Some things, and a quick thing about an old thing

Christmas is also about receiving, and two things of note have dropped into my lap so far this week. The first is a couple of copies of The Secret War in paperback (which I’ll be reading from at the launch). They look very nice too, but the paperback version will only be available to the overseas and Irish markets.

The second surprise was a copy of the in-house magazine here, DWPeople, which has a rather good interview with me on the back-page (and Jamie Oliver on the front-page – ah, to be that famous!). It’s fantastic publicity – the circulation for the magazine is 67,500 as I understand, (unfortunately, it isn’t available outside of DWP, but I will see about getting a scanned version onto my website – copyright depending). Already it’s had a big impression on the ol’ Amazon ranking, reaching such lofty heights of around 5,000, even at Christmas time (I promised myself I wouldn’t get too obsessed with this!). So the message here is get ‘em while their hot (or while they’re still first editions).

The third surprise didn’t so much drop into my lap, but unearthed itself from the cavernous store-room that is my mum’s loft. With my sister and boyfriend moving out of the house, it was a good opportunity to get rid of some of my clutter from childhood including some battered Star Wars toys (before anyone asks, they weren’t fit for anything, let alone to be sold on e-bay) and various things like old school books and drawings that might hold some nostalgia, but would I ever look at them again? Nope, not really.
Out of all the clutter, I did salvage one thing and that was several pages of a book I started writing when I was 17 called “The Plainsmen”. Some of the more eagle-eyed readers of this blog might remember this title from previous blog entries, in that it was the original title of The Secret War. It’s the first incarnation of the book, set in a modern day Cheshire village, and follows the same beginning (roughly) as The Secret War, but with exploding petrol stations and daemon summonings. Despite the pyrotechnics, this version is very much “quieter” than The Secret War, and I am glad I decided to set the book in the 19th century – being a relatively more interesting period in history than modern day.

It was interesting to me to see how my writing has matured over the last fifteen years, and that The Secret War will be something that has marked my progression as a writer over that period of time. I don’t think there was a time in those fifteen years that “The Plainsmen” - or as it is now known, The Secret War - hasn’t been in my thoughts.

I used to think that once The Secret War was published, I could move on to the next project with a clear head.
But as the current project is the sequel to The Secret War, I don’t think my thoughts will be wandering too far away for the foreseeable future…

Which leads to me to the final bit of news… The follow-up to The Secret War now has a new name… (see above).

;-)