Ahoy.

Shadows‘ wordcount hit 80,000 this weekend, which by my usual standards is a bit of a suspicious milestone. I started writing this novel in March of this year – as a direct result of visiting the marvellous (and sadly over) Life in the Roman Army exhibition at the British Museum, as a matter of fact, and being inspired to return to Ancient Rome as a setting. I even blogged about it, not long after.

Which means that, in contrast to the last couple of novels which took me over 12 months each to finish a first draft, I’m now essentially three-quarters done with this one in barely 6. With luck, I can have a draft done in the next month or two, with a fortnight’s gap to let it simmer, before editing begins. And before the end of the year, I can hopefully start… querying.

I spent a lot of time agonising over the plot for Shadows’ final Act, but now that’s all mapped out I don’t have that excuse for stalling. A lot of the research (and in some cases, actual work) was already done for me with Legion, but this is very much a new, original project, with a whole new plot and approach. And yet it seems to be smooth sailing, so far.

Suspiciously so.

I suck at graphic design, so I’m stealing a meme from the great Aaron Dembski-Bowden to encapsulate my imminent burnout as a hit this last, grinding stretch. And as a grudging self-reward, I thought it was time to spill a little more about it. First the blurb…

…And then the cast of characters…

If you’ve read any of my former, now unpublished work, you might recognise a few of those names. But not, perhaps, the characters. Shit’s been shaken up.

And yes, this time round there’s a surprising spread of historical domain characters too. Goodie.

In other news, over the course of these summer months I’ve not only lost a little weight but gained a brother-in-law. And so in celebration of both, I decided to splurge a little money and upgrade my work desk with some aesthetically pleasing, but totally unnecessary, bits of gear.

This replica typewriter keyboard from the fine chaps at Fineday was perhaps a little pricy for what it is, and eats batteries like a starving man in Maccy D’s. But the muted click-clacks each key makes, as well as the backlights, brass rollers that toggle volume and brightness, and carriage return that works as an enter key, just make typing bloody fun again. After three days of using it, it isn’t straining my hands like I’d feared, nor is it even slowing down my touch typing.

Seriously. Just look at it.

And naturally, this rather boujie tissuebox holder looked too good not to match the aesthetic as well.

And this, dear readers, is why I try to stay away from Amazon.