This week, I have mainly been plotting. I find dancing a surprisingly good way of working on gnarly plot points, and with festivals the last two weekends and another this weekend, there's a lot of that going on at the moment. My friends are very understanding of my tendency to suddenly exit the Mosh/Morris pit (Morris pit being the folk festival version), whip out a notebook, and start scribbling.

In other news, my editor has now given me detailed feedback on CONSORTS OF HEAVEN. She's very happy with it overall, and none of the points she raises are major; in fact most of them are things I had already wondered about myself. Work still needed, though, and I think a trip up to t'Smoke might be called for so we can discuss her thoughts in detail.

And finally, on Saturday, while I was knee-deep in mud and cider in a field in Hampshire, no lesser organ than The Times reviewed Principles of Angels. As well as being pleased at the largely positive review, I feel honoured by the company I'm keeping there.

I've just heard that my short story 'Twilight at the Change House' will be published in next month's issue of Aeon magazine.

The story isn't set in the 'Hidden Empire'  universe, but does feature a smattering of my usual obsessions: the true nature of reality, paying the price and stories that eat their own tails. Quite a lot to fit into less than 7,000 words, now I think about it.

Despite not currently working very hard (finished by 7pm weekdays, and hardly writing at all over weekends), it's been a constructive couple of weeks.

As well as the excerpt of PRINCIPLES going up on Jay Tomio's website (see below), the book continues to get largely positive reviews. It occurs to me that I should post links to online reviews on this blog, so here's one from The Guardian.

My editor has got back to me to accept CONSORTS OF HEAVEN, with apologies for taking so long as she's busier than ever. She hasn't actually finished reading it, but says she's read enough to know there's 'nothing we can't sort out'. I expect it'll require more drastic changes and heavier editing than PRINCIPLES, given I've only had a year to write it, and I've already thought of some small changes I need to make myself, largely because of ....

GUARDIANS OF PARADISE, which now has a plot outline. It's quite a long and detailed outline, which is unusual for me, but I needed to pin down exactly how much existing plot I'll be resolving, and how much of my overall 'meta-plot' should be revealed. I'm happy with this outline as a starting point, though if I stick to it, I suspect the result may come in at rather over the contracted 100K.  I've also written the prologue and first chapter, which, despite my usual aversion to first drafts, I really enjoyed doing. I'm under no illusions that the rest of the book will be that easy to write, but it's a good start, and the little I've done so far has received a good   response from the Tripod writers group, whose critiques are not renowned for pulling punches.

If you'd like to read the first chapter of PRINCIPLES OF ANGELS, it's currently up for free perusal on fantasybookspot. A quick poke around the site revealed many other treasures hidden therein.

Meanwhile the local rag has run an article on me under the headline 'Vote to have the politicians assassinated'. I'll expect a visit from MI5 any day now.

I've just got through signing 80 hardback copies of PRINCIPLES on my kitchen table. More experienced pros have warned me of the perils of RSI during long signing sessions, but I had my special pen, and took the job slow and steady.

More of a problem was re-wrapping the books and getting them back in their boxes for despatch back to the dealer. I think book dealers must have some sort of packing-fu of which I know nothing, as only timely intervention by Beloved stopped my literary career being cut short by a bizarre bubblewrap-related accident.

The original plan was to start writing GUARDIANS OF PARADISE as soon as my editor said she was happy with CONSORTS OF HEAVEN. Several reasons: firstly, CONSORTS is that tricky second novel and until I know whether it's made the grade I feel uncomfortable moving on to another major project; secondly, I needed more envelope-scribbling time (or, as more professional writers call it, planning) for GUARDIANS before I embarked on the actual word-smithing; and thirdly, I had other writing stuff that I'd been neglecting in the final push to get CONSORTS in on time.

Regarding point three above, I can report that I've sent out some short stories that had been gathering virtual dust (and might have sold one - watch this space). I've also written a new short story called 'Dreaming Towers, Unseen Mansions', not set in the 'Hidden Empire' universe, and based on a stolen dream. It's currently a rough first draft awaiting ritual deconstruction by the OSB writing group. I've also revisited EPIPHANY NIGHT, the (as yet unsold) novel I originally wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2006. This story is part of my timeline; in fact it's right at the start of it, being set in the middle of this century. It still needs work, but I wanted to lick the beginning into shape ready for the Milford SF Writers Workshop in September.

