Wassup imaginary fanbase. How are you all surviving the pandemic. Sorry my ,missives have been verging on non-existent. Life has been getting in the way. And it probably still will. I have a family etc. - we all have a lot of stuff to deal with, so I can't promise this will get any more regular - but we'll see.

Writing-wise I have given up on the short stories. I was finding it so hard to get anything at all on paper.  I think part of that is because one of my main source of motivation is the sense of wonder at movie-scale epic plot lines - you know fabulous monsters, epic betrayals, that sort of thing. You can't squeeze that into a short story - it's like trying to do a long jump with a 2 foot run-up.

So I have embarked on a change of tack. Having *accepted* that I don't have the hour+ a day to get proper traction on a novel, I am sharpening the saw in other ways. First is essentially to plan a re-write of Gorodin. So I am doing things like character questionnaires, using a lot of hints from podcasts etc, a plot 'swimlane' which follows the main characters throughout the book, and a synopsis. The PLAN is - I publish bits of these here, and you get to see the masterpiece taking shape. But we've had plans before, so let's not promise anything.

I'm going to wrap this up now, because I have a job to do, but I will check in next week. Or that's the plan…