E________, first draft: 91,500 words
The last few days I’ve been in an Artemis frame of mind, devouring every molecule of news about NASA’s much delayed test run to translunar space and back again. Another step in our slow, halting return journey to the moon.
And, of course, you can’t read about Artemis without reliving the Apollo program of the sixties and early seventies. The one that actually put human beings on another world. The one where, in 1969, the part of the planet with access to television watched a lunar module descend into a puffing of dust and announce, “The Eagle has landed.” The one that suckered a generation of children into thinking that they’d grow up to live offworld, one day. Aging Brits may remember the TV series UFO (which featured Benedict Cumberbatch’s mom, by the way), in which there was a regular shuttle service to the moon running in — wait for it — 1980.
*Sigh*
I’ve been on a couple of journeys of my own, both literary and literal, since I last posted. On the literary front, my murder mystery, A Quiet Teacher, has now been published by Severn House. We were lucky enough to garner a starred review in Booklist, which opened thus:
“Imagine John le Carré attempting an Agatha Christie mystery. Or the other way around. In any case, that mix is at the heart of this stunning novel.”
I’ll take it!
As for the literal journey, we are in the process of settling into our new life in Edinburgh, Scotland. We have rented an apartment in the Old Town, the medieval neighborhood that huddles around the Castle. In addition to being almost indescribably steep (medieval castles were seldom sited on flat, easily accessible terrain, apparently) Old Town is full of nooks and crannies and cobbled streets. Oddly, though, living here has an almost Manhattan-like vibe. It’s extremely crowded, driving is more trouble than it’s worth, and everything you could possibly need or want is within walking distance. And, also like New York, the city is at the edge of the sea. We can see it from the apartment, and we’re so high up, the gulls glide by our window, big and weathered and very much in their element.
I wonder, when they open their wide beaks, if they keen with a Scottish accent.