Busy, busy, busy

I apologise now for the scatterbrained post this week.

The title says it all really.

Still no sign of work, but in the mean time, I decided to start work on a novella. Which I finished last night, following five whole days of solidly working on it.

I'm not normally that productive, tending to get out about 2,000 words a day, but I was in the grip of a writing fever. The proverbial 'zone'. So I wrote like Ty the Tazmanian devil on speed, putting out an average of around 4,000 words per day. For a couple, it was more like 6,000.

But it's finished. Or at least, the first draft is. I'll give it a couple of weeks before I go back to it, so I'll be back to Serial Psyence. I didn't want to stop working on the book, but this story really got its claws into me, and wouldn't let go.

When I've finished editing, and it's ready to be published, I plan to do so through Amazon's KDP Select scheme, which will allow me to set the book's price to zero for select periods. As this is the first in a series of novellas about the characters featured in the first volume, I felt it would make a good taster for the rest.

For me, it's a way to test the water with a universe I first envisioned almost eight years ago during my second year at university. It was inspired by a lecture in my Theory in Archaeology module, on Evolution and Creationism, which gave me a 'what if' scenario. What if, somewhere in the distant future, we'd lost our homeworld, and came to the belief that we evolved on a world close to the core of the galaxy. A belief which became central to the primary religion, and anyone who dared postulate another origin was branded a heretic. Not too dissimilar to certain times in our past, of course. And so was born the short story, Distant Origin.

I've not worked on anything in that universe for quite a while. I've not felt ready to, if I'm honest. So writing this novella and the subsequent series is a way for me to explore it in preparation for a book in a few years time.

So what is this novella about, you ask?

It's called The Runaway.

On the distant world of New Erised, Tovar Vash In'dur Sing Neiral is hired to escort two people, a man and a woman, to the lunar spaceport. It seems a simple enough assignment, except his clients are wanted people, and one is more than they appear to be...

Hunger for Adventure

Last week I went to see the Hunger Games. Having never read the book by Suzanne Collins, I didn't quite know what to expect. Previews had purported that it's main character was a far better role model than a certain Miss Swan, which brought up all sorts of comparisons with Twilight, but then I read that it was based partly on roman gladiatorial combat, set in a post-apocalyptic world. The icing on the cake was that the main character, Katniss Everdeen, was being played by Jennifer Lawrence.

 

I have to admit, it was rather good. Katniss is a strong female character who rises to the challenge facing her, plus she's a crack shot with that bow of hers. The film did drag a little in places, especially in the run up to the actual Hunger Games itself, but once that got going the action more than made up for it. I'll certainly be buying it when it comes out.

For me, one of the great things about the Hunger Games is as I've said, it has a very, very strong female character, which I really like. It's something that I tend to use in my own writing. I do find it difficult getting the female perspective (unsurprising, being male), and Heather happily points out any missteps I make, but the core of those characters remains. I've never been fond of sappy, weak-willed female characters, which is probably representative of the women in my life, who are all strong.

Speaking of my writing, Serial Psyence is moving at a steady pace, and I'm less than a thousand words off 50,000. I think it's about time we had another murder.

Wild Ride is pretty much done, as short stories go. I've edited it, removing a few excessive heys and darlings, and I'll be getting ready to send it off soon, once I've made a couple more passes.

That's Life

Building characters for a book is no easy task.

I've tried various methods for building their backstory, even tried writing a CV for them, and answering a series of questions about them. To be honest, I find them really boring and I'm often sat there trying to think up some interesting titbit. So I don't bother any more.

I find that often, a character will come up with their own backstory, often with surprising consequences.

For example, whilst writing Serial Psyence, one of my main characters decided he was a recovering drug addict. And not just any drug, oh no. He used Dust: a synthetic, psychic enhancement drug which can give even mundane normals a low level telepathic ability. The downside is the effects are short-lived, and the drug is horrendously addictive. How this is going to affect things, I don't know, as I hadn't planned for this. As I write the first draft, I imagine it'll rear its ugly head again.

To me, one of the most exciting things about writing is the way your own creations can surprise you in ways you never expected. To another writer, I expect that sounds quite normal, but to anyone else, I bet that sounds bizarre. Afterall, these aren't living people; they only exist in your head. That may as be, but they feel real, they feel like they have a mind of their own. I suppose that's the genius of an active imagination.

And yes, I probably look like I've just grown another head. Hey, at least it's someone interesting to talk to.

