Project’s End.

This week, I finished the first draft of my latest novel, The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. Four hundred and thirty-three pages of manuscript written in under seven months—with only three weekdays off during that period—I’ve now, I think it’s fair to say, come down from the creative high with a very definite thud. Post-project lethargy has set in and, consequently, I’m now trying to force myself to take a little time off, anathema to me, as many of you will know.

Part of the problem in this is the sheer number of projects I have planned for the rest of the year. With editorial work to do on Lorna Lovelost, As Morning Shows the Day and In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts (this latter to be the first published through my recently set up micro-publishing company GWM Publications), and with research to do for my next novel, The Wisdom of Closed Worlds, sitting back and taking even a few days off isn’t something that really appeals to me. For me, the pleasure is in the work—one of the many reasons why I find it difficult to understand/tolerate those who bemoan their fates as writers!

Since it hasn’t been mentioned here all that much, over the next few weeks or so I hope to discuss Lorna Lovelost and her legacy. Fair to say, it’s been a fairly all-consuming novel. One of those novels that arrive (in this instance, in the early hours of the morning) almost fully formed, I actually set aside an outline for another novel I was then planning and had the rough outline for Legacy in place within a morning. I had the beginning, the middle and the end. At the point of inception. A rarity, and an opportunity I didn’t plan on wasting.

And I don’t think I have. The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost is, I believe, touching, outrageously funny in places, thought-provoking and just quirky enough to satisfy those of you who especially enjoyed If I Never. I know I’m going to miss Tobias and Lorna Lovelost, Bob Bartholomew and Patsy O’Connor, Katarina Scrimshaw and her left-handed limp. And, yes… I think you will, too.

Drop by later in the week for more on The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. You never know, you might even get a sneak preview.

Read your free sample of Children of the Resolution, please click here.

To buy from the UK, click here – and American customers can buy here. (Also available on Kindle. UK. US.)

© 2011 Gary William Murning

The Wisdom of Closed Worlds.

A decision has been made, arrived at, pounced upon unceremoniously.

As it was with Children of the Resolution, I will, with my next project, The Wisdom of Closed Worlds, log in intimate and intricate detail every aspect of its development on this here much-neglected blog. Every lingering ellipsis and every quivering colon will be given due recognition, studied, interrogated and lauded—and if you’re really lucky (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint) I may even share considerable chunks of the first draft and, even, the initial outline.

Never let it be said you weren’t given fair warning!

Read your free sample of Children of the Resolution, please click here.

To buy from the UK, click here – and American customers can buy here. (Also available on Kindle. UK. US.)

© 2011 Gary William Murning

Northern Echo Feature.

Today I was featured in the Northern Echo… click on the image to enlarge…

Read your free sample of Children of the Resolution, please click here.

To buy from the UK, click here – and American customers can buy here. (Also available on Kindle. UK. US.)

© 2011 Gary William Murning

Looking Forward, Looking Back.

I haven’t written a great deal about my latest project, The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost, here (though I have tweeted about it considerably). This is, of course, the result of my generally blogging less these days rather than any conscious decision to deny my blog-readers, and, rather ironically, I’m now mentioning it only in passing as I look forward and look back—contemplating my next project and the recently published Children of the Resolution.

As is so often the way, common threads tend to run through some of the projects I write. Lorna Lovelost, for example, has certain connections to my first published novel, If I Never. Similarly, it’s beginning to look as though my next project—tentatively titled The Wisdom of Closed Worlds, is going to have thematic links with Children of the Resolution. (More of this at a later date.) Consequently, today has found me revisiting some of my blog posts from the period during which I was working on Children. And it occurred to me that said posts might be of interest to old and new readers alike.

So, a brief selection of those I still find interesting:

Good to Be Writing Again—my first post upon starting work on the novel itself.
On Writing Child Characters for Adults—addressing some of my concerns; a half decent insight into how I work.
Death Off-Stage—how the most difficult scenes can often be far easier to write than we expect.
The Final Curtain—on leaving behind “old friends”.
The Difficult Questions—looking at how I deal with “bullying” in Children of the Resolution.
Burning Love—a brief, light post on one of Carl Grantham’s childhood heroes (and my own).

Read your free sample of Children of the Resolution, please click here.

To buy from the UK, click here – and American customers can buy here. (Also available on Kindle. UK. US.)

© 2011 Gary William Murning