Mid-year Update

July is the halfway point of the year, so I thought I’d share what’s been happening, and what I’m looking forward to in the second half of the year.

As you may know, I’ve been posting reviews of all the Spec Fic books I read by Aussie authors, so what’s coming up on by TBR pile? This week I have just started BURN by Keri Arthur, and after that I’d love to get started on Novik’s TEMERAIRE series, and N. K. Jesmin’s THE BROKEN EARTH. I’m also very keen on reading Orwell’s 1984 – but one of the main reasons behind doing that is so I can read Burgess’ reply, 1985. Yet to keep reading diversely, I’ve given myself a rule not to read more than one book by the one author per year, and I’ve only just finished reading Burgess’ THE END OF THE WORLD NEWS. This is also why I haven’t jumped right into reading Flinthart’s FIRE (the sequel to IRON, my favourite book so far this year). As for Aussie authors, I’m hoping to read WE CALL IT MONSTER by Walter, QUADRANTS by McInnes, and SOCIAL MEDIA CENTRAL by Klehr.

One reason my reading progress has been somewhat slow is that I’ve been focusing on being more productive on the writing front. I came into this year expecting to edit both my novels, and hoping to self-publish one of them by the end of the year. But I have been swept up in other projects, and they’ve hardly got a look-in.

A project that I’ve been working on is SUBMERGED CITY, for Aussie Speculative Fiction’s (ASF) DROWNED EARTH series of standalone novellas set after a climate disaster. My piece is set six months after the disaster, and will be released October 2019, so keep a look-out! Between now and then I have quite a few edits to do, but I am excited about this piece!

Another novella that I keep returning to is ‘THE LIFEBOAT’ a sci-fi space adventure set in the far future. This was originally created as a 6,000 word short story for an anthology by Zombie Pirate Publishing. Now it’s over 20,000 words, and will hopefully be ready to share in the next twelve months. I have really enjoyed the sci-fi world I’ve created here, and have already written other stand-alone short stories set both before and after the events of THE LIFEBOAT.

– Originally published July 2019