The Wheel Turns

Egads, I'm thirty-two.

Last week it was my birthday, and I turned another year closer to forty.

Now, I realise that's a rather pessimistic way of looking at it, but that's not quite what I mean when I say it. I just can't believe that I'm in the second year of my thirties. I don't even feel thirty! In my head, I'm still somewhere in my twenties, and that's probably where I'll still be in another ten years.

You're only as old as you feel, right?

The second draft of Wild Ride is now finished, and I passed it on to Heather to read. Happily, the story elicited a few chuckles, and while there are a few bits of dialogue which will need changing, far too many instances of 'hey' and 'darling', and a few other tweeks needed, but it's definitely an improvement on the original draft. It's also two thousand words longer, clocking in at just shy of eight thousand words (thankfully, as that is the maximum word limit).

I should be sending it off in a few weeks to see if the folks at Fantasy-Faction would be interested in it for their anthology.

But for now, it's back to work on Serial Psyence.

All quiet on the Western Front

Serial Psyence is pootling along along nicely still. It's been an interesting week for the book, as this week I attempted to write from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl. Not something I'm familiar with, if I'm honest. but I was 12 once, so I went with that. I'm not entirely sure it's turned out okay, but that's something I can fix in the edit. Right now, it's more important that I get the story down, so I should reach my goal of 40,000 words by the end of today.

Yes, I count words. Some writers do, some don't. I do. It's not that I'm measuring my progress ... actually, it is. I like to see how much I've done in a day (I have an aim to write between 700-900 words per day), and if I reach my target, then I feel good about myself. If I get lucky enough to write as my full time job, my goal will naturally increase.

I've also got a short story to edit. If anyone has read Liberator's ruin (if not, then you can get it here: Amazon and here: Smashwords) then you are familiar with the crew of the good ship Storm Brother. Well, the short story I'm writing is about to get a major edit next week, so I hope to be entering it for this anthology in a few weeks.

Oh, have I mentioned that Nathaniel will be in drag?

Huzzah!

It's Friday! And I'm on holiday all next week, so double huzzah!

Now that the celebrations are over, back to business.

I've been told about an event called book in a week, and as it's all to do with sci fi, I'm working on another short story to enter into it. No idea how it'll go, seeing as I don't tend to write many short stories (I've found it really difficult to think up plots that work as a short story), but I think it'll be good for me to try.

After much deliberation, consideration, dithering and not being entirely satisfied, I have decided to make a few changes to the location for Serial Psyence. It's still set on Callisto, and in an arcology, but the arcology itself has undergone a transformation in my mind.

Originally, I conceived the arcology to be a massive, domed city, built inside a crate, but over time, I started to have a few issues with that concept.

The dome seals the city from the weak atmosphere on Callisto, keeping the Earth-like atmosphere inside. Yes, the dome is made from a superstrong material, but what happens if the dome is damaged? Everyone dies. There were a lot of open spaces inside, the idea being that it was like an Earth city had been transported to the Jovian moon, then covered in a glass shell. But that shell is a weak link, and let's face it, why the hell would you build such a fragile object?

Then there's the problem of transport. Surely, when building a self-contained city, you would work transport into the strucure, not rely on cars and bikes and the sort of things we use on Earth. That's limited thinking on my behalf.

So back to the drawing board I went.

And then I came across this. The Shimizu pyramid arcology.

Having read up on the design principles, and the way the transport links are integrated into the structure itself, I started to rethink the Callisto arcology. So now I've got something perhaps a little less fantastical, but nonetheless amazing. I don't know about you, but I'd love to live in this technical marvel.

A self-contained city, twelve times the size of the pyramids of giza? Check. Jupiter in the sky day and night? Check. When can I book my ticket?

Thoughts on the week

Been a bit of a rubbish week, I have to admit. Heather had an interview for a job closer to home, which would have been great as it would reduce her fuel expenses almost by half. Unfortunately, the place wasn't all we hoped it would be, and they turned her down.

I also found out that the application I submitted for a job has been turned down. However, thinking about it, I didn't want the job anyway, having left the department it was in several years ago, at the time to move on to better things (as it turned out, those better things didn't materialise, and the recession hit big time).

If you think about it, maybe it's not such a bad week after all. I mean, neither myself or Heather wanted the jobs, did we? So, if you think about it, the silver lining in an otherwise dreary week, was that we didn't get jobs we didn't want.

Huh.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Writing!

Serial Psyence continues apace, and I should reach 30,000 words before the week is out.

