So, a year comes towards a close, and a new one looms. This coming one may be particularly auspicious for me, what with my debut novel to be released towards its end (final title choice and perhaps other things forthcoming soon). That set of nerve wracking moments is a way off yet though, and in the mean time, here’s an update on what else I plan to get up to this year. Seemed like it was worth getting into practise for future years, when people may read posts like these and *gasp* care!

First, here’s a little editing left on that novel, but the biggest changes are done. I have a stack of other first drafts that need some work though, and that’s my current job. I intend to get both Plaguewalkers and Stormspinner up to submission standard ASAP.

Once that’s done, it’ll be time to finish at least one ongoing draft – likely Shelter in Shadow, a first-person children’s fantasy where humanity has retreated underground after a disaster, and light is now feared as much as darkness once was. A young girl with a talent for mechanisms is desperate to go back above though, to search for her lost father. With a team of oddballs and untrustworthies – as well as a brace of magical fireworks – she will journey the blasted wastes and discover the secrets guarded by the monsters that live there. More on this soon, including some of the techniques I’m using to build characters.

I’d also like to get to a couple of new drafts – the next in the Folded Land series at least, as well as a completely new one, Sandtide. That one’s a YA novel set in a desert land where the sand moves like a sea, and enslaved jinn are used to prop up civilisation. It’ll be challenge, because of the themes involved – religion, fanaticism and more will be factors in the narrative. More on this one when I’ve actually worked on it some.

That’s the lot. Should keep me busy, since I’ll have to find time for book events and such too – but where’s the fun in having too little to do?