Putting the finishing touches to The Art of Killing, thinking about future projects, and a few thoughts on boats.

Writing Update, Proctor Novella Two, Proctor: The Art of Killing.

Today, I wrote the last few pages of Chapter Ten "Maybe reunions are over rated..." and wrote the Epilogue, "...Or maybe not.".  So at around 54,000 words and 200 pages, that's it done.  Well, almost done.  Now I need to edit chapters nine, ten and the epilogue, then add it to the acknowledgements and we'll be ready for publishing.

The dedication reads:

For more reasons than I can go into, this book is dedicated to my father, David Ellis – one of the last real gentlemen.

...so dedicated to my dad.

I've done an elevator pitch ad which I'll use to advertise the book on facebook:

I've really enjoyed writing this book, and when I've finished the edit, I'm looking forwards to just reading it, cover to cover.  With everything that's been happening in my life, it's been hard to find the time and the focus to write, but having said that, my day job keeps me pretty busy anyway, and I've only had one weekend off since I started writing.

I hope it stands well alongside the first novella in the series, The Art of Living, and I'm looking forwards to hearing some comments from readers.

So what next...?

I was originally intending to write a third novella in the Proctor series, but as the Art of Killing took longer to write than I originally anticipated, I changed my mind and decided to move straight on to the third book in The Night Time in Shanghai series, "Machine War".  I fleshed out the plot for Machine War and I have a really good outline to follow when I do finally sit down and write it, but it will be my longest book yet.  However, as I'm looking to move to a boat in around five months, it may not be the best time to start this.

Also, my original estimates on how long it would take to get Night Time in Shanghai, my first novel, in to print, seem to be wildly off.  At the moment, there's little to no news from my publisher, other than to say that things are slowly moving forwards.  I think I'd realistically have to expect the novel's arrival on the shelves of your local book shop in Q3 or possibly even Q4 of this year, now.

Soooo... I have around four or five months and I shouldn't consider myself under any pressure to write the third book in the Night Time trilogy.  After a little thought, I decided that an option would to be to write a book totally separate to everything I've written thus far.  Another area I'm very interested in is a possible ultimate fate for humanity - dyson spheres, the Singularity and virtual worlds.

I have an idea for a novel I'll write in a year or so when my life has settled down which will be based around this scenario which I will call "We Are Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made of." (cheers Will), but for now, that one stays on the back-burners until I've given some more thought to exactly where I want to go with it.

I had a little think about what else I'd like to say about my thoughts on the Singularity, and came up with an idea which I fleshed out to three story threads.  The ideas behind the book excite me and I'm already looking forwards to writing it.  For now, there's no title, so we'll stick with calling it 'book five'.

Having said all of that, I'm worried about setting myself too many targets and suffering burn-out, so I'm not going to do that with this book.  I'm going to finish off The Art of Killing, then take a short breather, then collate everything from the Night Time/ Proctor universe.  Then I'm going to mull over the story line for a while and sit and write when I can no longer stop myself from doing so, so don't expect it very soon.

When I'm finished and happy with it, I'll send it out to all the usual agents and publishers and see if I can get it published alongside the Night Time trilogy.  Fingers crossed for that, it's a damnable process.

Boats

At the moment, it seems that most of the cheap boats that don't need a lot of work are being snapped up by those just back from a week on a hire boat, and that leaves a few boats in need of more extensive repairs.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - they're cheap.  If I can find something at the right price in the right place, and find a couple of weeks of time and good weather, late on in the summer, I should be able to get just about anything livable.  The issues are finding the time and getting to boats to see them so I can get a solid idea of the work needed.  I know how to patch fibreglass and I've got wide ranging experience in a lot of the building trades, which I hope will be transferable on to the water.  I know my carpentry skills will.

To be honest, I love the idea of spending a few weeks somewhere like Redhill marina...

...on the river Soar, a few miles south of Long Eaton where I have family.  OK, there's places with nicer views, but as a river marina, they are well kitted out for GRP cruisers, and have cheap hard-standing available for working on boats.  Oh, and it's hard to imagine that power would be an issue...

The problem will be time.  Of the three boats I'm most interested in at the moment, one is on The Kennet and Avon near Devizes, and another is on the river Lea, north of London.  The third one doesn't actually float right now.  It would take me a couple of weeks to get either of the first two to Redhill, so I'd run out of time to actually do any work on them.  And even the floaty ones have problems - there's no guarantee that either would make it as far as Redhill without the need for serious repair... ho-hum... more mulling required...

I've decided on one change to the fit-out I intend to go for.  Originally it was going to be stove - power - hot water - shower - insulation/ re-lining, in that order, stopping when the money runs out.  The stove was going to cost around £500 fully fitted and would have warmed the forward cabin well, though the rear cabin would have needed something more.  I had looked at diesel blown-air heating systems, like the Eberspacher D2...

... and originally ruled this out a while back for being far too expensive - Midland Chandlers have them for £1675 - but since then I've realised that good condition second hand units go for around £400, and new units are available for as little as £600.  It would be more than enough to supply two outlets, one in the forward cabin, one in the aft.  It's simple to fit, and on it's medium setting which would keep the boat toasty, it burns 0.80l of diesel a day which will cost about fifty pence.  Additional cost is in battery power to run the circulation fan and heat the glow-plug, so I'll need to make sure that whatever electrical solution I use, I take the drain from the heater into account.

So the advantages are that it won't take any room away from my living spaces (it'll fit under the floor in the centre cockpit alongside a small fuel tank) and it heats the whole boat with a flow of dry air which will help to keep condensation down in the winter.  The disadvantage is that I doubt I'll come away with change for £800, but it's a better solution for the small space of a cruiser than a wood burner, in my opinion.  Maybe I'll report back on that, after the winter.

Anyway, expect another blog post soon, when I launch The Art of Killing...