Marc Nobbs: Blog

I thought it was time I issued an update of where I am with things because I’m still getting plenty of messages asking me for the status of the fourth (and hopefully final) Paul Robertson book.

The last time I gave you an update was back in October—that’s nine months ago. As is always the case when I disappear for so long, life—my “real” life—got in the way. I had staffing issues at work which happened at a time of increased workload in the office in general, which is never a good combination. Essentially, I was getting home from work and all I wanted to do was crash in front of the TV, not spend the mental energy required to write fiction.

Writing has always been my “escape”, but as I get older—I’m fifty later this year—I find that mental tiredness is a bigger problem.

But, I’m happy to say that with the staffing issues resolved, I’m getting home with a little more energy and have made some real progress in recent weeks and months.

I’ve got seven projects at various stages of development right now. Some are no more than an idea and a brief description of the basic plot. Some have a few hundred or a few thousand words written.

The two that are furthest along should come as no surprise. I’ve written about 18,000 words of the third Lies Series book and about 45,000 words of the fourth Paul Robertson book.

If you compare that with October’s update, the third Lies book has barely changed but the fourth PR book is now nearly twice as long as it was then—so you can see where all that mental energy has been focused.

I’m quite pleased with what I’ve written so far. If this is to be the final part of Paul’s story, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover, both in his business life and his love life. And I will need to balance the story between those two goals—too much of one and not enough of the other will unbalance the story, which is something I’m very much aware of, particularly given that Paul’s business life is going to be fairly heavy lifting. That’s not to say his love life is going to be smooth sailing either, mind you.

So, in short, I’m making progress and I’m happy with it, but, as always, I’m reluctant to set any deadlines since I never meet them anyway.

So, having made the decision that AWH wouldn’t be the final book in Paul’s story, I expected to be able to bring this volume to a conclusion—I’ll leave it to others to eventually decide if it’s a satisfying conclusion—within a couple of chapters and maybe ten to twenty thousand words.

That was when the manuscript was at 80,000 words. It’s now at 104,000 and I could easily write another ten or twenty thousand words on top of this to get to my “end point” I envisaged.

But I haven’t done that. In fact, I’ve even gone so far as to have Paul acknowledge in his narration that he could describe the events that bring this chapter of his story to a close in a lot of detail (even quite graphic detail) but is choosing not to.

I was initially worried that doing this may make the book’s ending seem rushed, but I think I’ve managed to do it in a way that feels okay. If I had tried to describe the scenes that Paul glosses over in his narration, they could have seemed repetitive and superfluous, since they would have been almost completely sex scenes anyway.

I’ve written before, in 2015 and 2009, about having too much sex in a sex story—in particular in longer novels—and I’ve always tried to make sure that I‘m not writing sex scenes for the sake of having sex scenes. They do, I think, have to have a point—be that either moving the plot along or doing some character development.

I hope that’s what I’ve achieved here.

There was an interesting discussion of this recently in the StoriesOnline Forums.

This book ends at a natural break point in Paul’s story, which is what I intended when I decided not to make this the final book in the series. Paul’s closing narration is reflective and that reflection, I hope, brings the novel together as a single piece, and sets up what’s to come in the future.

Of course, I’m the author, so it’s not really for me to say if what I’ve produced is successfully achieving my aims. It’s for you, the reader, to decide.

So what now? Well, over the Christmas break I’ll re-read what I’ve written—probably on a tablet rather than a laptop or PC—and perhaps make a few notes, correct some obvious errors and see try and work out if it all hangs together or if I need to make some changes.

I’ll also be looking for some volunteers to have a read of this first draft and offer their comments on the plot & characterisation. Then in the New Year, I’ll set about doing a more thorough edit and preparing the book for release. Ideally, I’d like to set a release date in the first quarter of 2023.

And it can’t come soon enough.

The last of my "legacy" works - by which I mean stories written some time ago and originally published elsewhere - is now available on Bookapy and will make its way to SOL in the next week or so.

"Charlotte's Secret" was, like many of my earlier work, originally written for Ruthie's Club. It was later picked up by Phaze, who went out of business a few years ago after which the rights reverted back to me.

It's been available at the rainforest retailer for a couple of years, and is now making its way here.

This will mean all my "legacy" work is now at both Bookapy and/or SOL. (The novels & novellas are at both, the short stories just at SOL).

I'll post again here once "Charlotte's Secret" begins posting.

The "retcon" in chapter 15 of "A Tortured Soul" - which feeds into a major plot point in "A Wounded Heart", is now posted to SOL.

I'd be interested to see how many people can see what it is. (It's not exactly subtle, but you will need to have read the original to see it)

Over the next few days, I'll post updated chapters to both of the above stories. All of these updates have multiple minor corrections, but there is also a significant "recon" to chapter 15 of "A Tortured Soul" ahead of the release of the third book in the series, "A Wounded Heart". I would hope to have gotten that far with posting the updates by the end of the weekend.

All of these updates are already available in the Bookapy & rainforest retailer editions of the books.

Speaking of "A Wounded Heart" I have two chapters to complete, then I'll set it aside for a couple of weeks before beginning a line-by-line edit. I'd hope to have the book up for sale on Bookapy (and the rainforest retailer) by the end of the year or January. I'll leave it as a "for sale" exclusive for a month or so before I being posting it here on SOL.