Thinking

I've not got any evidence, but it seems sales of Dark Pages should be doing okay - at least if everyone who has made a comment on either this blog or the blogs of the contributors is anything to go by. I'll await official confirmation on numbers from the publisher before getting specific. In better news, my copy arrived in the mail last night. Stoked would be an understatement. The reaction of my little girl when she saw my name on the front cover was also priceless. Now if I can only get a book I've written with my name on the front cover...editing is great and I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, but it isn't the same. I want that total immersion in a feeling of my art being presented to the unsuspecting public. One day...

But I have a problem stopping me from getting there at the moment.

I've still not written anything new. I began two short stories back in January but let them fizzle out unfinished and unloved. These two mis-starts are the only pieces I've written since October 2009. I did a single read-through of Inner Voice around the same time and added a poultry few hundred words, and pinpointed a couple of areas that need work.

I'm still thinking about Inner Voice (hence the blog title). The short comings of it are still percolating inside my skull and different solutions are being trialled and discarded, or kept for further introspection. I'm enjoying simply squirming into the skin of the characters and thinking about the different scenarios I've thrown at them. I've recognised where they're not fully developed and have suggestions on fixing that - some of which lead onto further stories.

I have a couple of ideas for the next book in the series and a whole bunch of new tricks for Nathan Steele to use to get himself and his friends out of trouble. I have copious sticky notes around the place with ideas. I have a new family to create as I'm ditching a nosey neighbour and introducing the possibility of a slight paranormal bent for this and future books in the series. It will give me additional conflict between a scientific mind and a more pagan belief, and the old classic of a second possible love interest so my heroine will have competition for the affections of Nathan as I move forward. More irons in the plot-fire can only be a good thing.

So yeah, I'm not writing, but I am thinking about it a lot.