Seeing as I’m on holiday and enjoying the beautiful Irish countryside right now, I thought I’d just drop a few words to tell you of the progress of my next novel, which will be 5th in The Blessham Series and 8th overall. Well, as the title of this post suggests I am 66% through the first draft – or two thirds if you want me to put it that way instead.
Before I flew off for a jolly I managed to finish chapter 12 of 18 and the maths are therefore obvious. It’s been an immeasurably enjoyable writing process this time; I always enjoy writing the Blessham books but there’s something about this one that I haven’t felt since The Pheasants Revolt. Just pure unadulterated joy at writing it.
Writing should never feel like a slog and my advice to you if it does feel that way would be to stop and do something else instead, but we all go through a whole gamut of emotions and insecurities when writing a novel.
For me, Vole was the worst one to write. There was just so much sordidness about the damn thing. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely happy with it, but it was a difficult write and something of a departure from my usual stuff.
But writing this one, which is called B— oops, nearly gave it way there, has been an absolute delight so far and I’m hoping that, on my return from our closest European neighbour, I will feel all invigorated and raring to get it finished.
As Blessham books go this one is probably the darkest one yet. That doesn’t mean it isn’t full of farcical slapstick comedy like it’s 4 predecessors because it most certainly is, it’s just that Joe has to really reach deep inside himself in this one.
So don’t worry, it’s set entirely in the village of Blessham, the usual characters (Lady Stark-Raven, Mr Franks, Bob and Marguerite, Norma Spristles and all the rest) are there and the main antagonist on this occasion is unlike anything we’ve seen before in a Joe Wilkie adventure; but perhaps, not what it would at first seem.
I wish I could tell you more; I’m itching to, but that would be a spoiler and I don’t want to ruin it for you. So instead, I’ll just sign off with my sincere hope that you will thoroughly enjoy the end product.