him. Look into his eyes; there’s no resisting that face, right?