It’s been an up and down year with my novel in progress, The Ghost Marriage. There have been months when I’ve hated it, months when events (dear boy, events) got in the way, but I think we have come to an understanding with each other. At present, I’m enjoying the writing, becoming more and more interested in the characters (especially a few whom I didn’t originally give much thought to, whose roles are expanding) and I’m feeling better about its tone which has been an ongoing problem.
Structuring my week has helped a lot; encouragement from agent Jenny Brown, at the excellent Pitch Live event in Edinburgh recently did too (specifically, her advice to ‘stay in the emotion longer’ which has unlocked a few things for me). Having more of my stories published helps too to make me feel that I’m still getting stuff out there even as I wrestle with a long project. There are still days when I doubt the whole thing, am frustrated with my inability to make it as good as I want it to be, or when I procrastinate myself into unhappiness, even though I know I always feel better when I’ve written. But it is still very much a work in progress – I keep going back to it – and that’s something.
Other stuff going on:
After The Fall, the post-apocalyptic anthology from Almond Press which includes my zombie rock star story, The Comeback Tour, is now available as an e-book from Amazon (sorry about the tax thing): http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Fall-Apocalypse-Collection-ebook/dp/B00FBOU8Z2/
Night Shift At The Cessnock Psychic Centre, which is in Gutter issue 9, is still available here: http://www.freightbooks.co.uk/inrude-health.html.
I’m currently teaching classes at Glasgow University’s Open Studies dept, regularly appearing on both Shereen (discussing the week’s news stories) and The Culture Studio (reviewing films) on BBC Radio Scotland, and, of course, still reviewing telly for The Scotsman, as well as occasional book reviews.
Also, watch this space as I have just had some proper author pictures taken, by the very kind Glasgow photographer Paul Harkin who specialises in writer/artist portraits – will put one up if it doesn’t make me want to die inside!
(Paul’s info here: http://www.swordfishphotography.co.uk/)
Andrea Mullaney 