I've also finished the short story, now titled 'Wild Ride', and will start editing it next week. I'm hoping to enter it into a competition to be published in an anthology. As the deadline for submission is in June, I think I've got plenty of time. I might even be able to come up with a couple more.

What do you think?

Update on Serial Psyence

I'm now 26,500 (ish) words into Serial Psyence.

Finished the murder scene today. I started it a little earlier than planned, as I like to work on scenes in a logical order, but it felt right, so I rolled with it. And proceeded to bisect the victim.

Honestly, where do I get these ideas from?

Moving on ... I've got some other scenes that need to go before the murder, as that is supposed to come at the end of a chapter. One of which involves a pilot of a multi-million UC shuttle, and it's been a couple of chapters since the last flight so I feel justified having another.

That Monday feeling

The problem with only writing five days a week is that after a two-day rest period (a.k.a. the weekend), when I come back to writing on Monday, I've forgotten quite where I was, and then have to spend precious writing time getting back up to speed. By Friday, I'm on the ball, only to have to start all over again the following week!

For example, I've been detailing the backstory for one of the main characters, Investigator Patrick North. Before he joined the CSS (Callisto Security Service), he was a Detective Inspector in the Mariner Arcology CID on Mars. In the first version, he was involved in the investigation of a notorious series of murders, and the second an uprising that ended with the arcology having to be evacuated. That's what I get for making these things up on the fly, I guess, and not sitting down to do backstories. Nevermind, it's only the first draft, and this is the sort of thing I'll fix when I sit down to start the second draft.

Today I started work on a murder. I hadn't planned to, but things kinda went that way, deviating away from my set plan. It's actually a scene for a bit later in the chapter, so I'm going to have to backtrack a little bit when I've finished.

As I'm writing more than I expected, but less than I'd like (the problem with having a full time job and writing during my lunch break), I think it's about time I started writing in the evening. Having said that, I'll be getting Kingdoms of Amalur in a couple of weeks, and as Heather has expressed rather a lot of interest in it, I'll need something to do when she's playing it. 

Learning the hard way

You’re never quite as good at editing your own work as you think you are, and that’s a lesson I’ve learnt the hard way.

When I published Liberator’s Ruin last year, opting to go it alone after I realised that no self-respecting agent would take a chance on the book, owing to its lack of marketability (steampunk fantasy is a relatively small sub-genre, after all), I thought I’d caught every last problem. True, I thought there would be some that would slip through, but not a great deal.

And then the reviews started to come in. they praised the story and the characters, but criticised the editing, often finding missing punctuation, speech marks, sentences that didn’t end, or misspelled words. Going through myself, I think I found several hundred errors. Then, some very nice people I’d met on Goodreads offered to provide me with a list of problems they had found. Some were down to language differences, but in the end there were probably over a thousand errors.

For a published work, that’s cringe-worthy. And in a moment of chagrin, I realised that I was guilty of the same sin I criticised a lot of self-published work for doing: releasing what was in actuality, unfinished work.

I’ve tidied up the book since, and with luck, the number of errors left in Liberator’s Ruin are now just a tiny fraction. I’ve learnt a valuable lesson for my next book.

Never assume your work is perfect, and always get someone to proofread who doesn’t know the book.

A little taste

Work is continuing on my latest novel. It's my most ambitious story so far, and the first time I've attempted a sci-fi thriller. Okay, I know that's not saying much, being my second novel, but I've never considered writing a thriller before.

Here's the premise:

Callisto, home to over a hundred thousand people, housed beneath a giant glass dome, is the farthest human colony. It's people are happy, no one goes hungry; an ideal place to live. But when people start committing suicide for no apparent reason, it seems that the colony isn't quite as idyllic as it first appears.

I'm quite pleased with how Serial Psyence is progressing. So pleased, in fact, that I thought I would give a little extract from the opening chapter.

Enjoy!

***

- Time.

This would be a test for now, but it was to be the first of many. He wasn’t going to stop here. There was no stopping this, not ever. He would never give in, never falter, until it all came crashing down.

He would be the architect of their destruction, their avenging angel. They had breathed life into him, with the pain and the suffering and the agony they had inflicted upon him. But no more. Now he would stop them.

Kirstie felt confused. He? But she was a girl, not a boy. This was very odd. Was she dreaming? Had she fallen -

- They wouldn’t know it yet, but this was only the beginning.

