Some personal news about swelling

To quote Professor Farnsworth yet again, "Good news everyone... next year, Family Curran is swelling by one member (or maybe more, you know it could just happen)." Yep, Sarah’s pregnant, and before anyone asks, it was planned. Planned months ago as it happens, so it isn’t a surprise to us. But I’m under no illusions, and everything, and I mean everything, will be disrupted. Including the writing.

But here’s the thing, and it’s perhaps why I should be changing my middle name to “lucky bastard” (though I do believe in making your own luck): I’m in a great position writing-wise. With one book published, a second out in January, and a third that’s practically writing itself and will (notice the emphasis on “will”) be in a final draft by the time the big event i.e. fatherhood, occurs in April, I have no real concerns about the next six to twelve months.

Now it might appear pretty damned fortunate to be embarking on a book that’s writing very naturally during a time of upheaval, but it was by design. Sarah and I had planned to start a family around this time last year, and I didn’t want to be knee deep in the same slog that I experienced with Mhorrer. If we’d had a baby 12 months ago, then Hoard of Mhorrer would still be gathering dust somewhere, and not scheduled for a January 2nd publication day - I can say that with some certainty. My follow-up book was, as it is with many writer’s second books, not so straightforward.

That’s not to say The Black Hours isn’t a challenge. It is. It’s a completely different novel to what I’ve written before (there are no supernatural nasties in this one) and it follows several character viewpoints with a more omnipotent narration than the traditionally singular adventures of The Secret War and The Hoard of Mhorrer. Also, the plot to The Black Hours isn’t Machiavellian. Sure there are surprises and a couple of major plot twists, but The Black Hours is a straightforward thriller, and the momentum of the story isn’t “who, what, where” it’s more “why.”
And the research has been easier too. Unlike the first two books where I was scrapping about for research, Victorian London in the late 1890s has been extensively written about. You could play “pin the tale on the donkey” in Sheffield’s main library, and 9 times out of 10, you’d skewer the spine of a book on Victorian England.

Finally, I’m writing in a comfortable sub-genre: the fin-de-siecle, as enjoyed by the likes of HG Wells, and more recently Simon Clark, Stephen Baxter and a slew of Hollywood writers who revel in destroying world landmarks for the sake of entertainment. I’ve always wanted to write a book about the end of the world, or the end of a microcosm like the British Empire - The Black Hours allows me to do it with gusto, with adventure, but tempered with the fear that this could happen right now, you know?

So day-job aside (so far aside that I’m nudging it out of the window) I’m in a fairly good place. The idea of fatherhood is exciting in a brilliantly nervous way, and I’m looking forward to it perhaps more than being published next year (hey, it’s my first time being a father, okay?). And besides, fatherhood doesn’t mean the end of writing, it just means a cessation of major projects (The Traitor of Light will be shunted to the back end of 2009 – baby permitting).

We’ll see what happens in 2009, but already - for me - it’s looking like a momentous and exciting year…