Update!

This is somewhat overdue, particularly since the last two posts have been somewhat short!

Back to 'work' on Monday. The day job. Uck. Although I know in a weeks time ill be cursing the place and wondering what the hell I am doing there, I am actually looking forward to going back. Four weeks off may sound like hitting the jackpot but the reality is somewhat different, especially since ive been housebound and even if I could get out and walk about, there is no way I am fit to drive so I would be somewhat limited to where I could go...'Oh look, the front garden......again!'

That being said, the time off has been spent 'somewhat' productively. I say somewhat because no doubt I could have done more writing, or more learning or more...more lots of things. Instead I spent an absurd amount of time playing Skyrim and watching Friends (I love that show). But I did get some writing done. I managed to finish two chapters which I am happy with and also wrote a competition piece based on 'identity' for Bloomsbury. The piece is entitled "The Perception of Appearance" and I am really happy with it, even if it doesn't win.

It takes the stance that our identity comes from our appearance, which in itself is ridiculous. "What I look like is not who I am." But it is the very first thing we show people, and whether we like to admit it or not, the way we look does say alot about who we are. I wrote it from the perspective of an unnamed girl in her twenties who was born with a similar birth condition to my own. I felt that by not giving the girl a name the reader would be forced to focus on the way she looked and kind of drive home the importance of the point I was trying to make. She has a med interview that she is preparing for and it is about what she sees and how she is seen. I must have read it a hundred times already but still I keep going back to it, honestly one of the best pieces I have ever written...at least in my opinion, hopefully the judges feel the same.

I enjoyed the chapters that I have written in the Empire series but feel I really REALLY have to develop Keira's character more. She just seems a bit...emotionally detached. I think I will need to go back and put in a bit more about how she's feeling or what is going on in her head at certain parts of the story. I want the reader to understand her, to get involved in her as a person and to understand her thought process behind the decisions she makes without having to spoon feed them.

So that's me upto chapter 11, word count of just over 63k (Standard for fantasy fiction is anywhere between 90 and 140 thousand so nearly there!) I have opted to split the original story I had in my head into three parts of which the final part will be a seperate book. Part one is too small to be an independent novel, part two wouldnt make sense to be without part one and part three is too large to include with the other two.

Angry Robot publishing house is doing an 'open submissions' fortnight in April and they are focusing on the Classic Fantasy genre. I feel the book falls into this category, it deals with sword fights, magic, mystery, politics, love/loss and everything in between. But its not exactly Merlin and the Knights of the round table so hopefully they dont mean 'that' kind of classic fantasy. So thats my dead line. 16th of April is the first day of the submissions so I want to have it done and proof read by then.

In other non-writing news I have dived back into the world of music by deciding to get back into piano. My wrists are protesting and I fear at times my eyes have crossed from reading sheet music but im getting there. Can bang out the base line for "Old time rock and roll" and the first couple of pages of "Walking in Memphis". Still very out of practice though, reading sheet music never used to be so tough.

Recovery from the operation is going slowly, my face is fine but my leg is a pain, not that its in pain, it just is one. I will never again take it for granted just how capable I am.

Anyways, thats me pretty much up to date, no night out stories or drunken tales to regale you with as I have not been out or got drunk, but dont panic, the year is still young :P

Hope all is well whoever you are and whatever you are doing.

Thanks for reading,

SBP