I realised today that things have been very quiet on the blogging front. A quick check – I last posted on the 3rd of March which is… quite some time ago.
Oops.
Sorry about that.
Well not completely sorry. It’s just that life has been rather busy lately. I’m a high school English teacher and during term time it’s hard to make time for anything other than school, family, and the writing I do at the start of each day.
Blogging just had to wait.
But with it being school holidays I decided I really ought to check in with a few random thoughts and some updates.
Random thoughts first.
I watched an amazing series on Netflix earlier this year called Boy Swallows Universe. It’s based on the novel by the same name from Australian author Trent Dalton and it’s an absolutely cracker.
Not PG at all but definitely worth a watch – especially if you enjoy crime adjacent coming-of-age investigative reporter stories!
I’m currently reading (re-reading? Possibly…) Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. I picked this one up to read after I finished ready his excellent ‘Chocky’ and I must say it is absolutely deserving of the stellar reputation it has as a sci-fi classic. I think I might have read Triffids long ago as a kid, but I can’t remember enough about it for that to impact my enjoyment this time.
No jokes about how long ago that might have been please.
Speaking of enjoyable reads – I just re-read (for the third time) Bel Elton’s excellent time-travel novel Time and Time Again. Along with Stephen Fry’s Making History – Time and Time Again is one of my favourites of a sub-genre called ‘idealistic young Englishmen trying to change events in the past to improve the future’. Time and Time Again tells the story of a British ex-SAS man (not massively different to a certain Bear Grylls) who is sent on a mission to stop World War One from breaking out. That might seem straightforward but believe me – it’s not. And as a massive fun of time-travel and history – this book is brilliant!
Speaking of time-travel, I recently got around to watching last year’s box-office bomb ‘The Flash’ on Netflix. And surprisingly… I quite enjoyed it. It had a fun plot with enough twists and turns to keep me hooked and it told a very worthwhile story. If you’ve given it a miss because of the lousy reputation, then I’d recommend giving it a second chance – you might be surprised as I was.
Okay now for updates:
I’m currently in the final editing process of the follow-up to Partners in Time. I won’t reveal the title yet but suffice to say with luck I’ll have it out around August/ September. At the moment I’ve completed draft number eight and it’s being worked on by my trusty line-editor who will polish the prose to make it shine. Then it’ll be time to put together a brilliant cover (thanks to my fantastic cover artist) and get it ready for publication.
What’s it about?
Well… all I’ll say is this… there were a couple of threads left unresolved in Partners in Time and one of them kicks off this story. And this time our intrepid heroes are going to time-travel much further than World War two!
As we get closer to the release date, I’ll show you the cover art and the blurb… so that’s something cool to look forward to!
I’m also working through my second edit of book three at the moment but that one probably won’t be out until next year. So, no hints yet… sorry!
Anyway… if you have any questions/ comments/ concerns/ objections/ anecdotes or alien artifacts you’d like to share – please feel free to comment below.
Otherwise I’ll see you in the next blog!
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