He followed the crowd through the exit and turned off to stand by the big glass wall, gazing over the occupants of the embarkation lounge. There were perhaps three hundred people in the lounge, some standing, others sitting on the chairs. They were all fools. Some might be innocent. But what was the sacrifice of a few innocent for the greater good? It had been done before - a lesson he’d learnt all to well on Earth - and would be done again. It made him no different from anyone else. Except, no one would know his actions. He would work, in secret, quietly, disrupting all they put together.

As he stood against the glass wall, a man walked in. He frowned at him. The man looked terrible. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his face, and he was unshaven, his hair greasy and unwashed. His clothes were wrinkled and stained, showing signs of having been worn continuously for days, and he was clutching his jacket tightly. His eyes darted about nervously. The man had developed a nervous twitch, causing his head to give a sharp flick every so often. Perhaps he’d gone too far with this one. He hadn’t been sure how well people like him would take to the conditioning, and he wanted to ensure that there was little sign of his presence when it did happen. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Perhaps it had been a mistake. He would let the man continue - there was no point in stopping him now - but after this, he would be more decisive in the future. He knew how to remain unseen, and there was no point in letting the instructions fester. It seemed the brain eventually reacted to foreign thoughts, causing a psychosomatic reaction.

Concentrating, he brought his entire attention to the man.

The man’s steps faltered as he reached the centre of the room. He pawed at his ears, as if someone were buzzing next to them. He screamed something unintelligible. He ripped open his jacket and drew a submachine gun. He screamed again.

Kirstie screamed with him. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew that it was something bad, something terrible was going to happen. She tried to beat her fists against the glass, to get people’s attention. But nothing happened. Her hands remained by her side.

Get out! She screamed. Run!

But no one heard her. No one even looked at her. They were all -

- Looking at the man now. A few gasped in horror as he gestured wildly with the gun. A security man in a navy jumpsuit pushed his way through the crowd of petrified people. He drew a stunner, aiming it at the gunman. For a moment only, He considered making him stop and turn the stunner on himself, but decided not to. He wasn’t his target, and besides, he was content to see how this would play out.

Before the security officer could do more than point his stunner, the gunman opened fire. A spray of bullets cut a swathe through the crowd, cutting down the security officer and several people near him.

Kirstie cried out as she saw her mum hit by that first burst. She was crouching over Kirstie’s body, trying to shield it, when the bullets struck her in the back. She jerked and fell away, eyes unseeing. With a shocked realisation, Kirstie watched herself tumble with her. The bullets had pierced her mum and struck her too. There was blood on her own face as she was pulled, lifeless to the floor.

Was this what happens when you die? She wondered, horrified. Do you watch yourself from beyond your body, see the awful truth as it happens?

- The crowd, that had been motionless when the gunman pulled his weapon, suddenly erupted in a frenzy of terror. They fled from him, pushing and shoving and kicking their way to the exits. Some people fell and were trampled by the crowd. No one cared. All that mattered was the animal instinct to run.

He winced as the wave of terror hit him, and steeled himself against it, keeping his focus on the gunman. This would be over very soon.

The gunman fired another burst, killing more people. He ran across the lounge to the airlock doors. No one attempted to go near him or stop him as he punched a code into the door.

Emergency claxons sounded. With a great whoosh of escaping air, the airlock door blew open. A hurricane tore through the lounge as the air rushed out. Big, solid emergency doors began to close over the exits. People were still streaming through, fighting against the blast of escaping air, trying to reach safety.

There was never going to be enough time. A few more made it out before, finally, the doors slid shut. Those few who had escaped lay sobbing, relieved that they had made it out. But on the other side, those who had not been so lucky gasped for breath as the last air evacuated from the lounge.

It was a near total vacuum now. Their blood began to boil in their veins, erupting out through their skin. Their eyeballs, unprotected, exploded in their sockets. Mouths filled with blood.

Kirstie cried out as she lurched back into her body. Except she couldn’t. There was no air in her lungs to expel. She couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t move. She felt so very, very cold.

Her eyes had been closed, and that had been the only thing that protected them from vacuum boiling. She tried to open them. Her eyelids were freezing against the surface of her eyes. And as the intense cold froze the water in her cells, the fragile molecular structure snap-freezing, turning them into delicate ice-structures. Her vision was fractured, as if she were trying to look through a many-sided prism.

As the cold seeped even deeper, her thoughts became turgid. She no longer knew who she was. Then the blood inside her throat boiled, and filled her with liquid that quickly began to freeze, and her vision, finally, went dark.

