Work in progress

Progress in work

The sweet rush of pure, deadline-induced adrenaline… (Pic: Todd Trapani / Pexels)

If my last post and subsequent silence gave you the impression that things had gone a bit south for me and my next novel you were not entirely wrong. Losing my manuscript was a blow, if knackered adrenals can still feel things like blows.

Tanya tried to cheer me up by suggesting that perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, a chance to step back and have a second look at things; but I must confess that this perspective fell on deaf, depressed, softly throbbing ears at the time.

The thing about Tanya, though, is that she’s usually right when it comes all things developmental editing, and, sure enough, having to start again gave me permission to go in more interesting directions. There is nothing like a bit of distance from your manuscript to see its lumpy bits or to discover other, more pleasing paths to the same destination, even if the distance in this case was the infinite nothingness into which my work had disappeared: suddenly those three chapters that have seemed so delightful for the last few months reveal themselves to be nothing but padding around one genuinely solid chapter, or, likewise, an innocent question called out by an extra in a crowd scene gets you thinking—‘But hang on, why would she ask that? Did she see something? Hear something?’—and away you go again.

Would I recommend that you lose important documents without a trace, perhaps, like this poor person, by installing Google’s AI to run your computer only to have it delete everything on your hard drive without your permission? No.

Am I glad that I lost those 30,000 words? Absolutely.

All of which is to say that I’m now more or less in my happy place, with the next Arnold Prinsloo whodunnit ticking along nicely, powered by the pleasure of writing regularly combined with the Saturn rocket of almost impossible deadlines unleashing torrents of adrenaline, all of which will keep me safely and contentedly off the crowded streets of Cape Town well into the new year.

Speaking of which, my publisher wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t put in one last punt for ‘An Act Of Murder’ as a last-minute stocking-stuffer.

I tend to self-deprecate but I do think it’s a fun read, and I’ve heard the same thing from more than a few readers. Well, except for this one, obviously, who took to Goodreads to express their anger and, oddly, nausea, about my use of the word “heckle”.

(I don’t want to poke fun, but honestly, having someone in the reading audience shout out an angry objection to heckling feels confusingly meta…)

For the rest, though, I’ve been told that it’s a good gift, not least because it contains very little swearing, only a soupçon of sex, and violence of the most bloodless, Cosy Crime sort. In short you can give this book to people and have a reasonable expectation that you might be invited back next year.

If you don’t live in South Africa (or you do but prefer ebooks), ‘An Act Of Murder’ is now available as on Kindle worldwide. I’m a bit conflicted about this, what with Amazon going out of its way to destroy bookshops and also being, you know, Amazon, but without an international publishing partner South African books simply don’t get read outside South Africa. So, as the emperor says in ‘Amadeus’, there it is.

(While I’m talking myself down I should also apologize for the price. Many local publishers believe that making ebooks cheaper than hard copies will encourage people to buy the former and then not buy the latter, a belief I don’t share. I think for many readers a book is as much a physical pleasure as an intellectual one, where the smell and texture of the paper, the slow weathering of the cover and the odd coffee stain are as much part of the experience as the plot. I’d be interested to know where you stand. Paper or plastic? One then the other? Both at the same time?)

Now, though, I must go and write another thousand words, ideally in the correct order and featuring at least some of my characters, so let me sign off and wish you well until we meet again in 2026.

Tom