And to give you just a hint…

“Helen put a couple of tea bags into a pot and then spooned coffee into a cafetière. ‘You like to fix things. You like to help.’
Those weren’t questions, but I answered her anyway. ‘If I can.’
She waited for the kettle to boil, looking thoughtful, not looking at me. She made the coffee and the tea and brought them both over to the table. I took a seat as she fetched milk from the fridge and mugs from the dishwasher. She sat in the chair across the table and filled a mug for us both.
‘Do you have hobs where you live?’
I didn’t think she was talking about kitchen appliances, but I wasn’t sure of much beyond that. ‘By which you mean…?’
‘Brownies, pixies, they have a lot of different names. Earth spirits inclined to take a fancy to human hearths and homes.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘Around here they call themselves hobs.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said cautiously, ‘but I’ve never met one.’

The book is now in production and we plan to publish in early September. As soon as the date is fixed, we’ll spread the word. Pre-orders will be possible soon, and there’ll be more details coming to whet your appetites…

As I get The Green Man’s Silence ready for publication, this is very much on my mind. One of the central elements of these books is showing recognisable, everyday normality alongside the supernatural that’s so close even if most folk can’t see it. That’s a key part of their appeal. I’ve been careful not to date these stories so far too precisely, but they have essentially reflected the years when they’ve been written. I researched and wrote this forthcoming book through the winter of 2019-2020 and that’s what you’ll see on the page.

What do I do now? If I show Dan’s life as it would be without the current pandemic, then the next book becomes a fantasy that’s far more distinct from the new abnormality that we now realise will be with us for an ongoing and indeterminate time. Will readers want that added escape, or will the disconnect with their current lives be too jarring amid the ongoing everything?

But is the alternative even worse? Not going to lie, I have been thinking about the ways that the UK lockdown, and the dire economic consequences we’re now looking at, will affect Dan and Blithehurst where he works, as well as the people he knows – and yes, how the dryads and others will react. I have quite a fun short story idea…

Except none of this is remotely fun. My family are so far unscathed, but the total of people I know personally and professionally, who’ve suffered a family death due to Covid-19, is now into double figures. This is serious for us all, and heart-breaking for tens, if not hundreds of thousands, in the UK alone. Won’t putting that grim reality on the page alongside myth-based puzzles and perils simply wreck reader suspension of disbelief?

I am reminded of the rewrites to the end of Western Shore, the novel I had finished writing just before the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. A tidal wave formed a large part of the backdrop to the conclusion. My editor and I agreed that had to be changed, no question about it. Readers seeing awful news footage in their mind’s eye as they read would ruin the book for them. Add to that, as happened to at least one writer whose book with an incidental tidal wave was just about to hit the shops, there was the risk of being accused of callously cashing in.

So I am pondering these questions, and thus far, not finding any answers. Your perspectives and observations are welcome.

If I was to post one of those side-by-side photo memes of ‘my plans for 2020’ and ‘me in 2020’, the images wouldn’t be one of happy optimism and one of everything gone wrong. Both pictures would probably be of a cat typing. The first half of this year was always going to be intense for me, well before we had a global health emergency.

Towards the end of 2019, Agent Max and I had a rescue plan in place for the Ancient Greek murder mysteries – of which, more in due course – and that meant writing the third Philocles book by 30th June 2020. That was going to have to happen alongside writing the third of the Green Man books, if Wizard’s Tower Press and I were going to get that out in August, a year after the last one. Which is to say, I would have to write one straight after the other, as I cannot work on two projects at the same time. So, a 100k word novel written January-March, followed by another one April-June. Okay… Since I had already done the research and outlining for both stories, that should be doable. Tight, but doable with my head down to concentrate.

Then I got an invitation to write a novella for a shared world project – of which, more in due course. The source material was great fun, some excellent other writers are involved – and professionally speaking, it definitely couldn’t do any harm to remind readers that I do write epic fantasy as well. The big question was, could I find the time…? Okay… if I stepped everything up a gear, it should be doable. So I said yes.

Then in January, I learned that family matters would require a week of my time away from home in March. Nothing drastic, thankfully, and I can work on my laptop, but oh, the timing… Okay, better find another gear.

By way of incentives, if I got this all done, I could take things easy for a fortnight and watch all the Wimbledon tennis I wanted. After the edits were done over Jul/Aug, we could have a nice holiday in Greece when the weather’s cooler in September. Oh… well… that was the plan back in January…

So now you know why I have been doing very little blogging or indeed, much of anything else. I have been working flat out – and yes, I have got it all done. To be precise, as of today, my word count for the year thus far stands at 222,323 words. I rarely post such numbers because every writer is very different, but for context, my highest previous annual word count is 246k.

So what now? Well, all three of these projects have to be edited for a start. Thankfully that is far less intensive work than the actual wordsmithing, certainly for me. The Green Man’s Silence is coming together very nicely, as I work on that with Editor Toby, and the cover art by Ben Baldwin is fantastic. Yes, you’ve guessed it, more on that in due course – but not so very long to wait now. We hope to reveal the cover and other details at this summer’s online Worldcon.

What next for me after that? Well, the book trade is still trying to find a new normal amid the ongoing everything, so that’s honestly very hard to say. I can at least confirm that I will be writing a story for one of this year’s ZNB Kickstarter anthologies – The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity. Watch this space for full details for all three anthologies. As always, these offer exciting opportunities for new writers.

So that’s the latest from here. We are all keeping fine, and I hope all is well with you and yours.