I meant to post this last
week – but the ‘Curse of Book 2’ struck again (a subject I’ll return to at a
future date) and I was taken away from my desk. Today – the 6th – is
nine months to the day since my last blog and seemed an appropriate occasion to
reappear.
The big news is that I’ve
finally finished The Madagaskar Plan
and sent it to my publishers in the UK and US! Thus far not a soul has read the
book apart from a few sections I offered to my editors to prove I was actually
working on something. So pressing submit is a leap into the unknown.
Now begins the waiting.
Quite what my publishers will make of the book I’m not sure. I’m confident it’s
good – a huge leap up from Afrika Reich
– but it’s also very different in terms of tone, structure, pacing –
everything! – to the original. It may not be what they were expecting. The one
thing for certain is that it’s a monster. I was contracted to write 115-120 000
words, the same as the first book; the finished manuscript is 154 000 (and it’s
tightly written).
While I wait for a response there’s
plenty to do: I have maps to draw (see photo below); final bits of research to complete; a
historical note and foreword to write. I might even do some more blogging.
In the meantime, there’s
still no publication date for Madagaskar,
but the latest is a summer 2015 release... though I’m not sure it will make a
comforting holiday read. More details as and when I have them.