- extract from Serial Psyence, by Phillip J. Johns

Happy New Year

Right, first resolution of this year: blog more.

I've been a little lax for the past few months. Blame it on the new job, or the writing, or the gaming. Or maybe, blame it on sheer laziness.

To be honest, I've not really felt like I've had much to talk about for a while now. At least, not in the realms that this blog was originally conceived for: that is, to talk about my writing. That has been a failure for the past year.

So let's recap. 2011 was a bit of a mixed bag.

At the start of the year, I began by sending samples of my recently finished book, Liberator's Ruin, to literary agencies, in the hope that I'd garner some interest. Steampunk Fantasy is not a well-explored genre, so I thought I might have something of an advantage. When the rejection letters started to come through, I realised I was bloody wrong. You see, the problem with writing Steampunk Fantasy is that it's not that marketable. Who wants to take on an author when you don't think their book is going to sell?

So in April, I decided to go it alone, and publish the book myself. I'd edited it to within an inch of it's life. Surely the book was error free and ready for publication? Oh, how wrong I was.

As the first few reviews started to come through, the editing was the biggest issue people had with the book. the story? Great. A fantastic adventure. Let down by sub-par editing.

With the help of some very nice people, my summer was spent re-editing Liberator's Ruin, and in September, I released a new edition. There are still a few niggles with it, though minor (I hope), and I'm quite satisfied with it now.

Self-publishing has been a bit of an eye opener for me. It's been a rough ride, and I've made a lot of mistakes, typical of a first timer, like thinking my book was ready, when it so clearly was not. But I'm learning. Not least of which is that if I'm going to do it again, I need an editor.

In October I started a new job at the University of Leicester, and at the same time, I also began writing my next book, Serial Psyence. Moving away from fantasy, I'm in the more comfortable grounds of Science Fiction (SF, sci fi - whatever floats your boat).

It's had a rocky start, I must admit. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself because it's my favourite genre, but I've found it hard to begin. Perhaps my biggest issue is that I've barely put word to screen in the past year. I finished the first draft of Liberator's Ruin in July 2010, and since then, I've been editing the book. I've not done any real writing since, and have even had a few bouts of writer's block.

But Serial Psyence is progressing well. As is typical, I find, the book is already starting to deviate from my plan, but that tends to be how it goes for me. A book is a living, breathing, organic thing, and it evolves, sometimes right before your eyes. I think I'll go into this in greater depth in a later post, but for now, as the saying goes: no battle plan ever survives the first contact intact. And the same is true for writing.

Here's to a good new year.

New Look

So, I got bored with the old look, and decided it was time to update. I think it looks quite nice, actually. Very futuristic and clean.

It's pretty dull outside here in Leicester, and I'm rather hoping it doesn't rain. The forecasters said it would, but let's face it, you can't trust them. They mean well, but half the time, they couldn't forecast their way out of a paper bag. It's not their fault; they can only work with the information they're given.

And this is where the rain that was forecasted does happen, and I get soaked on my way home.

Anyway, had a very productive day yesterday. Managed to hammer out nearly 1,400 words of Serial Psyence, during which, people were shot, subjected to explosive decompression, and a girl saw herself die. It sounds horrible I know, but considering the subject matter - a serial killer - what do you expect? I'm quite pleased with how it went, though after reading up on the effects of vacuum on the human body, I realise it needs a bit of work. Nevermind, I had lots of fun writing it. Which makes me sound a bit sick. Bugger.

On the plus side, the story is progressing very well, and I'm making much better progress than I was with the flashbacks. I don't know why, but I feel much more comfortable with a setting I'm completely unfamiliar with. whenever I try using a setting I know, I just seem to falter, as what I know about the place conflicts with what I'm trying to imagine. Using a setting that's wholly imaginary (like an arcology on Callisto) is so much easier.

Nine weeks into my new job now! That's gone quick. Only four more weeks until Christmas. Have I done my Christmas shopping yet? No. That's planned for this weekend, when I'm going shopping in Birmingham with Heather. She has decided she wants clothes for Christmas, and personally, I don't trust myself to buy the right ones. And so I'm off clothes shopping. Yay?

Long time no see

Wow, it's been a while since my last post. Almost a month, even.

I'd like to say it's because I've been uber busy, having started a new job, and getting a major publishing deal ... but that would be a lie.

Okay, the new job thing isn't a lie. Still no publishing deal though. Ah well, what matters is people like Liberator's Ruin.

