August 11, 2019

Well it's easy to lose track when trips and sickness and exciting things happen at once, but that's been the past few weeks so here's a writing update.

The first full draft of Girlie is done and this week I'm hoping to share an electronic draft with beta readers for feedback. There is still much to do, and a couple of trips to places and chats with people to be held, but the novel has shape. I also seized an opportunity to enter the draft manuscript in a literary competition for 2020 so we will see what comes of that risky venture.

If the work doesn't find publisher success in the next twelve months, I'll self publish it. I've played with a very rough cover draft in anticipation (as attached).

I've returned my attention to a previous project that is speculative fiction, based on the premise that the rise of right wing movements and increasing hostilities between nations and religious groups leads to world conflict, overshadowed by the unfettered outbreak of a new Ebola strain that is nourished by world politics and religion. Apocalyptic virus stories are far from new, but I've written this from a diary perspective as if it happens, say, next week onward. I finished the full draft in November last year, but I'm revisiting it to update some minor matters and then I'll see if I can garner publisher interest.
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While those two projects are sent to find their fates, I'll return to sort out a fantasy project that was almost half written (one and a half books) before I pulled back from the project to write other material in 2015. Time to dust off the work and get busy.