I am aware that I have not posted on this blog for a short while; life has gotten in the way! I have been busy of late, but not everything that has occupied my time has been related to either writing or any of the other things that I am interested in. I thought that due to the unexpected lull I may as well review what I have been doing and where I am up to.

First thing, I have been trying to sell books again. I booked a table at two fairs with Lincolnshire Authors, even though I live in East Yorkshire. The first was in Louth and the second in Skegness. I enjoyed the experience even though I did not sell many books. Connecting with other people, readers and authors alike, was very stimulating. I met my youngest fan to date, a 13-year-old who likes Game of Thrones and thought my novel, The War Wolf, was worth a read. My wife had the idea of buying more copies to sell of The War Wolf as it is the first book in the trilogy, and she has been proven right. A few people did decide to buy all three books, at a discounted price of course, but the idea of beginning with The War Wolf appealed to many, especially when I told them that contact details could be found at the back of the book. There is a Christmas Book Fair coming up in Louth and I will probably be attending simply because I have enjoyed the two previous events.

On the writing front I have had a slight change in direction. I have been working on a book about euthanasia. I intend it to be a rational look at the arguments both for and against that will allow the reader to make up their own mind on the subject. Personally, I am in favour of voluntary euthanasia, even more so after the research that I have been doing, but I am going to try and not produce a piece of propaganda. That decision makes the book technically difficult to write, however. It is a novel, and I want to achieve a balanced approach to each argument through the protagonist. I also want it to be interesting to read and not an essay on the subject. I have now realised that this is a slow writing project. As a reader I am quite capable of having more than one book on the go at the same time. I picked this knack up while at college. Some people tell me that they find it confusing, but I actually quite enjoy flitting from one book to another and not losing either the thread or the place where I last put it down. I have decided to do the same with my writing. While working on the book about euthanasia I am also going to write a totally unrelated novel.

I have no shortage of ideas when it comes to starting a new book. The original idea for this one has been sitting in my mind for several years. I liked the initial concept but struggled to see how I could expand it into a story the length of a novel. And then I started thinking about a science fiction epic and realised that the first idea could work as a thread rather than the main story in such a book. The curious thing about this train of thought is that it was inspired by watching the Star Wars: Rogue One film again. It was not so much the movie as the whole Star Wars universe, as such things are called these days. It also got me thinking about Star Trek as well, mostly about how incomplete and even naive these ‘universes’ are. I do not want to go into much detail about this as I think it will form the basis of a series of posts after this one, but I am getting a definite buzz from writing the story, which is only in a very early second draft form at the moment.

An online friend recently withdrew from most forms of social media simply because they saw them as toxic environments. I have considered doing the same. As I have written previously, social media today is not a place of debate, it is a game of who can shout the loudest. Things like facts, logic, and reason appear to have no place there, which I find rather saddening. However, despite this I have decided to remain and continue to express an informed opinion on the subjects that interest me, at least for now.