Oh, what the hell. Here's waving at you.

I'm writing another novel (yeah, all right, hardly a surprise is it). I had intended to plunge straight into The Mirror That Is Made, which is the second of Charlie Cornelius's books. But it requires extensive research. I'm doing some of the background at the moment, but I'm going to need to do some very specific stuff as well. And at the moment, the money and the energy just aren't there (it will involve travel).

So, to avoid wasting endless hours playing games, fretting over how the submissions of Thin Reflections are doing, or getting into sickening and socially reprehensible habits like dusting, I decided to write a book. The ultimate in procrastination, if you like.

Charlie Cornelius exists in other planes of reality (how could she not). One of her alternates, is a young woman called Jeniche. She lives in a city and makes a living by relieving the rich of all those pretty trinkets they don't really need and selling them back to jewellers, who break them up and use the prcious metal and stones to make more pretty trinkets to sell to the rich. A great deal more honest than being a banker (cheap shot of the day).

I have nothing invested in the book other than having fun in writing it (well, fun is a subjective word, but I have no intention of getting angsty over the thing). It is a fantasy adventure. It might have wizards (but, probably won't), there will be mysterious happenings and Jeniche does, of course, have a mysterious past. So mysterious I certainly have no idea what it is. I've also a rough idea for a second book, which makes a trilogy inevitable, really.

And, yes. I am having fun with it. I'm also learning things about writing, trying new ways of doing things, and desperately (bugger) trying to avoid words that end with -ly.

I'm not doing too badly with it. I started on the 31 January and then stopped for just over a week. Now I'm back with it and have about 11,000 words on paper, aiming for a modest 70,000. Who knows, it might even be saleable when it's finished.