Saturday 4th May is the independent author event at Yeading library where I am looking forward to meeting readers and, possibly, potential writers to share my experiences of self-publishing and life as an indie writer.  I will, of course, be hoping to sell some copies of my novel COUNTING THE WAYS and leaving one with the library to add to their fiction collection.

Although it’s always good to talk about a past novel, I find my mind far more easily inclines now to talking about the next one – and the next!  My second novel to appear in paperback is planned for later this year as I recently completed the final draft and will be letting my publisher have the manuscript very soon.  An entirely re-drafted, re-structured and re-titled novel, this is, in fact, based on the first novel I wrote and developed out of my M.A. Creative Writing degree final dissertation.  The requirement then was to write the first 20,000 words of a novel and although these have changed out of all recognition from the original submitted, the essential story line is the same even if the focus has changed considerably.  Now titled THE LEGACY OF MR JARVIS, I will be blogging about this over the next few months ahead of its publication.  Just to give a little away:  it’s set in two distinct eras – late1960s/70s – and in the first decade of the 21st century and is principally set on the south coast of England.

I am once again working on my third novel again – as yet untitled – and this one is set early in 2000s and is set mainly in London although Brighton does feature from time to time.

The attraction of writing in the very recent past is – well, it’s happened!  It’s fixed, to a certain extent, in fact and memory.  I find I am growing more and more drawn to the idea of writing in this recent past – COUNTING THE WAYS was set in 1980s – as it’s interesting to go back and reflect on events, habits, fashions, preoccupations, concerns and to view and assess them fictionally from the perspective of the present.

Already, I have a very vague idea for my fourth novel …something that sprung to mind when I was staying in London a couple of weeks ago.  I was sitting on a bus that was waiting outside a bus stop in Clerkenwell when I saw a woman and …  But no, that’s all for another post, another day – and I am getting far too far ahead of myself, talking about novel 4 when 2 and 3 are yet to see the light of day.

So in the meantime, Saturday 4th May – Bank Holiday weekend – I am looking forward to it.

Thanks to Hillingdon Libraries for inviting me!