Hey folks,
I'm really sorry for the long drought from me. Partly I've not been very well, partly I've been having family issues, partly even that I am much busier at work, but mostly because I'm just having writers block.
Maquis is by far and away the longest story I've ever written, and has already grown far beyond what I originally envisioned. My original was just what is now chapter 1, which was intended as simple one off little vignette. Someone from the Swarm Authors Group suggested I added a few more chapters, and along came, what are now chapters 2, 4, 7 and 11, the most 'important' part of chapter 11 being the very last bit. Just to highlight the sort of thing that the many people who don't like/believe/understand what's really happening around them, do find important.
It should have posted like that, but I was again persuaded to turn it into a full blown novel. At the time I was still writing Woolly Wilds 2, and I realised I needed to finish that fully to ensure that this could be posted, as chapter 7 contains a character from the other story. I'm reasonably confident that in fact chapter one was written before Woolly Wilds 2 was even started.
Well, here I am. I now have 51 chapters plus a prologue, background and epilogue, and I can't finish it. Chapter 48 is resisting my attempts to write the last couple of thousand words. I could, theoretically, leave that bit out, and it would work, but it would also leave a bigger hole than I'm happy with. It's currently 14,800 words, so I suppose I could split it into two, but in reality all that's doing is kicking the can down the road.
Chapter 49 is finished, as is chapter 51 and the epilogue, but chapter 50 only has 1200 words written and I'm struggling to push that one forwards as well.
I'm still working on it, but I don't know when the next update might be.
Sorry.
I've also got two more shorts waiting, 1 swarm, 1 not. Both have been proofed by the SAG, but no one is truly happy with either. So, I don't know whether to post those as they are, or to try and do more work on them - with a broken muse.
*f