So what have I been doing? The truth is, not a lot. I've played games (Batman, Dark Souls and MW3 - all brilliant), and worried about lack of money. Which, considering I've bought three games in the past month, you might consider a little odd, but I have lots of credit with Blockbusters at the moment, so no actual money was spent on their purchase.

I've also been getting on with Serial Psyence. Now that the plan is finished, I've started writing the flashbacks which run over the course of the main story. I'm not sure how well it's going at the moment. I'm almost 11,000 words in, and it feels like 11,000 words of utter rubbish - that's what I get for having hardly written a word in 6 months - and it's highly likely that the first 15,000 or so will be trashed, but we'll see how I feel once it's all finished. I'm quite looking forward to writing the main story. I've never written a crime thriller before, so it should be interesting.

Depending on how things go, I may post some sketches in the future, detailing the arcology the story takes place in.

Oh, and anyone waiting for the next part of that piece I started a few months ago, you may have to wait a while longer. I will finish it, I promise!

Once I work out where it's going.

No time like the present

Well! The final edition of Liberator's Ruin has finally been submitted to Amazon and Smashwords, and should now be live.


What's so different about this edition I hear you ask? It turns out my editing wasn't quite as good as I thought it was. Whilst the edit itself is fine, I missed an awful lot of typos. Far more than I thought I had. But with the help of some very kind people on Goodreads, I should have got them all now! I'm ashamed that I let such a shoddy copy get published, but at least that's one thing I can finally let go.

Mosey on over to Amazon or Smashwords to download a copy. Samples are free!

I'm working hard on the plan for Serial Psyence at the moment, so hoping to starting writing it by the end of October. It's going well. I think I finally passed the halfway mark today, so the main plot is starting to heat up (there are two plots running parallel in the story).

We've almost finished moving out now. After over a month since we first got the keys to the new flat. We're having to downsize from a 3-bed maisonette to a 2-bed flat, so some things are going to be stored in a parent's loft for a while. And here I was thinking I'd moved out of my mum's house. Ha!

Maybe one day.

What I'm listening to at the moment: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Soundtrack. Believe it or not, it's very good. Nice bit of music to listen to whilst planning Serial Psyence.

PS. Anyone waiting for the next update to We Should Have Run, it's coming. I just have to sit and write it ...

Moving on up, moving on out

Yes, I just quoted a song by M-People. Hey, it's on the radio, and seemed oddly appropriate.

Been really busy at the weekend. We got the keys to our new flat on Friday, and started moving all our stuff over. Fortunately had the help of two chaps with a van to move our big stuff (there's no way I'd get the washing machine up the stairs - I still have no idea how they managed it).

I think we're about two thirds in now, but there's still a lot of stuff still at our old place which has to be boxed up and moved over, including clothes and various bits of crap. Let's face it, most is mine, not Heather's. I hoard, I know.

Annoyingly though, we cant' take our two-seater sofa with us. The stairs up to the flat are far too narrow to get it in, which means a trip to Ikea for one of their nice flat pack sofas.

In writing related news, I've still a lot to do on Serial Psyence. I'm less than halfway through my plan, so I'm having my doubts about starting the actual writing bit by September.

I've never actually written a thriller before, so it'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

New car/old car

I like having a car. Both Heather and I drive, and technically, we do need them to get to work. Transport links being what they are in Leicester (read: crap), you need one to get around.

Unfortunately, my car, being Fiat, has decided, now it's ten years old, that it wanted to develop problems. Of the expensive kind. I think I understand why they're nicknamed fix-it-again-tomorrow.

Anyway, I've now got to decide whether to scrap it, fix it, or part-exchange it for a new one. Fix it is out of the question; I'm looking at almost a £1000 bill for repairs over the next year, which I can't afford. I'm loath to just scrap it, mainly because I've never been without a car since I turned 18, but also because I need it to get to work. So that leaves part-exchange. Ooh, the fun! On the plus side, I could get a nice nippy little Nissan Micra, so not all bad.

Writing-wise, the plan for Serial Psyence is progressing well. It's deviating a little from the outline, but I expected that. Besides, it'll probably alter again when I start writing it. I imagine it sounds like an odd way to do things, but the plan holds the story together, giving me a backbone on which to structure it, and the characters do have a tendency to go their own when once I'm writing.

In other news, since getting the review from A Tale of Many Reviews (who I shall be forever grateful to for giving me my very first review), I've got several more people interested in reviewing Liberator's Ruin. With luck, they'll all love it.