YAP, present draft: 11,200 words
I would be completely consumed by jealousy today but for an antidote and a distraction.
Consumed because today is a total solar eclipse across a gigantic swathe of the United States. Everyone, including my agent, the estimable Brady, is off to enjoy it except me. I’m stuck in Scotland, where our measly ten-percent-or-so partial eclipse will no doubt be obscured by clouds.
What’s really gnawing at me is that I could totally have been in the total eclipse zone if I’d known it was happening ahead of time. I mean, I did know about it ahead of time, like several months ago, but by then it was already too late: hotels booked up, RV parks jammed: no hope for Johnny-Come-Latelies like yours truly. Now, watching the coverage on CNN, part of me is thinking that we should have sucked it up and gone along anyway. The other part, the part that is being swamped beneath a tidal wave of regret right now, remembers the one and only total eclipse I have ever seen: Devon, England in 1999. I drove down on the day and it was complete chaos: traffic jams like I’ve never seen, a desperate scramble to find somewhere, anywhere, to sit down and watch and then the whole thing was hidden by clouds which, to be fair, didn’t stop the eclipse itself from being awesome.
But the traffic. That’s what I need to remember. Getting home was a 170-mile journey. It took me the best part of twelve hours. Sadly, I am an irrational human being and it’s not enough. I remain consumed with regret and envy, the only saving graces being the aforesaid antidote and distraction.
The antidote is this. There is another total eclipse in 2026, this one running from the Arctic across Greenland, Iceland and, most importantly, the always sunny north of Spain. Spain is very easy to reach from Scotland and I have already booked my spot. Yay! And for those of you who really like to plan ahead, there’s another one in Australia in 2028 . . .
As for the distraction, it is, as usual, writing. Two Times Murder, as I am learning to call it, is basically done. There’s copyediting and stuff left to do, of course, but the heavy lifting is over. Which means it’s time for the next project. Alternating as I do between mystery and SF, it’s time for SF. I don’t want to say too much about it because (obvs) it’s not finished. I will say this, though. It is a young adult project, called . . .
Hah! No way. Having been burned yet again on the naming front, I’m not even going to give it a working title, so there. We’re going to call it Young Adult Project, or, more appropriately, YAP. When it comes to titles, I’m on strike.