Bringing in the New Year

I start this final post of 2012 in my blog with a warning to other authors -

When writing a final post in a year, NEVER go back and see what you wrote at the end of last year! You'll get disappointed with all the goals you had that you never achieved!

But we don't want to sound the doom bell at the start of a post now, do we?

We want to bring the New Year in with aplomb!

I am still writing Hotel Nomad, my heavily populated, ultra violent, vampire hotel drama and I am currently 22,000 words in.

The party (mentioned in the last post) is over and my characters are picking up the pieces, some of their actual body parts! Others are left pondering the ramifications of said night's festivities. One thing is certain; the party has given the story a much needed breath of life and I have ideas spiraling all over the place. Now it's a matter of containing them in a cohesive and engaging narrative.

I've recently started work again on a few screenplays that I had quit. I've five fully complete original scripts but these few orphans had tested my limits and therefore, like a responsible parent, I'd abandoned them. It's time to see what can be wrangled from them.

Work on my other two novels, Last The Day and Mary Happened As We Speak (both non vampire related), continues tentatively. Hotel Nomad is really where my affections lie for the foreseeable future.

I'm still in contact with a few agents regarding my scripts (man, American movie agents are RUDE!) and a few UK publishers regarding my officially-published-but-currently-homeless novella, Swan Song. It would be amazing to finally be able to hold Swan Song in my hands as a paperback. The novella has received nothing but delightfully surprising praise upon publication and it would be an honour to have it back out there again. (If you would like to read Swan Song, please contact me).

So what does 2013 hold?

Well, flying cars is much on the agenda, I believe, as is a new Child's Play movie, featuring the murderous doll Chucky (What? Hey, that's important too, you know!)

Me? I'm blissfully happy with my gorgeous wife, Kira, and I'll keep dragging myself away from the X Box to deal with the many characters, plot strands, ideas and themes that seem to invade my head on a regular basis.

I'd like a real agent this coming year so that's where my focus ultimately lies.

The beautiful thing about being a writer? Unlike, say, the pop industry, there's really no sell by date. There's no time limit and we can happily pen ourselves into old age. I don't why that reassures me quite so much.

Roll on 2013! I'm ready for ya!

Catch you on the flip side!

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