So, many worthy tasks have been completed - but still no word from the overworked editor. She's having a well-deserved holiday this week, which may or may not be ruined by her promise to finish reading CONSORTS during it.

Having run out of real work, I have, today, tidied the garret. I now have less, and smaller, piles of paper around me when I work and, more importantly, I know roughly what's in every pile (there is a system, really there is). I was amused to find the original badly-drawn-in-pencil map of Khesh City scribbled on the back of a computer listing - the sort with the holes down the side. That City's been in my head far too long. I did wonder in passing if the map could fetch a quid or two on Ebay, but it's not exactly a work of art.

And now I can put it off no longer. I need to get started on the next book, not least because I need something to send out to my other writing group, Tripod, by the end of the week. Though it may be old-fashioned, conventional even, I reckon I'll start at the beginning, by typing up the sketchy prologue hand-written at Wolverhampton station a couple of weeks ago. 

Wish me luck. I'm going in.

As part of my (so far remarkably successful) efforts to spend my publication advance from PRINCIPLES before I have the chance to get used to having money, I've registered for a couple of upcoming conventions.

The first one is Newcon 4, held the second weekend in October in sunny Northampton. It's a small convention, but has many interesting people attending, not least the Guest of Honour Ian M. Banks.

The second is LX 2009, next year's Eastercon (the main British SF convention, for any as don't know). This is at Easter (obviously) and will this year be held in Bradford, so There Will Be Curry. 

I'm not entirely comfortable with shameless self-promotion. At the same time, I'm aware of the need to make sure I (well, Waterstone's, Amazon etc.) sell as many copies as possible of PRINCIPLES OF ANGELS (I cringed slightly as I wrote that - even the standard convention of capitalising book titles seems rather vulgar to me).

This is not, despite what I've jokingly been telling people, so I can keep Beloved in the lifestyle to which he'd like to become accustomed. Writers aren't in it for the money. There are a couple of notable exceptions to the usual state of affairs, that of writing (especially genre writing) being a low-paid and marginal lifestyle. Their surnames begin with P and R,  and the best of luck to 'em both. All I hope is to sell enough books that someone will continue to give me money to write them. If not, then I'll have to go back to having a 'proper' job, and though that job will doubtless be better paid, and less all-consuming (temporally and emotionally) than writing, it will also be far less enjoyable, and I won't be as happy as I am now.

Besides giving me the opportunity to spend time telling my stories, being published also means I have people to tell them to. When the first stranger came up to me and said she had read PoA, I felt oddly exposed. I wasn't worried she'd say she hated it - years of brutally honest criticism from other writers means my response to that would be 'Really, can you tell me what you hated most?' It just felt odd to have all this stuff that's been locked up in my head for so long out there, living its own life.

I got used to the idea that strangers are wandering around my world surprisingly quickly. I don't really give it that much thought now. I'm not overly concerned about the critics either, though it's gratifying to find that most of them seem moderately impressed.

However, I have discovered an unanticipated pleasure. It's not seeing my books on the shelves of bookshops around the country, and it's not the strange pseudo-celebrity experience of book-signings. It's when my friends, people I've known for years, read PoA and tell me they enjoyed it. I know they aren't telling me this to massage my ego - not all of my friends who read the book will like it - but I get a strange and slightly sentimental warm feeling when someone who is part of the everyday reality of my own life is touched the imaginary reality of my mind. There is an element of ego to this, but there's something more: a (possibly naive) joy in discovering that other people are as interested in these characters' lives - and the universe they live in - as I am.

M the Uber-Geek has put up a selection of photos he took at last Saturday's signing here. Amazingly I only look like my mother in about half of them. As well as the usual selection of 'woman signs book' shots, there's plenty of shots of the other attendees.

I've done a short interview for Graeme's Fantasy Book  Review, which you should be able to access from here. There's also a review of 'Principles of Angels' up on his site.