E________, second draft, 9.8% complete.
Delighted to share more news on the awards front: Braking Day has been longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association’s Novel of the Year Award! Not only that but Kekai Kotaki‘s excellent cover has been nominated for the artwork. Kekai lives in Seattle, so it’s possible he doesn’t even know yet! Regarding the cover, some credit must also be given to my agent, the estimable Brady, whose concept of Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam in space was the starting point for Kekai’s (inter) stellar treatment.
Admittedly, the BSFA long list is long and includes entries from Gareth L. Powell, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Emily St. John Mandel, so this is probably the last we’ll hear of it, but it’s the company you keep, right? Super excited!
I have started working on the second draft of E_________. It’s an interesting experience to return to the opening chapters of a novel because, in this case, you’re reading words you put on the page a whole year before you typed the last ones. A lot has changed in the interval, not least your understanding of the characters and the journey you sent them on, so there’s a fair bit of work to be done to make sure everything is internally coherent. But it’s fun work. An opportunity to layer and foreshadow and polish. I find it soothing, actually, a bit like sanding down an almost finished bit of woodwork (not that I’d be caught dead doing that: I’d undoubtedly find some way to stuff it up) in preparation for putting on the varnish and stepping out with the finished product. The stress of creating something has gone and the stress of worrying that the finished product is no good has yet to arrive. This is the comfortable middle, where you can just lose yourself in words, and story, and structure.
Very Zen.