September Challenge

(I use Grammarly’s online proofreader because copying is less than cutting.)

Those of you who’ve seen the articles on me or heard the Radio Scotland interview will be aware that I set myself an idiotic challenge to complete two books before the end of September while simultaneously switching my working life from an Edinburgh commute to staying in London through the week and commuting from Edinburgh. It’s October now, so how have I done?

Well, first you’ll all know that the main book was CULLEN 4, or DYED IN THE WOOL as it’s otherwise known, and that came out in early July. Seems to have gone down reasonably well, to say the least…

The second of the two books – SHOT THROUGH THE HEART, not a CULLEN book – was supposed to be the lighter of the two in terms of word count and effort, a little project that I could batter on with while DYED was getting edited. In the end, it’s grown arms and legs but I’m really happy with how it’s turned out.

In total, I think the finished books are over 190,000 words. Bearing in mind the amount of editing I’ve done (thanks Rhona), it’s probably about 250,000+ words that have been typed in that time. While I’ve got a day-job. And in all seriousness, at least 75% of that was done on public transport -literally planes, trains and automobiles…

I could release SHOT THROUGH THE HEART tomorrow, but I’ve decided to try something different. Instead of publishing the book when the ink is still wet, I’ve decided to be a little bit more grown-up about it and do a proper release. So, SHOT THROUGH THE HEART will be released on 31-Oct-13. (Yes, that’s Hallowe’en.)

While I’ll be losing a month’s income, and you lot will be losing a month’s reading, I want to try and make a splash with this. Aside from that, every time I’ve published it with wet ink, I’ve regretted it – DYED was the only exception, but the first three were riddled with typos or errors that I’ve had to fix. I only really get a feel for them a couple of weeks after the book is done, so that’s what I’m doing this time. I’m letting it build up.

(Not that I’ll be quiet in October. I’ve decided to up the idiocy and write the next CULLEN – BOTTLENECK – in November’s National November Writing Month. I’ve been plotting it out, getting the outline sorted, and it’s looking like it’ll be about 90,000 words, or 3,000 per day, every day, for a month. But I’m not doing a bloody moustache this year.)

So, yeah, that’s some pretty good news.

— Ed