Over recent months, I haven’t really written about current projects in these pages (though I have frequently mentioned what I’m up to on Twitter and Facebook). This has not been deliberate, merely something of an oversight. And, so, I thought today—the summer solstice—might be a good day to sum up just what I’ve been doing during the first half of the year.
Shortly after Christmas saw me editing my latest completed novel, The Juniper Faraday Project. A novel exploring the nature of trust, in the form of what I like to think of as a why-dunnit, Juniper is now going through the whole submission process. Early reactions have been promising but if mainstream publishing isn’t interested in it then I will, of course, publish it through GWM Publications.
While working on this, I was also preparing The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost for publication (October 5) and putting in place prepublication promo—more than I’ve managed with any of my other books so far. Lorna has, I believe, huge potential. It has broad appeal and … well, to date, it’s the novel I am most proud of.
Most recently, however, after finishing a proposal for a TV adaptation of Children of the Resolution (it’s “out there”, at the moment—but it is, admittedly, something of a stab in the dark), I’ve been working on the outline for my next novel, The Architect. The Architect is set to be my first truly large canvas psychological thriller in a good while (the first, I should say, I think I’ll be prepared to publish). A multiple viewpoint third person novel, it looks like being, judging by the outline, as large as it is complex (I think I’ll be lucky to bring it in under six hundred book pages)—something I relish, given that the novels I still love today generally lean towards the epic.
The Architect plays with themes touching on individual identity. Not an entirely new subject to me (I’m sure a few of my blog posts here have touched upon it in one form or another on occasion), and something all my novels touch upon, to a point. But with The Architect, I saw a way of doing something quite different. Resurrecting a couple of characters from one of my unpublished novels (the novel that, actually, secured me representation with an agent … an agent I then, a few months later, had a huge falling out with!), I found that they fit this form perfectly. Danny Lane, cerebral, caring, deeply introspective—a guy with type II spinal muscular atrophy (just like me, fancy that!)—came to life in my imagination in a way that he hadn’t previously, while Anderson Russell, Danny’s oldest friend, care assistant and general factotum balanced Danny in such a way that I knew, I know, that if I write this the way I want it … well, it has the potential to be both highly entertaining and thought-provoking (always my primary aim!)
Yes, I’m excited. There’s nothing I enjoy more than rolling up my sleeves and getting into the nitty-gritty of a fictional world. This one has required more preparation than any of my earlier novels (I’m still tweaking the chapter outlines to get the structure just right) and if the writing progresses the way the outlining has, I know it will be a thoroughly enjoyable process.
For me, if for no one else!
Available on October 5—The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. Read your free sample chapters here!
© 2013 Gary William Murning
